Layering is something that has been a very hot topic for a lot of people, with a range of pro’s and con’s voiced by many, sometimes very passionately to say the least.
With the game going full release in less than 2 weeks on the 27th, nothing we say or do now is going to change it, but lets establish some often overlooked facts, debunk some myths and real discussion can be had.
A few of the most voiced concerns :
- It’s not what we had originally so it’s not classic with layering.
Yes, at launch 15 years ago we had numerous servers, which had wide ranging populations, and they were all located in the US and EU. This resulted in servers that were wastelands very early on and some that never even took off. The populated servers became the go to points, which then resulted in heavy queues. You also had people from all over the world enduring horrendous ping’s because of the centralization of the servers.
- Blizzard are being cheap by doing layering and avoiding the cost of additional servers.
Are they avoiding costs though ?..layering is just centralization of every ones connections. Once a server is at capacity, more hardware is brought in to duplicate the server as an additional layer. In a raw hardware sense, It’s no different to having a video card throttle due to increased / decreased load. There’s also the code monkey’s to pay that had the nightmare task of coding this.
Another thing to consider on this cost debate is modern ISP’s. A server cost a lot more to establish and had far less capability than we have available today. 15 years has seen a massive shift in costs and performance. If were going to go down this rabbit hole, where’s all the furor over the sub price being the same as it was 15 years ago ?..Why haven’t Blizzard reduced sub fee’s as their costs have reduced over the years ? All of this is moot anyways without access to Blizzards financials, if you have access to them and can sight factual information, I welcome you to post the info for a discussion. Until then if this is your preferred whine about layering, please realize how foolish you look without providing factual information on the finances at Blizzard.
- It’s going to destroy community’s before they can even form.
Really ?, I do love crystal ball predictions in gaming. Funny thing with these predictions is they more often than not prove to be completely false. Scaremongering is probably a better word to describe it, but lets examine it none the less.
Back in 2004, social media was fairly new, as were MMO’s. The real world in general was still learning and adapting to the new communication age we were thrust into. The original game was part of this evolving social change, and many used the in game chat functions as a way to navigate the social aspect of the game.
These days social media is commonplace and widely used. People don’t have a game running OR do social media etc, they often play a game while having several browser pages open while also messaging away on a smart phone or tablet.
We also still have all the same tools to communicate in Classic that we had in original. If anything those tools are better than they used to be with things like the Battlenet ID friends lists etc. Communication in Classic was NEVER going to be the same as it was 15 years ago.
Now does the new coding have some bug’s that have caused layering to cause issues for some with communication and socialization ?.. extremely likely and pretty much confirmed, hence why we have multiple beta tests happening before release. What problems we have experienced in the beta are not indicative of the final result, and even after release we will have further bug fixes to come.
- Layering is being removed, but I don’t believe Blizzard.
Another crystal ball prediction…but lets again discuss. Layering has been explained by the dev’s to be temporary, while no specific date has been given, it’s been assured to be gone by phase 2. There is a possibility it could be gone before phase 2 hits, but no one knows and so we’re back to the crystal ball again.
If it’s not gone by phase 2, there will be new problems introduced with phase 2 content, and the other phases ( like gates of AQ event ). From a development perspective, it NEEDS to be gone, or they are making massive problems for themselves on a coding level, hence the assurance it will be gone by phase 2. I doubt the dev’s want layering any more than the players, they are trying to solve a bigger issue that has plagued WoW for 15 years, the wastelands some servers become after a short time.
- Why do we even need layering, just give us more servers !!!
If only it were that simple…if we ignore the 15 years of WoW history regarding servers population dying forcing some into either toon transfers or rerolls, I guess we could actually just not have layering and have more servers, doomed to repeat the population cycles of the last 15 yrs.
Personally, I see layering as the best solution out of a bad lot to a difficult problem that after 15 years is still yet to be solved. No player should ever have to face rerolling on a new server just to get to a populated server. Transfers are a similar “best option out of a bad lot”, though it does get a player off a low population server, it still involves breaking social ties established on the existing server, you also have toon name conflicts, and is sometimes a billed service.
That said, I don’t see it as a long term solution to the whole population decline problem, as there are varying driving forces at play over time. Layering is a fix to the initial release phase population issues, where we see large numbers of players for the first few months, then people leave. The mid to longer term population decline issues simply won’t be fixed by layering, further reinforcing it’s removal by phase 2.
Oh, btw news just in, Blizzard have added another server, with a couple more comming online later ( but still before Classic goes live ). The big thing I see, is they’re ( Blizzard ) not adding an excess of servers that will result in wasteland servers inside the first month.
- Layering is going to be exploitable as all f*ck, and already is being exploited during the beta.
Firstly, there’s no game out there that doesn’t suffer from having a bunch of knobs who try and exploit everything they can. Nothing new here with layering in Classic.
Secondly, there’s numerous ways to address exploits when they crop up. Dev’s will adapt the code to prevent it as best able, but there will always be that group of knobs who exploit. From what iv’e read recently ( as i’m not able to personally partake of the closed beta ) the dev’s have already introduced a cooldown to layer switching, so they are aware of the issue and trying to adapt to it as the issue evolves.
Also, look back to the previous section where we discuss layering being removed ultimately. These end game level exploits people are panicking about ( like black lotus or devilsaur leather farming to name a couple ) just won’t be there because layering will have done it’s job and been removed.
- I want to whine about layering, but don’t want a solution to the early population problems.
I really can’t help this section of you. You are probably not going to change your perspective or even be open to discussing the complexity of the problems. If you want to wallow in despair over layering, that’s your loss, stop inflicting your negativity on others with those toxic pointless whines.
- TL;DR
Layering is here to try and fix the age old problem of fluid populations resulting in wasteland servers, forcing people to transfer realm or reroll toons very early on in their gaming life. It’s not by any measure an ideal solution, but given the options it’s probably the best fix to a difficult problem.
There…holy crap, I didn’t mean for it to be this long a post, and i’m sure there’s some things I missed so I will add those as people reply. Hopefully though, through better understanding, people will be able to make more informed decisions about it or at least have an informed opinion on it. Doesn’t matter what you do, layering is here, but lets calm down and find a way to not have it detract from the enjoyment of Classic.
I for one am thankful that Blizzard is trying to address the initial population problem that has plagued WoW for over a decade.
