World PVP seems like the biggest victim of layering. What's the fun if only half, a third, a fourth, whatever amount of the players can see each other.

I wonder what that picture would look like if it was a flat server.

only on rp-pvp lol . we are forming lines A - H

Finally the Horde got outnumbered.

Fuck, even with layering that is a shit tonne of players in one area, very impressive!!

Disappointing... We had a lot of issues with layering yesterday and some odd phasing for quest tagging while we were going through our prequests in redridge. Now that we're almost done grinding gnomer I'm actually REALLY happy that we are dungeon grinding to avoid the world. Lets be real, Classic is AWESOME, and I'm having a blast but damn... You have to wonder what this could have been without layering.

You have to wonder what this could have been without layering.

Likely an unmanageable clusterfuck with bigger queues or 1000 servers. I think it may be a necessary evil at this point.

I'd rather have had more smaller servers and server merges down the road at this point. Too many communities getting scattered as people up, leave, and start over again on new servers every day. I know that's unrelated to layering, but layering is a byproduct of their gameplan of make sure all servers are packed with an impossibly large amount of players before creating new ones.

Likely an unmanageable clusterfuck with bigger queues or 1000 servers. I think it may be a necessary evil at this point.

Not if servers had soft caps instead of letting people create characters on full realms infinitely. And then causing a MASSIVE bottlekneck... Only to increase the quantity of layers which were likely set because they wanted to have a chance of squishing this by phase 2... Throwing duct tape on duct tape on duct tape at this point.

Eventually we are going to have to pay the price. And I think that price will be paid when we are trying to transition into phase 2.

Layering was always a bad choice, but the implementation of layering is worse than the idea itself.

Layering was always a bad choice, but the implementation of layering is worse than the idea itself.

I prefer it over a shit tonne of servers, or over sharding. Both present problems either in the long or short term.

Also, I am still yet to come across any layering related impacts on my play time. I haven't engaged in large scale world pvp yet though. I have just been enjoying playing Classic in a vibrant and full world with my friends, guildies and randoms. It's been great, especially deciding to move to the 2nd most populated server for Oceania. The worst the queues get is prob 1k at night peak. The top oceanic constantly has a queue, and is still 7k+ at night peak.

I prefer it over a shit tonne of servers, or over sharding. Both present problems either in the long or short term.

Once you acknowledge merges are inevitable it makes the choice easier to wrap your head around.
Also, I am still yet to come across an layering related impacts on my play time.

I dont doubt this. Most people who havent been grouping a lot with others and abusing the layering system likely dont see what its capable of at this point. We've been on the winning end of layering more often than not, but it has ruined things a few times. If youre just questing and muddling your way through the world, layering wont present an obvious impact for the average person, even if it is having a massive impact on their play experience behind the scenes.
I haven't engaged in large scale world pvp yet though.

No on has because layering.
I have just been enjoying playing Classic in a vibrant and full world with my friends, guildies and randoms. It's been great, especially deciding to move to the 2nd most populated server for Oceania. The worst the queues get is prob 1k at night peak. The top oceanic constantly has a queue, and is still 7k+ at night peak.

Couldnt agree more, I'm on Fairbanks and we get Q's of 5-10k, I think the largest I heard of was 16k. Outside of layering this game is WAY better than any private server I played on. The dungeons are insanely easy, but I think that a lot of the lower end dungeons were overtuned on private in hindsight. An example was on private mobs in Stockades were hitting us for 120-200 and critting constantly. Our group struggled to take on 2 mobs at once on private at level 23 during our practice runs for Classic. On Classic, we are pulling full rooms and mobs are hitting for 30-40 dmg at level 23-25. Layering is utter shit though, but its a price im MORE than willing to pay for the overall quality of Classic. Avoidable, terrible choice with poor implementation BUT - worth it.

No on has because layering

The screenshots above kind of show otherwise, but ok. Laggy sure, 800 people in one area will create lag.

Other than min-max abusers, I don't think the bulk of people will run into layering issues unless the attempt large scale (500+) world PvP, or actively try to abuse layering for their gain. I would like to hear some more experiences from other players on the forums here on how layering has/hasn't impacted their ability to play the game. You say it has been "utter shit" and "terrible choice with poor implementation" but I wonder if that is just due to your own circumstances and expectations of layering and the abuse of it.

I would like to hear some more experiences from other players on the forums here on how layering has/hasn't impacted their ability to play the game.

So far ~5 hours into the game I haven't run into layering at all. I haven't left Teldrassil yet though, so we'll see what happens as I get further into the game. The biggest impact has been the debilitating queue lengths. 16k queue on Monday, 12.5k queue yesterday. Today I used TeamViewer to remote into my computer from my cell phone and I logged in 4 hours in advance, so I might actually get in today. Got home from work and was greeted by a computer already sitting at 1300 in queue.

I understand that Blizzard is trying to avoid merging servers for as long as possible, but this really sucks right now.

The screenshots above kind of show otherwise, but ok. Laggy sure, 800 people in one area will create lag.

An outlier circumstance where 800 players TRIED to coordinate and be on the same layer, yet it looks like two full raids fighting. I am currently in Ironforge at peak time with a queue of 8k on Fairbanks and see about 10-15 people in the common area of IF. What will this look like as people drop off steadily?

Auction house has 3 people standing inside.

Edit: I decided that I'd take a walk around my Megaserver with a massive queue and show my perspective of Classic in hopes that we can find some common ground. Made an imugr account just for you Selexin.

This is my server on day 2 of Classic, with a current queue of 11k players after Blizz has upped the initial layer amount. This is the heart of commerce for the Alliance side - Ironforge during peak play time.

https://imgur.com/gallery/YnfgGCi

Blizz also mentioned that trade hubs may be treated differently than layers and based on the quantity of hops I have seen while entering cities AND the mass issues players had with disconnects on day one while entering cities, this would indicate that the cities themselves may have fewer layers than the continents themselves. Either way - this is the result of layering.
I have just been enjoying playing Classic in a vibrant and full world with my friends, guildies and randoms.

Does this look like a vibrant thriving world filled with players? Our perspectives are different. This is my point of view, literally.

https://imgur.com/gallery/YnfgGCi

Your min-max ass went gnome warrior? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Your min-max ass went gnome warrior? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Best PvP racial alliance side for warriors /flex!!!!! Hurts not being human though... Really, really, really... Hurts... So bad.

The screenshots above kind of show otherwise, but ok. Laggy sure, 800 people in one area will create lag.

An outlier circumstance where 800 players TRIED to coordinate and be on the same layer, yet it looks like two full raids fighting. I am currently in Ironforge at peak time with a queue of 8k on Fairbanks and see about 10-15 people in the common area of IF. What will this look like as people drop off steadily?

Auction house has 3 people standing inside.

Edit: I decided that I'd take a walk around my Megaserver with a massive queue and show my perspective of Classic in hopes that we can find some common ground. Made an imugr account just for you @Selexin.

This is my server on day 2 of Classic, with a current queue of 11k players after Blizz has upped the initial layer amount. This is the heart of commerce for the Alliance side - Ironforge during peak play time.

https://imgur.com/gallery/YnfgGCi

Blizz also mentioned that trade hubs may be treated differently than layers and based on the quantity of hops I have seen while entering cities AND the mass issues players had with disconnects on day one while entering cities, this would indicate that the cities themselves may have fewer layers than the continents themselves. Either way - this is the result of layering.
I have just been enjoying playing Classic in a vibrant and full world with my friends, guildies and randoms.

Does this look like a vibrant thriving world filled with players? Our perspectives are different. This is my point of view, literally.

Bro have you considered that maybe not a lot of people are in IF atm because the vast majority of people who are bothering to play during the launch week are all out power leveling? They definitely mentioned that layering works differently in the capitol cities anyways so it should be more crowded than the rest. But honestly who is sitting through 2 hour queues to go fuck off in IF? Normally the crowd of people in the capitol cities are afk or max level characters fucking off. Everyone currently in game is power leveling. All that said, I have yet to see an empty Darnassus on Grobbulus, and thats not even a city that is normally crowded.

Bro have you considered that maybe not a lot of people are in IF atm because the vast majority of people who are bothering to play during the launch week are all out power leveling?

I have considered that. But I have also realized that it doesnt matter because IF is a hub that offers a ton of quests, has a flightpath, has the tram, has weapon training, professions, class trainers, an auction house and that even if EVERYONE was power leveling (the majority are not), the city would still be bustling with players. How do I know this? 3 ways. I played retail vanilla. I have played on private servers for years with 6-12k players and major cities are swarmed with people for the first few days. ALSO, I have /who'd ironforge on my server and there are a lot of people in Ironforge but they are all phantoms.

If you see that picture of Ironforge on a Megaserver, on day 2 of launch and you cant identify any issues, you obviously did not play vanilla retail NOR have you played on any successful private server. That vacancy, is unacceptable and will get worse with time as less players logon as we saw during the beta and the stress tests. These layers are not working dynamically. They are not filling. They are not naturally squishing. And if THIS is a layer on day 2, which is behaving the SAME as on beta and stress tests, why would you assume that this will get better as less people log in?

BUT, none of that matters. We dont need to guestimate how layering will work in the future, because the guesswork is over. We are ingame and its awful. We can see that its awful. We dont need to bicker and argue about what could or may happen. We can see layering in its final state and it is awful for all of the reasons that many of us predicted it would be when it was announced.

Stfuppercut WTF is wrong with your server? Why is IF empty? What have you done to forsake the Blizzard Gods?!? My layering experience is NOT like this hahahah. There are players fucking everywhere! I can't even kill Kreenig Snarlsnout, maybe we need more layers?!?!

Maybe Blizzard made a special layer just for you.... hahahha.

When I get home from work I'll take some screenshots of Orgimmar/Xroads for you.

Personally, on my server which is one of the few with no queue I think, I also noticed this. On day one in Mulgore I saw a lot of people. On day 2, while travelling through Mulgore, I saw no one. And using the who functionality it should have been swarming with players... It really depends on your luck: I logged in with my dwarf and went to Goldshire and there were a shitton of people there. I think layering is a necessary evil but of course it has its downsides

Biomasse I love that shot of the two factions lined up on both sides of the field, that's amazing!