So where them layers at?

[Bigbazz]

You wanted NO CHANGES, you got NO CHANGES

huge ques are an authentic Vanilla experience lol

Well there are quite a few changes, to be fair. There just aren't any big ones aside from layering. Example is how macros work (and which macros work), a lot of interface based stuff, combat logging, various other minor things. The layering was meant to be the fix for big queues, the problem is that Blizzard announced like 2 servers, then in their infinite wisdom upped that to 4, and then slowly creeped out new ones on launch day while most servers still had queues that were large enough to fill multiple layers on multiple servers.

It's like they are scared of the inevitable drop off of players to the extent that they are allowing the launch to be a complete gridlock shitshow, they could have 3x as many servers.

[Akka]

Layers and queues are not related.

Of course they are.
Queues exist when a serveur has reached its limit of concurrent players.
The amount of concurrent players depend on how many layers are allowed on a server.

[Redecle]

Queues has nothing to do with layering, okay nothing might be too harsh.
Queues are for max server capacity.
Server capacity is about all layers combined, how much one layer can handle people in the world without crashing and lagging like hell.
Opening more layers doesn't increase the server max capacity. I thought the max capacity was settled at vanilla like, not vanilla but around there.
If vanilla was.. what 2500? I don't know, this time it's like 3000-5000, probably like 250-1000 people per layer. Not sure i think the current client can handle something like 250 players in an area before crashing, proven by streamers on retail crashing servers by going to one place, 3-5 full raids groups and server is caput, before dynamic sharding was a thing.

Difference of layering and sharding is the dynamic nature of it. Sharded server basically has no max capacity, i'm sure it ends somewhere, but in theory there's no cap. Which allows 15k type player servers and the current combined realms. Supported by the spawn rates etc on retail that can handle that load. Vanilla and classic doesn't have that, there's no dynamic spawns etc. It's all designed for that 2500 capacity. Hence why classic is vanilla. It doesn't add dynamic spawns to cater to retail type servers and has been limited to that of vanilla like realm size. Unlike private servers that have been talked about being 15k+ and shit. They added dynamic spawn systems etc to vanilla to being able to handle the loadout. Layering is set to something to keep them full, which is then tied to the max capacity. Any way do the math.. let's say current max capacity is 5000, we have 10 realms, that's 50 000 people can play. And about a million are trying. If they open more servers for all of them, and then suddenly half of them quit, we currently would need to have 20x more servers, what 200 servers just to host a million people for a week and then when most of the non classic tourists are gone, the staying community split on 200 servers, that doesn't want empty servers.

To my knowledge and experience layering works in-game, the game doesn't lag in crowded areas, like it has in the past.
At least from what i've played, can't say it's true for everyone participating.

Queues on the other hand handle the max capacity, not people who are already in the game playing on their layer within their realm.
Cause the influx of players is greater than any server capacity even with layers, without layers even the players in-game would be affected and the game would be lagfest.
Only solution is to add more servers to make more max capacity, which Blizzard is currently doing with few servers, but which understandably Blizzard doesn't want to do in large scale to host everyone, cause the current influx of players is temporary.
Cause in the long run after half the people quit the players staying would be spread on multiple servers, leading yet again to empty servers, just in this case turning layering doesn't solve it cause they are physically different servers.

If and really if it's the case that half of the current players don't quit in let's say a week or month is Blizzard screwed and pretty much forced to open more servers.
But i doubt it, right now it's about the hype of the new, well old. It's purists, old timers, retailers, tryouts, hardcore and newbs all in the same bottle neck, not all of them are going to keep coming back for this. I already know i won't, tomorrow on reset it's back to retail for me, one less in the queue.
The community doesn't want empty servers, they want their community to be alive. Blizzard doesn't want to run half empty servers with 15 people on one and 5000 on another. Exactly what happened on retail after WotLK.
This is the solution. This. The launch queue. You either queue up and wait or let the hype cool of and come back in few weeks.

[kenn9530]

You missed the entire point of my post.

This population drop is half the reason layers exist : it makes it so each server holds several times the "normal" population of a Vanilla server, so once the population has dropped, all layers can be merged together and we get a server with adequate population.
Queue exists when the server is already at full capacity after taking the population drop into account. So it means there is an actual need of new servers, even after taking into account the expected population drop.

And notice that the situation is even more critical if Blizzard overestimated how many people would drop Classic, which seems pretty likely to me considering how massively they underestimated its hype.

The best option would of been just do 2 of each type of server but have them with extra layering at the start to handle the launch influx of players, too many servers means populations spread out and eventually your going to get servers with low population that would make finding people to play with very difficult, so that would mean server merges or free transfers.

[kail]

Of course they are.
Queues exist when a serveur has reached its limit of concurrent players.
The amount of concurrent players depend on how many layers are allowed on a server.

The main purpose of layering is to limit how many people are in a zone at the same time. Instead of 400+ people trying to kill the same quest mob, it's only 50. The server cap still exists, layering is not designed to create infinite population capacity.

[Sting]

Ok, here's the deal.

They are only adding a set amount of layers to any server. This is on purpose. They want to drive players away to the new realms.

Why don't they add more layers to help people in the queue? Because they calculated a certain percentage of dropoff later on. What they consider to be the upper limit of population for a server is the total amount of players currently allowed on all layers combined, adjusted with the dropoff percentage by the time phase 2 rolls around where they are committed to removing the layering system for all servers.

It's a decent plan but unfortunately doesn't take into account people part of a community. If half your friends are already level 20+, there's no way you can convince them to move servers. Imo the best solution would be free transfers from any high/full server to a new server as soon as they're opened.

(Also, they made a huge mistake only making 2 EU pvp servers at the start.)

[Big Thanks]

I rolled on a low populated server few hours ago, now it's medium and 5k queue...

They said on blue post the "medium" tag is consequence of the algorithm technology not being...intuitive

They should be shown as full if they have a queue...so actually, all servers now are full

They will do this on the future but priority now is releasing new servers

blue post
https://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?...1551&region=us

[Crumbica]

Ion Hazzikostas is quoted as saying the queue cap is "around 30,000". Ion warns players that if you come home from work and find yourself in a queue, around 12,000th or 19,000th, that you won't be playing that night. Blizzard assumes that players facing those queues will just go to a different realm.
Back during the launch of Vanilla WoW, realms held about 3,000 people. When asked how many people are on a layer for Classic's launch, Ion stated a layer is "about the same amount as a healthy realm in Vanilla".

So seems 10 layers per realm, 3k player each...

[Akka]

The main purpose of layering is to limit how many people are in a zone at the same time.

That's half the purpose. The other is to be able to have a server goes well beyond its "normal" maximum while waiting for the initial surge to recede. That second half means that as long as layering is active, the server can handle more player than it is supposed to, and as such determines the treshold at which queues start.

[micwini]

People not knowing how layers work jesus. You don't get a bigger cake by cutting it into more pieces. The problem is that they released way too few servers. They should have released 30 per continent but they didn't listen. Here we are.

[CrawlFromThePit]

All that BS about their new tech and mini-servers within servers.
Where is it? Why am i looking at a 20.000 que?
Wasnt the magic layer tech going to diminish Blizzards famous bukake launches?

Layer does NOTHING for queues, we are still all connecting to the same realm, however once in that realm, instead of being 50 people camping 3 boars, we're 10 people on one layer camping 3 boars and there's 10 other people in each of the other layer of the same realm camping their own 3 boars.

So the questing and world experience is smoother and not plagues by overpopulation, but we are still all connected to the same realm therefore the queues are not better because of layering.

[Ghostile]

People not knowing how layers work jesus. You don't get a bigger cake by cutting it into more pieces. The problem is that they released way too few servers. They should have released 30 per continent but they didn't listen. Here we are.

30 per continent that are all low pop after the hype winds down.

[smityx]

The layers are not the problem.
The fact that Blizzard was deaf to the warnings that they were MASSIVELY underestimating the initial rush is.
Their take on that each server must have a limited number of layers to be able to not be overpopulated when the layers would be merged is sound.
Their idea that somehow, 10 servers would be enough for a whole continent wasn't.

I doubt they misunderestmated the initial rush. They were fully aware of how the first couple of days were going to be. They have what they believe will be correct hardware needed after the nostalgia wears off for the veterans or the millenials ADD/instant gratification needs kicks in and they go wandering off back to retail or fortnite.

[enzi]

Well, what can I say?
If you guys tell the truth they overengineered around a problem and didn't really fix it. Layering isn't working.
It doesn't fix queues and it doesn't fix overpopulated zones. What does it do other than crashing?

[gobarj]

Layering is active, without layering everyone would still be stuck at level 1 due to the lag. Layering is just another fancy term for a separate "instance" of the same realm with its own mobs and all, nothing else. The only real difference between sharding/layering is that you can change shards many times, layering can only be changed when you join a certain party, then everyone is stuck on that layer unless they join a party in a different layer, and so on. Just because you think it's not active doesn't mean they skipped it.

The login queues are there for a reason and entirely unrelated to layering, there's only so much data servers can handle for an optimal experience.

[iDruid]

Their idea that somehow, 10 servers would be enough for a whole continent wasn't.

Unless they are correct about the drop off of players which you don't have the data to yet make that determination

[thilicen]

It may be that the layering is designed to work within the server context, not to alleviate the queues, but spread out ppl that are logged in on the server already.

After seeing several shots and videos of 993847 people standing on top of a single quest giver I'd say they are doing a pretty shit job at that too.

[iETHOSi]

All that BS about their new tech and mini-servers within servers.
Where is it? Why am i looking at a 20.000 que?
Wasnt the magic layer tech going to diminish Blizzards famous bukake launches?

Learn what the layering system is before talking shit about it because this ain't it, lol.

[Redecle]

Well, what can I say?
If you guys tell the truth they overengineered around a problem and didn't really fix it. Layering isn't working.
It doesn't fix queues and it doesn't fix overpopulated zones. What does it do other than crashing?

It does exactly what it is supposed to do.
Prevents in-game world crashing when multiple people are in the same area and it makes sure that there was no need to break vanilla spawn rates etc to cater to bigger audience. Vanilla realms were 2500 people max capacity. Spawn rates are for them. Classic is slightly bigger, estimated 3000-5000 max capacity probably when settled. Breaking vanilla spawn rates and bottle necking too many players. Layers solve that initial starting zone problem by basically having those 5000 players divided into 2x 2500 mass, for whom the vanilla spawn rates are designed. Those are not exact numbers, only Blizzard knows them, but that's the basic idea.
Just means in the long run when out of the 5000 players first 2500 quit and layering is turned off. The staying 2500 still have a full normal vanilla server.

It doesn't fix queues, cause it was never ever meant to fix queues. Well Blizzard could and probably are currently using bigger servers than even that 5000 cause the layering allows it. But there's a certain maximum they cannot go over. They cannot create 20k servers with overflow cause it doesn't apply to every server. Streamer servers are probably more popular than others. What happens in a month when normal servers drop from 20k players to 2500 and layering is turned off and all is normal, but the streamer servers stays at 20k players cause streamers. They cannot turn of layering cause the server doesn't work with 20k players without layering and neither does the spawn rates. Screwing the streamer server of their long term vanilla experience cause they would be forced to play with layering on.
It doesn't even have to be a streamer server, some people can randomly like a one realm name more than another and fill that to the brim when possible.

It fixes what is in-game temporarily.
It doesn't fix queues that are outside of the maximum server capacity. Only way to do that is to open more servers, which again in the long run leads to more problems. After people start to quit, the ones staying would then be divided on multiple half empty servers.

[Nehezbegar]

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...e-pvp/76396/25

IN eu only (i think those does not count German, French and Russian high pop servers , so u can add to that )