I'm still up for a mega server with no sharding for retail

[Val the Moofia Boss]

how many spell effects went off :P?

Only seen during big Horde vs Alliance wars, and there haven't been big server organized PvP campaigns since BFA.

[enigma77]

All this talk about lag after 100 players... I was participating in 100+ player RP-PvP campaigns on Moon Guard a decade ago. Didn't experience lag.

Hi since you're playing on an RP realm and I have struggled to find information regarding this, may I ask you:

1) Is there sharding on RP servers?

2) Are there cross realm zones on RP servers?


I'm considering transfering my characters, because I can't stand this weird mega server nonsense they added some time ago. I literally can't even see my own guildmates out in the world unless we happen to be grouped, it's ridiculous.

[Garymorilix]

I love how OP started with "there wasn't even any lag" to "you couldn't even press release it was so bad but it was FUN" in like two replies...

In BFA and SL if there was a group doing a world boss I would literally be unable to farm herbs in the zone until they were done without lag.
All these people saying they experienced no lag with 100+ people probably mean "no lag" as in "it only took the game 3 seconds to registers my moonfire input"...

I'm starting to honestly think that people's computers are just so bad that they don't even notice the world going to shits around them because that's their default setting.
There is no other explanation.

[Echocho]

No thanks, I like to play above 20 FPS. This isn't Nostalrius, you can't have a smooth experience if there are more than 50 ppl in the same zone

[Val the Moofia Boss]

1) Is there sharding on RP servers?

Usually no, but when there is a lot of people concentrated in an area, the sharding kicks in. Last night I flew to the event spot and saw no one there. My guild leader invited me to the raid group and I phased into the correct shard with everyone.

Are there cross realm zones on RP servers?

AFAIK people from other realms are not phased in automatically. If I see someone with a * amended to their name then they are in a group with someone from this server. Wyrmrest Accord players have been attending MG events more and more.

[Mecheon]

Hi since you're playing on an RP realm and I have struggled to find information regarding this, may I ask you:

1) Is there sharding on RP servers?

2) Are there cross realm zones on RP servers?


I'm considering transfering my characters, because I can't stand this weird mega server nonsense they added some time ago. I literally can't even see my own guildmates out in the world unless we happen to be grouped, it's ridiculous.

1: Generally no on older zones. If the zone is particularly heavy useage it may show up, but its rare and typically I've only seen it when a very big event happens, the hundreds of people in a zone type of ones. There's regular semi-big events that take place in Pandaria that never trigger it Can easily be bypassed with a group
2: Only the current content (Dragonflight), but you can just do the ol' group invite trick to get people to come over if you serve as an anchor for older stuff

Do note if going for one of the big two, Moon Guard is majority Alliance dominated with a small but close knit Horde community, and Wyrmrest Accord is majority Horde but their Alliance is pretty much gone from what it used to be

[sam86]

I love the idea, and whoever talk about lagging, SL world boss zone says hi and is telling u even with sharding, if u playing in zone with world boss at wednesday, u *gasp* still horribly lag while u do NOT see anyone to cause lagging
so sharing gave the worst of both worlds, lag, and no players to see, yay...

[Jester Joe]

I love the idea, and whoever talk about lagging, SL world boss zone says hi and is telling u even with sharding, if u playing in zone with world boss at wednesday, u *gasp* still horribly lag while u do NOT see anyone to cause lagging
so sharing gave the worst of both worlds, lag, and no players to see, yay...

Servers still have limits.

A huge amount of actions at one location can cause lag (although I havent had any with the world boss since like the 2nd month of release), but if you remove shards, that could just end with crashed servers instead.

Lag existing doesn't mean sharding isn't working. Especially when world boss groups are probably the most guilty for pulling mass amounts of players onto one shard which is negating what shards are intended to offset in the first place.

[Surfd]

WoW used to be an open world adventure game, with raiding, pvp, professions, rp all being a big factor of the game.
stop pretending the game was always about raiding because the whole majority of playerbase was quite spread over all kinds of features.

Thing is Blizzard started to focus mainly on raiding over the years and you can see a rapid decline in all other casuals because they no longer have anything to do.

I'm sorry, but what? Like, seriously, when did you actually start playing WoW? Wrath? Cata? Cause you sure as shit have no idea what wow "used to be". Either that, or your rose tinted glasses are bolted on so tight they are cutting off circulation to your brain.

Skyrim is an "open world adventure game". WoW is not. It's a theme-park on rails designed almost exclusively to funnel you through each zones story and dump you out at the raiding / dungeon grinding endgame.

PvP started out as an afterthought. Hell, when the game launched, Crossroads / Tarren Mills / Blackrock mountain were your PVP hotspots because the game DIDN'T EVEN HAVE BATTLEGROUNDS at that point.

Outside of the interesting bits of engineering with the Gnomish / Goblin split, Professions were side fluff designed mostly to compliment your character. They were hardly "big factors" of the game.

Same with RP. Maybe meaningful to the handful of people who chose to play on an RP server. Completely meaningless to the vast majority of the rest of us.

And sorry, but it's kind of ludicrous to argue that blizzard has focused MORE on raids as time passes, considering that Vanilla basically only had 2 types of meaningful endgame content: Raids and PvP grinding. Where as now there is loads of things you can do to occupy yourself if you aren't into the Raid / PvP scene.

And None of the above, NONE OF IT, changes the fact that WoW is still just a fancy, fantasy themed skinners box basically from top to bottom, which hasn't changed since day one of vanilla launch.

- - - Updated - - -

I started WoW mid WOTLK. Seems old enough to experience plenty of events as stated, you think i never experienced 300man events because supposedly only vanilla had that? Delusional.

No, we KNOW you didn't experience 300 man events, because there was literally NOTHING, anywhere in the game, during Wrath that would have put 300 people in one area at the same time, and even during Wrath, cramming more than 150 people in an area close enough to affect eachother would have brought the servers to a screaming halt.

I played through all of Wrath on Tichondrious, one of the busiest, original NA servers, with highly active Horde and Alliance guilds out the Wazoo. 100+ people in one location never happened. Ever. And if it wasn't happening on Tich, I guarantee your 300 man fantasy events weren't happening on whatever server you were playing on.

[Ielenia]

And yet that experience was AMAZING, you do realise people play MMORPGS just for that insane weird once in a life time experience.

No, I play MMORPGs to play and have fun with other people. Being stuck doing nothing and then suddenly dying because of lag, and possibly being disconnected because of lag is not what I-- and I believe many others-- would call "a fun experience".

Why do you want the game to be so streamlined, basic and 0 issues?

Seriously? Do you really think "why do you want a game with zero issues" is a serious question to ask? Well, I guess you'd have loved Fallout:76 at launch. "It just works".

What does WoW offer since legion?

I quite enjoyed the Horrific Visions in BfA. And while not the biggest fan of corruptions, I did enjoy stacking corrupted items to get the wildest procs and the wildest drawbacks. In Shadowlands, I enjoyed Torghast for what it was, and the fights in the Bastion's coliseum. The Venthyr's parties were also a fun once-per-week side activity, too.

[Tehalbino]

The game would not be playable without Sharding. If you believe otherwise you're clueless, and at this point it isn't worth them investing into servers for something that is completely unnecessary as they are functioning as intended currently.


The only thing that needs to change is a completely global auction house and trade chat. Literally the only reason it exists is to still make money from server transfers which is pure greed at this point (and something that the community should be vehemently upset about).

[Biomega]

The only thing that needs to change is a completely global auction house and trade chat. Literally the only reason it exists is to still make money from server transfers which is pure greed at this point (and something that the community should be vehemently upset about).

TBH servers should just go away as barriers to begin with. Everything should be cross-realm, and servers should exist purely as a technical tool not as a gameplay element.

Imagine being a new player starting WoW, going on one of those "recommended for new players" servers, reaching endgame and then... finding out that those are dead realms with two-and-a-half active guilds. Horrible.

[Tech614]

TBH servers should just go away as barriers to begin with. Everything should be cross-realm, and servers should exist purely as a technical tool not as a gameplay element.

Imagine being a new player starting WoW, going on one of those "recommended for new players" servers, reaching endgame and then... finding out that those are dead realms with two-and-a-half active guilds. Horrible.

The only barrier left is mythic raiding, and that barrier should of been lifted 2 expansions ago but they are more worried about boosts into hall of fame than making a better experience for the entire player base in classic blizzard fashion. They could just get rid of hall of fame if it's that much of an issue and nothing of value would be lost.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

The only barrier left is mythic raiding, and that barrier should of been lifted 2 expansions ago but they are more worried about boosts into hall of fame than making a better experience for the entire player base in classic blizzard fashion. They could just get rid of hall of fame if it's that much of an issue and nothing of value would be lost.

Since crafting is turbo important now that is also probably terrible. I pay basically nothing for any item I want on a populated server while some guy in the wow equivalent of Kentucky may not even be able to get it crafted.

Thank goodness crafting is cross-faction, at least

[Biomega]

The only barrier left is mythic raiding, and that barrier should of been lifted 2 expansions ago but they are more worried about boosts into hall of fame than making a better experience for the entire player base in classic blizzard fashion. They could just get rid of hall of fame if it's that much of an issue and nothing of value would be lost.

Not quite.

Trading, Crafting, AH, and Guilds are still very much realm-bound, and have a pretty significant impact on the way a player engages with the game. Especially in DF, where crafting/trading has become more important than ever.

[Ryzeth]

Kek, people were lagging the fuck out during the Dragonflight pre-patch events that weren't even approaching 100 players in an area at once.

But sure, you definitely had 100 v 100 fights on even worse servers "with minimal lag"

Gimlix and Val both making shit up as they always do. Surprised the latter hasn't found some way to incorporate FFXIV into his comments yet.

[Themanintobuildafire]

This is such a bad argument, i experienced 300 man raids during WoW peakdays and it barely effected lag, AV is 40v40 too and no lag either.
50ish people is just DISGUSTINGLY low and bad for a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

People forget how much fun a massively overcrowded world is and prefer convenience over immersion and fun.

I played WoTLK classic for a bit and let me tell you, Wintergrasp with 120v120 was crazy lagfest. Insane even. That's what you would be facing out in the world if there was no sharding.

Doing Forbidden Reach with 2 full raid groups on each boss, I lag a bit with all the effects going off, and thats 80ish people only.

They need to work on the tech to make things layer behind the scenes for the math programming and let us see other players.

I agree though, not seeing people is a bit much.

Yesterday, logged out one alt into another and I was in a different shard and couldn't use the guild chest I had put down as it wasn't in the new shard...

I hate the sharding that happens. I honestly never see people from my faction/server outside big cities.

[Utrrabbit]

All this talk about lag after 100 players... I was participating in 100+ player RP-PvP campaigns on Moon Guard a decade ago. Didn't experience lag.




I attend 100+ player events today and still no lag.

Big difference between 100 players like this and the 300v300 that the OP is claiming back during wrath.

[Flaks]

The whole bs argument of "but we NEED sharding because of server overload" goes straight out the window when people realize that servers getting overloaded happens IN SPITE of sharding and generally due to RAPID player count increases to a specific shard.

The way it is right now, playing my mage, paladin and rogue all on the same low pop server, I never ever meet the same players I would on each character in the exact same place at the exact same time because of the bullshit sharding in this game. It really is the worst implemented in thing in this game and immensely immersion breaking.

I disagree with the premise of "we should just have one big mega server" that OP is proposing though. There clearly IS a limit to server loads with massive amounts of players in each zone.

Sharding has a place. The implementation is utterly atrocious.

[Tech614]

Not quite.

Trading, Crafting, AH, and Guilds are still very much realm-bound, and have a pretty significant impact on the way a player engages with the game. Especially in DF, where crafting/trading has become more important than ever.

Guilds are irrelevant, AH is not realm bound for almost everything that is important and I actually have an alt on a dead realm that had no issues finding people to craft(literally whispered within 1 min anytime I asked in trade) so I hardly think it's that large of an issue outside of raiding. Trading dungeon or raid loot is not realm bound so again why would I give a shit I can't even remember the last time I traded something that wasn't loot in an instance.

So why you are trying to take the ultra literal stance, none of this shit matters like the mythic raid lockout and realm restrictions before hall of fame is full.

Like sure they can make all that other shit cross realm but at the end of the day the only thing that matters, that is drastically held back by realm limitations is finding 19 other motherfuckers to raid with. None of this ticky tack nit pick shit is even in the same realm of relevance.