I’m pretty sure when Blizz was proposing their layering system when it was still a topic of contention I remember reading a quote that said “it’s like turning a light switch on/off” when it comes to adding/removing layers.
2 Likes
You got 'em! Blizzard caught in a trap! Take that! Now flip the switch that means theres no queues!
gO bAcK tO rEtAiL
3 Likes
kEeP rEsUbBiN’ bUt KeEp CrYiN’
3 Likes
Mmm, yes.
long pause
Sooooo…what’s your point?
Layers are, fundamentally, the sharding system from Retail. The difference is they restrict them to picking people from one server and they aren’t as dynamic so the layers are relatively static. Layers are rarely created or removed and when someone is on a layer they stay there unless something makes them more.
I’m sure there’s little preventing Blizzard from re-enabling them other than the fact it could cause social issues on the server when people find out they’ve been separated. Even better would be to just enable sharding and get rid of the sham that is realms. Then you would have less imbalances between servers and factions because everyone would be put into a single pool by region and server type.
I can’t imagine the amount of wailing that would cause, though!
Layering doesn’t allow more people onto the server. It just lets more people into certain zones without them becoming completely over-ran.
Not true. There was a higher cap on server population when there was layering. They would have so many people per layer and so many layers. As the “tourists” left and server population dropped so did the number of layers.
Once servers were down to a single layer that, effectively, became the server cap since they turned layering off. Turning layering back on would increase the server cap again.
Also, layering wasn’t on a per-zone basis. It was persistent and server-wide. There were a few ways you could swap layers, like grouping with someone, but you mostly stayed on one layer when you were logged in.
Untrue.
Contradicts your first statement.
Wat? Are you trying to say a zone is the same thing as a server?
Layers weren’t zone specific, they applied to the entire world.
In Classic they may as well be.
Letting more people into a zone = more people on the server.
Layering copied the entire world so if you needed 3 Elwynns there would be 3 Desolaces even if no one was in Desolace.
Well, the game is a bit more complicated than that. Each zone is really more of an instance with a bit of magic to make the transition seamless. Occasionally you’ll see the cracks in the system, for example sometimes you can see a herb or ore node on the other side of a zone transition but when you cross it then it disappears.
For the most part Blizzard fixed those problems. However, what that means is that if no one is in a zone then they can keep it unloaded and it doesn’t use up resources. It probably rarely happens with a decent server population but when it’s not prime time on some servers it might happen.
So in your case there would be 3 Elwynns loaded and running and 3 Desolaces that were not loaded or running.
Of course, this is a theoretical discussion based on observation and conjecture but it’s likely to be close to how they implemented it. I’m a software engineer and this kind of optimization is a great win for resource management and not too difficult to achieve.
2 Likes
Heard they are bringing layers back when we are getting the model toggles 
Here is the keystone problem that everyone in the thread is missing. Blizzard wanted layering to be gone before they released world bosses. They felt it was important that each realm only have one instance of each world boss, and they didn’t want people to miss out on the chance at a world boss simply because they logged in on the wrong layer.
I am certain that the reason they have not re-enabled layering is because that genie is already out of the proverbial bottle. World bosses are out and their philosophy of one of each boss per realm has not changed.
1 Like
They didn’t want people layer hopping to get multiple kills and loot a week. But that’s easily dealt with, just only allow a person to loot the boss once a week.
I think the main problem now is there are a bunch of people who would scream “But muh Vanilla!” if Blizzard took any action. Look at how people are whining about transfers, and those were in Vanilla!
This isn’t retail.
edit: Let me elaborate. This is a bigger change than you think it is. A big part of the vanilla experience is the challenge of racing other guilds to get world bosses. Your casual suggestion would utterly destroy that challenge and make the world bosses more like retail than vanilla.
Id like to disagree. If a pizza was a server, and each slice was a layer than it doesn’t matter how many slices you cut, it will still will add up to a full pizza. Layerings only purpose is to reduce lag in a particular zone. Very useful for the first few weeks of classic. Layering doesn’t increase server size.
Your analogy is incorrect. Each layer contains an entire pizza.
1 Like
Oh, I get that. The problem is when you have double or triple the amount of people on a server than Vanilla did. Then it’s not like Vanilla, you need to separate the people into Vanilla-size bites which is what layers should do.
Now, it’s too bad they didn’t just go with the same size servers as they did the first go around. However, they do have reasons for that. They anticipated demand would fluctuate wildly rather than grow a bit more organically like it did in Vanilla. So they made some choices with long-lasting consequences.
So, double the people means there should be double the bosses in order to make the chances more or less even. Does it add in new complications? Of course, those are details to work out or maybe other ideas are necessary.
Don’t be that person, the type who uses certain key words to belittle and minimize people’s contributions. My ideas are thought-out before I post and I want to have good, serious discussions on how to improve them. I won’t twist and diminish your contributions so please don’t do that to mine.
1 Like