Desired Way to Handle Server Population?

[HuxNeva]

Fixed servers work if the population is more or less stable. When you have rapid in- or outflux, then it doesn't. chances are servers will be 'full' in no time and so playing with your friends on the same realm will require a lot of synchronization and even then some luck of making it all in. A friend coming in even an hour later will probably not be able to join you. Then if predictions are right and a lot of players will either abandon or just play during lul times in the 'other 'WoW, you are faced with your 'active' population spread thin over hundreds of servers. Those calling for 'fixed servers with 3000 population cap' just haven't thought this through.

Sharding, while I get that from a 'purist' perspective this is not desirable, is probably the best option. In your shading strategy, you can still try to optimize for being more likely to see the same players over time.

Btw: I think they will use an 'invite' system for launch. That way they can control ramp-up and placement better.

[Kathranis]

They just need to not open as many servers. The biggest reason for WoW's current population imbalance is that they would open multiple new servers every few months, players would migrate there for a few weeks, then eventually go back to their old servers, leaving the new ones barren apart from the players who got invested and became stranded.

They really should have focused on increasing server capacity instead.

[Whiskra]

Fixed servers with all its quirks and problems are an integral part of the vanilla experience. There really is no choice in the matter.

[Projectmars]

Just one realm per region will be enough

Nah. At least one per type (so four) would work best imo.

[Ettan]

4-4,5k I think would be a good number. Unless they implement dynamic spawning of mobs, quest items and nodes, then they could get away with about twice that number.

[teebling]

Out of interest what was the capacity of Nost servers?

[deniter]

Fixed population around 3000-4000.

The game becomes unplayable at 8000 when every single mob is dead and 10+ players try to tag respawns as fast as they can.

[Powrprincess]

First of all fixed servers. Secondly, I don't think I want dynamic spawn rates. I reckon it'd be too easy to level.

[Akka]

One thing that will definitely be needed is managing the huge population spike at the beginning, followed by a huge population fall soon after. It WILL happen.
So Blizzard need to be ready to merge servers or give lots of free transfers to fix this once it has happened.

[PrairieChicken]

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[Slashnox]

Just reading the word sharding makes me shiver

Had to transfer to a RP server because of that shit

[deadman1]

They "merge" by offering free transfers.

They only offer free transfers on large realms to small realms. Or at least that's what they've done in the past.

[Dhrizzle]

Has Blizzard ever done server merge at all in retail WoW? I can't seem to recall any of the servers that was merged.

Yes lots. It's actually pretty cool being on a merger server as it doubles the number of characters you can have sharing gold and mats.

- - - Updated - - -

Have fun with all the "Someone else on a server mine was connected to has the same name, fix it" tickets.

Doesn't happen, characters are identified as Name-Server Name.

[Echocho]

Fixed population around 3000-4000.

The population should mirror what they were back then and not be changed. I don't think they ever got as high as 4k.

[AeneasBK]

However they handle it, it would be nice if they either capped the servers or provided the hardware that most* of the server could be in one zone (Looking at you Azshara, and capital cities) without any noticable latency or crashes.

So whilst I'd love a 10k pop server, having it so it crashes or becomes unplayable during Azuregos fights or city raids is just the poop.

*When I say most I don't legit mean 5k+ out of 10k but say, 4 or 5 raids worth per faction, which would normally be more than enough to make the server burp hard. As it is classic; it would be pretty cool to field some actually proper 150+ vs 150+ PvP raids over Azuregos without the server crashing from stress.

[dayne87]

Okay, I voted fixed population but after reading the other posts here I want to add something.

I would like to see fixed population BUT with phasing/sharding and/or dynamic spawn/tagging changes implemented. For example, if I'm in the Barrens killing plainstriders either A) the plainstriders respawn quicker depending on how many players are in the area or B) I'm phased into a different version of the Barrens (in that area) so that only me and a few other players are in that region of the Barrens killing the limited # of plainstriders.

I know B wouldn't be the authentic experience. I remember fighting over spawns for many, many quests over the years. That's why I thnk dynamic spawn AND tagging rules like what we saw in Legion and other recent expansions where elites/rares are able to be tagged by X people of any faction and quest mobs/regular mobs can be tagged by up to X people of the same faction. I think that would maintain the authentic experience but avoid frustration from "modern" players coming back to classic. I know as a classic player what to expect and will NOT be expecting LFG or dungeon finder or any modern conveniences, but I do think dynamic spawns and/or tagging rules could help a lot.

As an example, if I'm sitting there trying to snag plainstrider kills while trying to kill the one "boss" plainstrider and there are 20 people around I'm not going to stick around long. I'm going to log onto another classic char, create another alt or go back to modern WoW. I won't do that in response to other things like spamming Trade chat to find a group for something.

[deniter]

The population should mirror what they were back then and not be changed. I don't think they ever got as high as 4k.

That's what i believe as well. I'm leaning more towards 3k, and the reasons for such low population cap in vanilla back then was hardware related rather than design choice.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

They only offer free transfers on large realms to small realms. Or at least that's what they've done in the past.

And your point is... what exactly?

[Echocho]

That's what i believe as well. I'm leaning more towards 3k, and the reasons for such low population cap in vanilla back then was hardware related rather than design choice.

True but they had to design the game around those limitations. Changing the cap will ripple throughout the game and require even more changes. It's a lot of work just to change the game into something it wasn't.

[Pejo]

Let me give a follow up question then, as some of you have already answered it but would like to see others opinions.

As noted earlier in the thread, we should note that launch populations are going to be quite different than down the line. How would you like them to handle the different launch issues that we're going to have?

• We talked massive population increase above. With this, it seems that many people like fixed. Would you rather them having long queues to login during this time, or is temporary sharding an option? Would you rather just hard cap the servers that once they get past X, no more characters can be created on that realm.
• If we go with no more characters can be created on that realm (we've seen that in the past on some full servers, but they try not to do this), how would you like them to deal with friends wanting to play with other friends? Have that friend on the full realm create a different character on a new realm so they can play with their friend? Do we do a possible invite system? Blizzard recommends servers to balance out the population, but we're definitely going to have servers that people want to be on, let it be for friends, or streamers/top pvp'ers/top pve'ers are going to play on? Or do we just tell them to wait until later?