Disgusting. This is worse than sharding. No one should be happy about this. Part of the fun of playing at release is seeing tons and tons of people everywhere having fun.
Can you elaborate more on how is layering worse than sharding? I was under impression that it is actually better solution.
Also I am a guy who really doesnt see anything good on overcrowded starting zones where you are unable to complete pretty much anything.
It will be used for the entirety of phase 1 and affects the entire server instead of just starting zones. Sharding was supposed to only be starting zones for a little white after release.
Disgusting. This is worse than sharding. No one should be happy about this. Part of the fun of playing at release is seeing tons and tons of people everywhere having fun.
The layers will have the same amount of players as the original server population cap. That's as close to authentic to the original release as you can reasonably get. Having more people than that in the zones at the same time is inauthentic. If they wanted to do exactly as they did in the vanilla days, we'd have the original cap while everyone else sits in queues. So either way - sharding, layering, or queues - you're not playing with everybody on the server anyway.
Layering is just a way to turn server queues into actually playing WoW instead - an ideal scenario for most people. The potential downsides are minimal in comparison, not to mention temporary. No one should idealize not being able to play because of queues, and asking for everyone to jump in with no population mitigation factor at all is asking for an inauthentic, non-vanilla launch.
It will be used for the entirety of phase 1 and affects the entire server instead of just starting zones. Sharding was supposed to only be starting zones for a little white after release.
True enough. I don't recall exactly where I heard/read this, but layering may not be used for the entirety of phase 1; they merely stated that the end of phase 1 is the deadline. It's definitely possible they will stop using it even earlier than that. Heck, if server populations drop faster than expected, a single layer is no different than a single server anyway. People are making their concerns about layering known. If widespread abuse becomes commonplace, Blizzard will likely make adjustments or take action, just as they did for the community's response to loot trading.
The layers will have the same amount of players as the original server population cap.
This ^
I think the sharding debate surely was needed, but to me the layering solution seems the best way they could have gone about it. I surely would much rather have layering with a select amount of servers instead of a gazillion servers at launch without layering and ending up with empty ones staying open after the initial wave has gone. We will have to see, but I don't see them changing course from their current point of view because this is the best way they can meet expectations while still have fine control over to many players being at the same area and maintaining playability.
Layers are a perfect solution, and I'm so thrilled Blizzard came up with it. I don't think I can make it more clear than this:
You will not feel that you're on a layer unless you're actively trying to abuse the system.
Since the sum of the layer populations is equal to the server population, Blizzard can simply start peeling away layers when they feel like players have spread out enough. The only thing you will ever notice is that more and more people seem to be joining your server over time until at some point the people you see stay the same. Someone earlier made a comment about layers only existing for 6,5% for Classic's total estimated lifespan, and the estimate was pretty grounded, too.
I would much rather be able to login and play the game, than crash and queue for 3 hours until finally giving up. It's not like you'll be missing out on people-galore-mega-fests just because you don't see them in Northshire or the Valley of Trials in the first second of your classic career. People will still group up in massive meat trains to go raid some poor village, and there will still be serverwide gnome marathons to Orgrimmar.
Sharding is a very different story - let's not go down that path.
Disgusting. This is worse than sharding. No one should be happy about this. Part of the fun of playing at release is seeing tons and tons of people everywhere having fun.
The layers will have the same amount of players as the original server population cap. That's as close to authentic to the original release as you can reasonably get. Having more people than that in the zones at the same time is inauthentic. If they wanted to do exactly as they did in the vanilla days, we'd have the original cap while everyone else sits in queues. So either way - sharding, layering, or queues - you're not playing with everybody on the server anyway.
Layering is just a way to turn server queues into actually playing WoW instead - an ideal scenario for most people. The potential downsides are minimal in comparison, not to mention temporary. No one should idealize not being able to play because of queues, and asking for everyone to jump in with no population mitigation factor at all is asking for an inauthentic, non-vanilla launch.
It will be used for the entirety of phase 1 and affects the entire server instead of just starting zones. Sharding was supposed to only be starting zones for a little white after release.
True enough. I don't recall exactly where I heard/read this, but layering may not be used for the entirety of phase 1; they merely stated that the end of phase 1 is the deadline. It's definitely possible they will stop using it even earlier than that. Heck, if server populations drop faster than expected, a single layer is no different than a single server anyway. People are making their concerns about layering known. If widespread abuse becomes commonplace, Blizzard will likely make adjustments or take action, just as they did for the community's response to loot trading.
Okay so the end of phase one is the deadline.
Said by the same person who told us sharding would only be used in low level zones.
Catch my drift?
The layers will have the same amount of players as the original server population cap.
This ^
Still able to be abused and exploited.
Still sharding more then was initially promised.
Disgusting. This is worse than sharding. No one should be happy about this. Part of the fun of playing at release is seeing tons and tons of people everywhere having fun.
The layers will have the same amount of players as the original server population cap. That's as close to authentic to the original release as you can reasonably get. Having more people than that in the zones at the same time is inauthentic. If they wanted to do exactly as they did in the vanilla days, we'd have the original cap while everyone else sits in queues. So either way - sharding, layering, or queues - you're not playing with everybody on the server anyway.
Layering is just a way to turn server queues into actually playing WoW instead - an ideal scenario for most people. The potential downsides are minimal in comparison, not to mention temporary. No one should idealize not being able to play because of queues, and asking for everyone to jump in with no population mitigation factor at all is asking for an inauthentic, non-vanilla launch.
It will be used for the entirety of phase 1 and affects the entire server instead of just starting zones. Sharding was supposed to only be starting zones for a little white after release.
True enough. I don't recall exactly where I heard/read this, but layering may not be used for the entirety of phase 1; they merely stated that the end of phase 1 is the deadline. It's definitely possible they will stop using it even earlier than that. Heck, if server populations drop faster than expected, a single layer is no different than a single server anyway. People are making their concerns about layering known. If widespread abuse becomes commonplace, Blizzard will likely make adjustments or take action, just as they did for the community's response to loot trading.
I'm surprised to see people defending layering on this forum. They really should have just made multiple realms instead of all this convuluted garbage. Layering does almost everything multiple realms can do but worse.
Layers are a perfect solution, and I'm so thrilled Blizzard came up with it. I don't think I can make it more clear than this:
You will not feel that you're on a layer unless you're actively trying to abuse the system.
Since the sum of the layer populations is equal to the server population, Blizzard can simply start peeling away layers when they feel like players have spread out enough. The only thing you will ever notice is that more and more people seem to be joining your server over time until at some point the people you see stay the same. Someone earlier made a comment about layers only existing for 6,5% for Classic's total estimated lifespan, and the estimate was pretty grounded, too.
I would much rather be able to login and play the game, than crash and queue for 3 hours until finally giving up. It's not like you'll be missing out on people-galore-mega-fests just because you don't see them in Northshire or the Valley of Trials in the first second of your classic career. People will still group up in massive meat trains to go raid some poor village, and there will still be serverwide gnome marathons to Orgrimmar.
Sharding is a very different story - let's not go down that path.
What about in the case where you want to play with a friend and they aren't on your layer?
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What about in the case where you want to play with a friend and they aren't on your layer?
I suspect Blizzard will have thought about this as it's a pretty clear scenario where layering might be challenged. Solution? Put new players in the same layer as their friends are already on.
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What about in the case where you want to play with a friend and they aren't on your layer?
I suspect Blizzard will have thought about this as it's a pretty clear scenario where layering might be challenged. Solution? Put new players in the same layer as their friends are already on.
That isn't a solution at all. If you find out a friend or coworker plays WoW you probably are already both going to have characters made already so this "solution" is pretty worthless.
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What about in the case where you want to play with a friend and they aren't on your layer?
I suspect Blizzard will have thought about this as it's a pretty clear scenario where layering might be challenged. Solution? Put new players in the same layer as their friends are already on.
That isn't a solution at all. If you find out a friend or coworker plays WoW you probably are already both going to have characters made already so this "solution" is pretty worthless.
Valid point, I did not think of that.
Then you group with them, and one of you move to the other guy's layer for that play session. I suspect Blizzard will have you assigned to a certain layer, so that for the coming sessions you will return to that layer.
Either way, I don't think layering will stay in for long, so it's pretty possible that by the time you realize your coworker plays as well then layering is already a thing of the past.
I totally agree it isn't optimal in all ways, but if the alternative is a laggy and shitty gameplay experience at launch, I would rather take a slightly immersion breaking experience (which albeit only breaks immersion in certain edge cases). I stand by the fact that layering is a decent solution for the challenge presented, and to the people who're whining about it; wait until Phase 2.
EDIT:
I'm surprised to see people defending layering on this forum. They really should have just made multiple realms instead of all this convuluted garbage. Layering does almost everything multiple realms can do but worse.
I didn't notice this until just now.
Blizzard is implementing layering because they expect a huge intial player influx because they have all the "tourists" from retail who will have access from the get-go and might want to check it out, and because they know that the market and player base for classic already exists.
This is an issue because none of the zones are designed to handle such a meat fest of players. Solution: they partition the realm for a brief period after launch, and as players start to spread out both geographically and in terms of level they merge the partitions. I understand it's not 100% ideal, but I don't understand how this is bad.
Multiple realms will lead to low population servers, which are fun for no one. Say you create a character and realize that Northshire is crowded AF, you'll go make a character on another realm to play instead as you don't want to spend 5 hours in Northshire. Lots of people will do this, and eventually you end up with realm populations that are roughly dictated by the throughput capabilities of the starting zones.
This is true if the influx of new players rapidly declines over the first few days of Classic. If instead the influx ncreases slowly over time (as it did in the beginning of Vanilla WoW), more realms would be ideal.
I'm surprised to see people defending layering on this forum. They really should have just made multiple realms instead of all this convuluted garbage. Layering does almost everything multiple realms can do but worse.
Thing with multiple realms opening is that after initial surge of players you will get inevitable ebb. There might be quite a huge percent loss of players. But you have so many realms on your hands to satisfy all the players which came to launch. Now what to do with that seriously underpopulated realms?
IMO layering is good in that you will have no "ghost realms" or just bare minimum of them.
That isn't a solution at all. If you find out a friend or coworker plays WoW you probably are already both going to have characters made already so this "solution" is pretty worthless.
What about in the case where you want to play with a friend and they aren't on your layer?
All you have to do is party up with him. By that you two will be on the same layer. Same if you join a guild from different layer - you will hop on their layer. As the layers will have around the same player's numbers as the vanilla realms. There is not that big of a deal about them. And on top of that after phase one at the latest you will have realm with healthy population.
For me its much better solution than sharding which is completely immersion breaking.
As the layers will have around the same player's numbers as the vanilla realms.
Is this actually the way it is? Will Blizzard intentionally be overpopulating the servers in hopes that people lose interest? Seems weird to me, but it might be the case - would love to see a source if you have one! IIRC realm populations are 3k-5k, so having layers be somewhere around 500-1k in the beginning and increasing steadily over time sounds reasonable to me.
I'm surprised to see people defending layering on this forum. They really should have just made multiple realms instead of all this convuluted garbage. Layering does almost everything multiple realms can do but worse.
Do you really think that is a solution? Because if you do, you obviously don't know what happens if you have a lot of medium/low pop servers after 6-12months. Then you have to do merges, you DO NOT want server merges. That's like a inbred cousin of layering/sharding.
Either way, I don't think layering will stay in for long, so it's pretty possible that by the time you realize your coworker plays as well then layering is already a thing of the past.
to the people who're whining about it; wait until Phase 2.
You know phase 1 is going to be months long right? It's not going to come and go like sharding would have (literally was said to not be a thing outside of starting zones). MC and Onyxia are going to be out during phase 1, so your solution to people that don't like layering is to just not play for months on end? You didn't seem to think through this post either.
Do you really think that is a solution? Because if you do, you obviously don't know what happens if you have a lot of medium/low pop servers after 6-12months. Then you have to do merges, you DO NOT want server merges. That's like a inbred cousin of layering/sharding.
I think it's a better solution than layering is.
I played on a server during vanilla that died so I got a free transfer and went to a larger one later whenever they gave them out. Merging is better than cross realms or layering, cross realms are absolutely disgusting and a very large part of why I quit the game. I don't see how merging is any worse than layering other than people having to change their names. (which is essentially the same thing as layering since only one person is going to be allowed a name on a server)
Queues are 100% better than all this convoluted garbage, you're playing an MMO.
Either way, I don't think layering will stay in for long, so it's pretty possible that by the time you realize your coworker plays as well then layering is already a thing of the past.
to the people who're whining about it; wait until Phase 2.
You know phase 1 is going to be months long right? It's not going to come and go like sharding would have (literally was said to not be a thing outside of starting zones). MC and Onyxia are going to be out during phase 1, so your solution to people that don't like layering is to just not play for months on end? You didn't seem to think through this post either.
I thought it through well enough, thanks for making me question myself on that. Yes, if layering is such a huge issue to you (or anyone else for that matter) as a player, then prioritize what you want to spend your time on like the adult you are and not play during MC/Onyxia. If that's an issue to you, then you need to deal with layering as well. To the "not playing in months on end" then sure, you've waited more than 10 years. What are a few more months? And yes, I do mean 100% that skipping MC/Onyxia is an option. This game is a service to you and not a right. If you dislike the service for some reason then don't buy it.
I've never really understood people who complain without offering solutions or any other kind of peace to themselves. Sharding in just the level 1-6 areas won't do it. With a little foresight it's easy to imagine how impossible it is to complete any quests in, say, Westfall, too. In my opinion layering is better than realm merges (accomplishes the same thing but on a much shorter timescale), and jumping ship when the server pop drops low enough is immersion-wise much worse than layering, too, no?
You come off to me with a subtle toxicity, which I don't really like or see the point of. I might be over interpreting, but then please say.
I've never really understood people who complain without offering solutions or any other kind of peace to themselves. Sharding in just the level 1-6 areas won't do it. With a little foresight it's easy to imagine how impossible it is to complete any quests in, say, Westfall, too. In my opinion layering is better than realm merges (accomplishes the same thing but on a much shorter timescale), and jumping ship when the server pop drops low enough is immersion-wise much worse than layering, too, no?
I suggested multiple realms didn't I? They would take care of people on servers that died with free server transfers like they have done before. It's better than manipulating the base game and allowing for players to exploit different layers for the auction house, item and mob spawns and gathering nodes and so on.
You come off to me with a subtle toxicity, which I don't really like or see the point of. I might be over interpreting, but then please say.
How does me disagreeing with you on a controversial topic make me toxic?
I'm totally fine with this for the first phase. I'd really be discouraged if the starting zones were super clogged with a billion people on day one.
I wonder what happens if there is 3001 players online. If they get split into two pools or if one guy gets the layer for himself?