This is really frustrating. I’m not happy with this goal post moving. First you said just starting zones, and that was iffy but perhaps most could get over it. This is in my opinion quite absurd that you’ve now announced layering for a month or more in every single zone. A whole phase of the expansion in randomized layers that can be switched between on a whim? That is NOT classic. I just wanted to voice that here as respectfully as possible.
Blizzard, I sincerely believe this is a move in the wrong direction. I really hope you reconsider and find an alternative solution that allows server communities to stay intact and develop organically from the very beginning just as they did in Classic WoW.
They never actually said “just the starting zones”. They used a starting zone as an example.
There is a lot of misinformation going around about what they have actually said, both in the past about sharding and recently about layering. I recommend you go to primary sources (inasmuch as Blizzard actually gave us primary sources), instead of just listening to the combined utterings of forums and streamers and so on.
For example, they never announced layering for “a month or more”. Ion said a few weeks at launch - the same phrasing originally used for sharding.
This is an absolutely beautiful post, just amazing. I don’t agree with you at all but the level of just pure bullsh*ttery here is top notch and sometimes you just gotta appreciate that.
“The first few weeks, when everybody is packed into Valley of Trials, when everybody is packed into Elwynn, we think we can use sharding there in a limited – time-limited way, to solve the initial launch day load problems…”
Your interpretation of Ion’s words on video is incredibly generous and I don’t know why you are doing it. Why has this corporate brand earned your trust to this degree?
Edit: don’t know why this edit went here. Original video post:
TLDR don’t believe Blizzard until it delivers a finished product. Blizzard is not your friend. Blizzard has no real accountability to anyone meaningful if it promises one video game and delivers another.
I barely visit wow forums because I lose brain cells each time due to the normies that eat up all the steaming horseshi* blizzard serves them on a plate.
You don’t need to take things literal, sharding there means like use sharding in general, you think all those people will stay in Valley of Trials? No, they’ll move on to next zone, together, a massive number of players.
What alternative did they make with layering? 3k people layers, which is basically server cap, but u got 3x cap so when some layers die out, they can just remove layers and are left with a normal server, instead of dead ones, which means no merging with other servers, no forced renames, no merging with unknown players from other realms.
So what you’d prefer sharding? People disappearing in front of you every few seconds? Forced rename when servers merge and see someone with your name on that new server? Yeah… You think you do but you don’t.
Look on the bright side, there will now be a servers worth of players in the starting zones. Tourists will quit before leaving the starting area. We will probably be down to only two layers after a few days.
If you thought there’d be no sharding in some form, when they explicitly said they’re taking safety measures for dead realms and huge influx of players, I don’t know what to tell you. We saw this coming from 8 months ago.
This is it, this is the best solution, no phasing away randomly, no dead realms, no forced renames, no merges. And gone after a month.
It was never said it’ll be only in starting zones, because it doesn’t make sense, starting zones are given as example, you need to learn how to read between the lines.
