THIS is not Classic. Warts and all

[Yaluk-stormreaver]

I think the recent stress tests are big enough evidence for a big N-O to layering.

[Vaizel-aegwynn]

The servers will look empty without sharding after the first week. Guaranteed.

And you’re making this guarantee based on what?

[Cybaster-cenarion-circle]

And you’re making this guarantee based on what?

Fear.

[Feuerhuf-hyjal (Feuerhuf)]

Really? You don’t think that they actually provide evidence to the contrary?

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

I don’t like layering so far. It will allow a more infinite supply of quest objective targets just like BFA has, but when you drop layers such as being kicked or leaving a group you IMMEDIATELY change layers and can be ambushed by several mobs in your new layer and die b/c of this instance change.

They say layering is needed for classic but Vanilla didn’t have that doodoo and made wow one of the most successful games of all time and the most successful MMORPG of all time. So it’s definitely NOT needed in the least, but it will make classic much better for the 50%+ players who never played vanilla on live.

This move by blizzard is quality of life and they expect to yield more, not less revenue/gameplay because of it. I get why it’s there, I get the benefits - I’d rather play classic and forgo this change.

Blizzard saves money through layering, it also means they need less processing power and can spread the load or even utilize cloud technology. Layering as is can potentially save blizzard hundreds of thousands of dollars in month 1 servers. There is no way they are launching without this technology, this is a business decision.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

@Urskrah-zuljin

I actually see layering as a good thing.

If you expect 3x the population per server, which they need to or every server will be considered dead, you need to give them 3x the resources to play with. Have you ever seen a private server when it falls below 5k population? How many people spam “DEAD SERVER”?

If the population remains 3x the capacity of a normal server, they SHOULD have 3 layers at all times.

It’s a good system. It just needs some restrictions on movement between layers to avoid exploitation.

/10chars

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

Have you ever seen a private server when it falls below 5k population?

No, b/c private dies pretty quickly where as live servers take actual years. It’s all fake progression in private. Pirated and that makes people less all-in.

layering also gimps world PVP excessively which isn’t being talked about which is a huge con. hey lets go gank outside blackro… oh too many players so your raid is on layer 2, oh well. Awesome pvp opportunity down the drain, again.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

You do realize layers have a capacity of 3000, right? So maybe you don’t go join the exact fight you heard about outside Blackrock Mountain, but I’m assuming there will be at least SOME people from the other faction there as well.

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

So maybe you don’t go join the exact fight you heard about

This is never acceptable.

E: A huge part of classic was community, you knew all the alliance and horde on your server and you met and played with them and against them. The concepts of being either less personal or mass randoms are both repulsive to vanilla players.

First and foremost the reason for layering technology is to save money on launch day server rentals. it’s a financial decision with some positive and negative quirks associated with it. This is also why there is discussion to drop layering six weeks in which destroys all the arguments of it being used to keep servers together or prevent desertion. it’s very much not vanilla-esque and very much about financials over all else.

[Spectress-stormrage]

What argument have you made? “warts n farts” extremely brilliant. Please show me which guy above. I and many others will continue to play private servers if layering is still a thing. Private servers will become even better with the release of classic.

Please stay on your pirate servers. You won’t be missed.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

A huge part of classic was community, you knew all the alliance and horde on your server and you met and played with them and against them.

I don’t see how this will be any different, there will just be 3x more people and zones. Watching the streams of the beta so far, I see a lot of the same people over and over again. People the streamers didn’t even know going into the beta.

Blizzard will need to add a way to know which layer you are on, maybe you’ll have like Burning Steppes-2 as your general chat, and a way to select what layer you are going out into from rested areas. Remove the ability to hop layers from anywhere.

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

there will just be 3x more people and zones

So you don’t know everyones face, you don’t have a personal experience and everyone is faceless nameless. How do you not see the difference between this and vanilla?

Blizzard will need to add a way to know which layer you are on

They haven’t done this on live… This would make everyone type /join layer 1 etc. until its full and have a popular layer and less desirable layers. This still means many people will be forcefully separated and unable to contact whenever they want but is certainly better than zero agency in the sharding system.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

How do you not see the difference between this and vanilla?

I dunno, I don’t think 3x more is that big of a factor. I think that’s still small enough that you will recognize stand-out individuals.

Blizzard seems to be planning for 66% of people that try Classic out in Phase 1 to quit on every server by Phase 2 as well, at least that’s what it looks like since they are claiming to be removing layering then.

This would make everyone type /join layer 1

Personally, I would join the least populated layer to avoid competition.

[Padgarre-lightbringer (Padgarre)]

I agree with their desire to implement layering or whatever other tech helps smooth launch. It’ll disappear anyway so honestly who cares? We aren’t going to get a truly 100% authentic experience unless we build time machines and then erase our memories anyway.

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

I don’t think 3x more is that big of a factor

It’s a huge difference, think 7 billion people on earth versus 21 billion. Than everyones layered so maybe your family is together one day but your neighbors are gone and so is the enemy team you were supposed to face today.

If quitting is an issue, if population is an issue, it can be addressed WHEN it’s an issue, not pre-preemptively. Nobody knows how successful classic will be, we just know layering didn’t exist when WOW became the most popular MMO of all time. Layering is and will remain a financial decision to save blizzard dollars on launch and the proceeding month with some benefits and cons to players - I’d rather not trade the vanilla experience for this and I argue that it will lead to quicker desertion, not player retention.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

Nobody knows how successful classic will be

The 3-month beta period may be partially to test that. Trying to see how hard the hype will die off to gauge how many layers they’ll need.

Let’s hope the answer is 1, eh?

[Crazyviktor-moon-guard]

Dude go to play on the private server today with 8k people online without “channel” then come back here to see how was your experiencie on that ^^!

Man without the channels this game will be unplayable the first 7 - 10 days at least lol

[Cyonsiaros-kirin-tor]

People’s private server experiences doesn’t really translate to official retail wow servers. It’s not worth comparison or utilizing the data beyond the fact that there is an interest in vanilla wow. In retail the recommended server switches based on years of data which predicts server population. You also have caps and different definitions. A wow server was considered full if 20,000 people logged on once in a 30 day period and were level 10 or higher.

Layering is about as far away from a vanilla experience as you can get but private server warriors will think it fancy as it would address problems they faced on their single-shard worlds. It’s important to note these differences in opinion and why some people may think the way they do when it can be so obvious to those of us who did play wow for 1000+ hours played during its vanilla years that the close-knit community was so important for it’s growth and development back than.

it’s evolved in time sure, but that vanilla experience was ABOUT that close-knit community first and foremost.