Possible problem at relaunch

[Mystrome]

Sharding was a bandaid for making servers appear full... that isn't going to be a problem with Classic.

Lol.

I don't think you know what sharding is.

But keep on riding that high horse of yours, you look very cool doing it.

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Herm, the server that shall not be named had 800,000 accounts registered.
That means nearly 1million players tried it and played it.

800k accounts shows that it was popular. But I'd say it's a safe bet that a substantial amount of them belong to people with multiple accounts.

I seriously doubt they got even close to 1M individuals.

[Ielenia]

Herm, the server that shall not be named had 800,000 accounts registered.
That means nearly 1million players tried it and played it.

That number isn't exactly the "gotcha" you think it is:

First, it's 800k accounts created in the span of an year, not at launch.

Second, 800k registered account versus 150k active accounts. That means almost three quarters of a million did not last even a year playing the game. I reckon a sizable portion of 650k players didn't last longer than two months.

Third, the game was free, which means to create an account you need a valid e-mail (if at all). That is an attractive to some people.

Fourth, and, in my opinion, the most important thing: the numbers were given by the pirate server's own creators, which, considering their illegal status, makes their claims dubious at best, since artificially inflating their numbers would make them look more popular in the eyes of the public, more "valid", and therefore attract more players.

[Deleted]

That number isn't exactly the "gotcha" you think it is:

First, it's 800k accounts created in the span of an year, not at launch.

Second, 800k registered account versus 150k active accounts. That means almost three quarters of a million did not last even a year playing the game. I reckon a sizable portion of 650k players didn't last longer than two months.

Third, the game was free, which means to create an account you need a valid e-mail (if at all). That is an attractive to some people.

Fourth, and, in my opinion, the most important thing: the numbers were given by the pirate server's own creators, which, considering their illegal status, makes their claims dubious at best, since artificially inflating their numbers would make them look more popular in the eyes of the public, more "valid", and therefore attract more players.

I was mainly replying to your phrase

"it's arguable that the entire population across all private servers, of all expansions, might not even break one million players"

It's hard to believe that when one server almost had 1 million registered accounts. And there are hundreds of other servers.

[Deleted]

It's not implausible that there will be 1-2 million people dabbling with Classic initially, this depends heavily on when it is launched and what pricing/sub there will be - live has several million players even during a lull, spikes at the start of expansion can go up to 10. It's not completely out of the question that 10-20% of live players, plus a fair number of resubbing inactive players will play - especially if we get to access Classic with an ongoing live sub.

Retention is another matter entirely, I'd say 10% would be really great (perhaps I'm being too optimistic, though).

That in no way implies Maudib isn't a troll and/or dumb, of course.

[Meow]

There won’t be a relaunch as WoW Classic will be actually a new game, with fixed contents based on Vanilla.

[Koward]

There won’t be a relaunch as WoW Classic will be actually a new game, with fixed contents based on Vanilla.

Content based on Vanilla sure, but "fixed" is a strong word, as it will probably evolve over time, at least through gating of raids/events.
But yeah, not a relaunch, just a launch.

[Ielenia]

It's hard to believe that when one server almost had 1 million registered accounts. And there are hundreds of other servers.

By your logic, the population of the United States numbers in the dozens, if not hundreds of billions of people, instead of just 323 million reported, since we're counting the dead and the ones who moved out of the country.

By "population" I meant active players.

[Warrax]

I seriously doubt they got even close to 1M individuals.

Keep in mind that A LOT of people absolutely REFUSE to play on ANY private servers due to the high risk of corruption/server shutdown/otherreasons which will not happen on official WoW Vanilla servers. I have many friends who played back in the days of Vanilla that would like to play Vanilla again and I'm the only one who took the risk to even play on Nostalrius (the only private server worth taking a risk), all the rest do not trust private servers (and for good reasons). By looking at the popularity of Nostalrius, I expect a lot more people on official Vanilla servers.

[Hottage]

Sharding is essentially splitting up a single server if an area becomes overpopulated. It will create two instances of the same area. It's also used when some quest line changes the surrounding area and two people are at different points in the quest chain.

So, you don't need multiple servers for sharding.

Here you are crossing sharding with phasing, which is a third, unrelated technology added in Wrath of the Lich King (AND MY GOD WAS IT GOOOOOOOOOD). Players in different phases can still exist on the same shard, they just have different terrain elements visible.

Sharding is literally the opposite of Cross Realm Zones, although using the same basic tech.

Instead of coalescing the zone populations of multiple servers to give a feeling of "living" in otherwise dead zones [and saving having servers running zones for 1 or 2 people], it distributes the players across several servers to prevent overpopulation.

My thought: you might even find a server blade with a Realm sticker on it like the ones they auctioned off don't even exist any more.

The servers are likely all generic and repurposed on the fly to act as whatever type is required:
- realm servers
- secondary zone servers (for sharding)
- aggregate zone servers (for CRZ)
- instance servers (for dungeons, raids, battlegrounds and arenas)

This would reduce server waste by allowing the servers to fit roles flexibly based on requirement instead of sitting idle while other specialized servers are overburdened.

Note: that bit was purely speculation based on observation.

Back to topic:
Overcrowded start zones was part of the classic experience.
It gave those early days a true sense of scale as to how many people were playing the game.
I hope they keep that... perhaps with less World Server Down errors as the servers melt.

[Deleted]

you will see 90k+ que lines (which isnt vanilla)

found the kid who didnt play vanilla.....

[Roar-Powah]

There is sharding in WoW as well as cross realm.

And thank god for Vanilla, since i don't have to put up with this shit anymore once these servers come out! I cannot wait...

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Here you are crossing sharding with phasing, which is a third, unrelated technology added in Wrath of the Lich King (AND MY GOD WAS IT GOOOOOOOOOD). Players in different phases can still exist on the same shard, they just have different terrain elements visible.

Sharding is literally the opposite of Cross Realm Zones, although using the same basic tech.

Instead of coalescing the zone populations of multiple servers to give a feeling of "living" in otherwise dead zones [and saving having servers running zones for 1 or 2 people], it distributes the players across several servers to prevent overpopulation.

My thought: you might even find a server blade with a Realm sticker on it like the ones they auctioned off don't even exist any more.

The servers are likely all generic and repurposed on the fly to act as whatever type is required:
- realm servers
- secondary zone servers (for sharding)
- aggregate zone servers (for CRZ)
- instance servers (for dungeons, raids, battlegrounds and arenas)

This would reduce server waste by allowing the servers to fit roles flexibly based on requirement instead of sitting idle while other specialized servers are overburdened.

Note: that bit was purely speculation based on observation.

Back to topic:
Overcrowded start zones was part of the classic experience.
It gave those early days a true sense of scale as to how many people were playing the game.
I hope they keep that... perhaps with less World Server Down errors as the servers melt.

Tech is a way more advanced that it was over 10+ years ago, playing on some private servers and having over 20k people online at once just goes to show how powerful servers these days are compared to 10 years ago. These servers are pretty basic in terms of specs, now throw in some latest tech servers Blizzard has now and there is no telling how many players can be on one server at a time.

It's no doubt that the first few week is going to be crowed, but it's a good thing since everyone you see is a possible guild mate / friend. Unlike now with CRZ, you see someone from X server and you don't give 2 shits about them.

I seriously cannot wait for these Classic servers, i get to experience another class this time around. I did play a private classic server but the lag is even worse than what it was back in 2004/5/6, what did i expect tho living on the ass end of the world in Australia lol. At least this time around i can play on a local server, and i can play a melee class for PvP unlike back in vanilla i had to play a Hunter as my ping was 500ms+. Raiding the ping didn't matter so much, but the game was coded a lot different than it is now.

[Tomana]

So...Vanilla is gonna be just one server right? so sharding is not possible, so they better build one hell of a server cause nobody wants to experience a laggy launch with long queues for the vanilla relaunch.

They will face with a huge spike of players at the beginning, with a reduction (the magnitude of which is open to discussion) afterwards.
So imho they have three options.
- Start with a small number of servers, then add more (ineffective, because OMG crowds at launch)
- Start with a big number of servers, then merge (sort of effective, but publicity nightmare when server mergers will start to occur)
- Use dynamic instancing like on live, except in capital cities.

The latter will send all the vanilla "purists" into Moon orbit from the explosions and flames due too excessive butthurt, of course, but from the capacity planning and management point of view, it's imho the best solution.

[BuckSparkles]

Blizzard said that sharding thecnology was the biggest success in regards to a smoth launch, it is the reason legion launch was arguable the best launch in any mmo ever, it was even weird not getting a queue or not having any kind of lag.

So...Vanilla is gonna be just one server right? so sharding is not possible, so they better build one hell of a server cause nobody wants to experience a laggy launch with long queues for the vanilla relaunch.

If they are wise, they will do a few sets of "Classic PVE / Classic PVP and possibly Classic RP" servers.

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Keep in mind that A LOT of people absolutely REFUSE to play on ANY private servers due to the high risk of corruption/server shutdown/otherreasons which will not happen on official WoW Vanilla servers. I have many friends who played back in the days of Vanilla that would like to play Vanilla again and I'm the only one who took the risk to even play on Nostalrius (the only private server worth taking a risk), all the rest do not trust private servers (and for good reasons). By looking at the popularity of Nostalrius, I expect a lot more people on official Vanilla servers.

I know many people who are waiting to resubscribe to wow for Vanilla. They did not like the sketchyness of private realms.

[Jujudrood]

Server lag and being 1725 in queue to log in is a vanilla wow experience.
Don't fix it with this newfangled 'modern technology'.
I want authentic vanilla wow, lag, shitty queues, and bugs included.
/sarcasm

[Popthehood]

There will be multiple US servers for sure and I would imagine the same for EU, China, etc.

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That number isn't exactly the "gotcha" you think it is:

First, it's 800k accounts created in the span of an year, not at launch.

Second, 800k registered account versus 150k active accounts. That means almost three quarters of a million did not last even a year playing the game. I reckon a sizable portion of 650k players didn't last longer than two months.

Third, the game was free, which means to create an account you need a valid e-mail (if at all). That is an attractive to some people.

Fourth, and, in my opinion, the most important thing: the numbers were given by the pirate server's own creators, which, considering their illegal status, makes their claims dubious at best, since artificially inflating their numbers would make them look more popular in the eyes of the public, more "valid", and therefore attract more players.

There were a lot more than 150k active accounts on the first server they created, never mind including the others. The standing list alone for that one server was 200k+ each week and that just includes the players who pvp'd.

[Ielenia]

There were a lot more than 150k active accounts on the first server they created, never mind including the others. The standing list alone for that one server was 200k+ each week and that just includes the players who pvp'd.

"Other servers"? Going by the infographic they last divulged, a couple months before their shutdown, it said "overall statistics", not "statistic for one server". If you're claiming those statistics were for "just one of their servers", I'll have to ask you to fork out some evidence, because, assuming what you're saying is true, it begs the question why they didn't divulge those numbers instead in their infographic, or worse, didn't add up both server numbers into one, greater number.

[Torrasque]

Blizzard needs to jump on this fast. Six month. Or mid point between now and new expansion. People are fickle. Hype will fade.

There is no way that you'll see it within two years, minimum... When they announced it, it wasn't an issue of "soon," but "a long time." That is their calling card for 2+ years, if you look at previous releases. Think about it, BfA will be a year old, subs will be mid-session, then for WoW's 15th Anniversary, Classic Realms open.

[Popthehood]

"Other servers"? Going by the [link] they last divulged, a couple months before their shutdown, it said "overall statistics", not "statistic for one server". If you're claiming those statistics were for "just one of their servers", I'll have to ask you to fork out some evidence, because, assuming what you're saying is true, it begs the question why they didn't divulge those numbers instead in their infographic, or worse, didn't add up both server numbers into one, greater number.

Not sure why you are saying any of that when you said "Fourth, and, in my opinion, the most important thing: the numbers were given by the pirate server's own creators, which, considering their illegal status, makes their claims dubious at best, since artificially inflating their numbers would make them look more popular in the eyes of the public, more "valid", and therefore attract more players."

That was fairly contradicting. And Ill get back to you with some sort of proof, I'm sure I have realmplayers screenshots hanging around.

[reppeh]

There will be multiple US servers for sure and I would imagine the same for EU, China, etc.

Dont forget Oceanic thanks!

[serendipity11]

Dont forget Oceanic thanks!

If you want the true classic experience oceanic people must play on american servers. #keepvanillapure.