Changes

[Thunderball]

For key events like AQ launch, if thats busy enough for it to be needed again that would be fine by me.

What's the point of having an AQ event if there's sharding?

[khalltusk]

What's the point of having an AQ event if there's sharding?

It depends how the event runs, last time we did it a lot of guildies were disconnected for the majority of the time and the lag was terrible. As I said at the start of that post servers and zones will have a breaking point on where the performance goes below a certain threshold.

So its a balancing act, and they have not even said it would be in for that event. That was just me thinking ahead. Sharding is not some big scary boogieman if used correctly and only for cases where it is truly needed.

[Thunderball]

It depends how the event runs, last time we did it a lot of guildies were disconnected for the majority of the time and the lag was terrible. As I said at the start of that post servers and zones will have a breaking point on where the performance goes below a certain threshold.

So its a balancing act, and they have not even said it would be in for that event. That was just me thinking ahead. Sharding is not some big scary boogieman if used correctly and only for cases where it is truly needed.

There is no way to do that correctly. If you dont see a person that's supposed to be standing right in front of you it means that you're playing a different game already.

[khalltusk]

There is no way to do that correctly. If you dont see a person that's supposed to be standing right in front of you it means that you're playing a different game already.

The best way to do it is if you're in the same group or raid you're in the same shard. On leveling that is not an issue and won't be a problem. So I don't understand the argument there. The only "immersion" breaking argument you could have would be when your friends who have the group setup are in a busy shard, you join that group and phase in, so for you people disappear and new ones turn up and for players in the previous shard you disappear.

Granted I could argue that can break someones immersion, but whats more immersion breaking IMO is waiting for mobs to respawn only for them to die instantly and the game to constantly disconnect me or the server to crash and lag etc. It's the lesser of two evils by far to use sharding when needed.

AQ event becomes a bit messier as only one person rings the gong. So the question becomes do they run with sharding assuming the numbers go past a certain threshold or not.

[Thunderball]

The best way to do it is if you're in the same group or raid you're in the same shard.

Cant be in the same group with the opposing faction.

On leveling that is not an issue and won't be a problem.

Of course it's an issue, it's going to ruin the entire point of leveling gameplay - meeting people out in the world.

AQ event becomes a bit messier as only one person rings the gong.

That's not true.

[Deleted]

The best way to do it is if you're in the same group or raid you're in the same shard. On leveling that is not an issue and won't be a problem. So I don't understand the argument there. The only "immersion" breaking argument you could have would be when your friends who have the group setup are in a busy shard, you join that group and phase in, so for you people disappear and new ones turn up and for players in the previous shard you disappear.

Granted I could argue that can break someones immersion, but whats more immersion breaking IMO is waiting for mobs to respawn only for them to die instantly and the game to constantly disconnect me or the server to crash and lag etc. It's the lesser of two evils by far to use sharding when needed.

AQ event becomes a bit messier as only one person rings the gong. So the question becomes do they run with sharding assuming the numbers go past a certain threshold or not.

Sharding reduces the amount of possible friendships and adventures.

If you play from 1 to 60 with sharding, the amount of random encounters you will have will be reduced.

Without sharding you will have as many encounters as possible.
You will also constantly recognize Pedro and John and Richard by their gear or name in the world. Wich is awesome.

[khalltusk]

Cant be in the same group with the opposing faction.



Of course it's an issue, it's going to ruin the entire point of leveling gameplay - meeting people out in the world.



That's not true.

I see your point about the opposing faction, but will they really be in the starter zone for your faction at the launch of classic? I don't think so, so its a non argument.

As for the gong, on most servers was it not one person ringing the gong as they had completed the chain and after that person did the gong others could also ring it to get certain quest rewards for a small period after the fact? On my server it was one person who rang the gong to open the gates, and funny enough he got back stabbed by a rogue. So sharding could cause an issue on the opening if it was used.

As for Shadowpunks, I don't think sharding will be in from 1-60, My thinking is for the first week or so during the high periods of traffic and only for starter zones to ensure server and zone stability.

After that it should not be used and I dont think it will be used either.

[Simca]

AQ event becomes a bit messier as only one person rings the gong. So the question becomes do they run with sharding assuming the numbers go past a certain threshold or not.

Anyone with the quest chain completed can ring the gong once.

If you do it within the first 24 hours of the first time it was rang (or you are the first one to ring it), you get the Black Qiraji Scarab mount as well.

But this entire discussion is moot now anyway. They confirmed at the Q&A that they're only doing -super limited- sharding and only on Launch. That probably means that like Elywnn Forest, Durotar, etc will be sharded for like the first 2-3 days only. That's not a big deal and better than the spree of constant server and world server crashes that Vanilla experienced in the first few weeks (it was down for 2 full days at one point in that period, iirc). A tiny minority will still complain slightly probably, but I think even most purists will be fine with it as long as it goes away very quickly.

I wouldn't worry about the UI. Even if Blizzard keeps a few UI changes from Live for some weird reason, it will be very trivial to undo those changes with an addon, including changing the base font back.

Summoning Stones and Raid Markers were likely just overlooked and will be killed.

[khalltusk]

Anyone with the quest chain completed can ring the gong once.

If you do it within the first 24 hours of the first time it was rang (or you are the first one to ring it), you get the Black Qiraji Scarab mount as well.

Ah thats the one yeh, thanks for clarifying. I was implying one person opens the gates (via the gong) and my server had one person with the quest chain completed when the gates were opened, as multiple guilds had to assist his guild in completing the chain. After that time other guilds would have people completing the quest chain but no mount rewards as that was past the time limit.

But as you said it is a moot point as they will keep usage of sharding to the starter zones for the initial launch, which makes sense. After that the player base should be spread out enough that it won't be needed.

[andrewjoy]

I don't mind that as I'll replace that with addons anyway, so anything I can replace with an addon makes no difference.

I'll be pissed if sharding is a thing though.

Don't care about the starter items having extra stats either, as long as the items, say after level 40 are all the same as they used to be. I do hope they don't make it to live though, as it's just extra ammunition for the doomsayers.

Maybe it's just a private server thing, but mobs don't run behind you on attacking you now. If you charge at a target, they stay in front. I can't remember what it was like in vanilla, I'm sure I would sometimes charge through the target, but not sure.

I noticed faster health regen, this is a big nono from me.

There will be shading but only for the first days / weeks for super busy starting zones. No stupid phases no stupid cross realm stuff.

The modern raid frames are TERRIBLE! The old ones where better than that! But yeh will replace it all anways.

I think they are on, i dont think they are on the bleeding edge 8.x client , looks like an older 6.x or 7.x client to me.

[anon5123]

The modern raid frames are TERRIBLE! The old ones where better than that!

What? The old raid frames were awful. They showed health/mana and nothing else. No buffs, no debuffs, no aggro, nothing. And you couldn't change their size either.

What was "better" about them?

[andrewjoy]

What? The old raid frames were awful. They showed health/mana and nothing else. No buffs, no debuffs, nothing. And you couldn't change their size either.

What was "better" about them?

It may have been a CTRaid thing but they showed debuffs.

The main problem i have with modern raid frames is they are ugly as fuck, and locked to the side of the screen

[Simca]

There will be shading but only for the first days / weeks for super busy starting zones. No stupid phases no stupid cross realm stuff.

The modern raid frames are TERRIBLE! The old ones where better than that! But yeh will replace it all anways.

I think they are on, i dont think they are on the bleeding edge 8.x client , looks like an older 6.x or 7.x client to me.

It's the 7.3.5 client.

That's kind of disappointing, and I wanted people to ask if they'd move up to 8.1. In the 8.1 client, there's early support for multithreaded GPU rendering, which something WoW has been needing for years. One of the devs I talked to said they've seen performance gains of up to 50% increased FPS internally. If they use a client just slightly less modern than the one with support for that feature, it seems like such a huge waste.

[andrewjoy]

It's the 7.3.5 client.

That's kind of disappointing, and I wanted people to ask if they'd move up to 8.1. In the 8.1 client, there's early support for multithreaded GPU rendering, which something WoW has been needing for years. One of the devs I talked to said they've seen performance gains of up to 50% increased FPS internally. If they use a client just slightly less modern than the one with support for that feature, it seems like such a huge waste.

Whist that is a bummer , the 7x client can do real fullscreen ... so its a tossup.

[anon5123]

The main problem i have with modern raid frames is they are ugly as fuck, and locked to the side of the screen

You can move the default raid frame around.

[chronia]

Whist that is a bummer , the 7x client can do real fullscreen ... so its a tossup.

If 8.1 is really 50% FPS increase (which i doubt), then its no toss up. Full screen windowed is generally only a few fps less than Full screen.

[Unholyground]

Eh, yes, there is. I was surrounded by mobs then was invited to a group and when I accepted, they all disappeared and the person I grouped with appeared near me. Also happened on screen with a streamer I was watching.

This is a technical thing for the demo, they won't be using shards in the final release. They used phasing to keep everything smooth for everyone. I do however think they may keep dynamic re-spawning for non rare and non elite mobs but dial it back enough to make it feel like vanilla but so you don't have to wait 20 mins for all the mobs to come back for a quest.

[Ragnarocket]

What? The old raid frames were awful. They showed health/mana and nothing else. No buffs, no debuffs, no aggro, nothing. And you couldn't change their size either.

What was "better" about them?

Personally I'm not sold on the completely purist approach. We've already had tons of people comment on how nice it was to have the auto-loot toggle and that wasn't a thing before. If something doesn't affect the game (like raid frames) in a large way and the current iteration is just functionally better (shows more debuffs/buffs/etc) then what is the problem with having it?

But then again I'm probably not the target market. I played the demo over the weekend and while I loved certain things (man I've missed talent trees) I really couldn't help but think to myself how many of the systems really showed their age.

[Simca]

If 8.1 is really 50% FPS increase (which i doubt), then its no toss up. Full screen windowed is generally only a few fps less than Full screen.

To be fair, they probably meant in the most extreme cases for that upper limit.

[Unholyground]

It's the 7.3.5 client.

That's kind of disappointing, and I wanted people to ask if they'd move up to 8.1. In the 8.1 client, there's early support for multithreaded GPU rendering, which something WoW has been needing for years. One of the devs I talked to said they've seen performance gains of up to 50% increased FPS internally. If they use a client just slightly less modern than the one with support for that feature, it seems like such a huge waste.

Once they stabilize what they have on the current engine you can bet they will move it up to the newer one.