Debate about the population cap: what's the ideal situation?

[Deleted]

First things first, here's a poll I made (quite a simple one obviously) to know what the community's thoughts are about the future population numbers on classic realms: http://www.strawpoll.me/14814395

Now, Here's my personal opinion: I think that anything lower than 3000 and higher than 6000 is actually a mistake nowadays. On one hand, if your server's not populated enough, you're going to have a hard time enjoying every aspect of the game (mostly pvp and world pvp, but potentially high end pve too). However, if your server's completely full of people (nostalrius-like, with 11 000-12 000 people online all the time) then...yeah, things actually become unplayable.

So what do you guys think? What is the ideal number when it comes to population cap, and why do you think that is?

/discuss

[JCD000]

When Nost had 1900-2500 downtime to 5000-6000 uptime it was the best, high enough pop but not overwhelming. I think 2500-4000 would be about perfect.

[Khallid]

I don't have any way of qualifying the issues based on population from my own experience. You would need a lot of objective information about all the realms, not just people's random opinion.

I've played in 4 different servers and I can only say PvP servers suck if you're on the minority faction. What population size is good for a server I have no clue.

[Deleted]

I don't have any way of qualifying the issues based on population from my own experience. You would need a lot of objective information about all the realms, not just people's random opinion.

I've played in 4 different servers and I can only say PvP servers suck if you're on the minority faction. What population size is good for a server I have no clue.

Well, at least on Nostalrius and Elysium, both factions were relatively equal numbers-wise. Alliance was great in premades thanks to the opness of paladins as a support class, while horde was great in unorganized pvp and world pvp.

[Tehterokkar]

TBC private servers can handle 11-12k people at once. And that is with some really scuffed non-official means of running a server.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard has the resources to make a server be able to hold up-to 15k people at once. Especially after they re-make the client and everything else around it.

But even 10k seems chaotic, on launch day, considering 8 races, 1250 people in each zone(assuming equal distribution of races, which it won't be).

I think honestly the absolute best solution would be to use sharding technology for the first week or two on the starting zones(the 1-10 and 10-20 zones of each race).

It would solve so much headache for both players and Blizzard, and servers would be stable. You don't want to wander around for 1hr completing a single quest because respawns suck and there are 100 other people around you(that is not vanilla, that is just overpopulation).

10k people after a month can be fit into a server easily because of how the population is spread across all zones, and of course, a huge chunk of those will be in instances(Dungeons, Raids, Battlegrounds).

[HuxNeva]

Nearly everyone on both sides of the classic debate seems to agree that there will be an initial huge spikes of interest in Classic, with significantly less but healty longterm players. Let's say the launch day interest is 10 million, and twelve months in this has dwindled to around 2 million. How will you do this in the 'old' way without sharding/CR etc.? 10 million with a server cap of 10.000 still would mean a 1.000 realms. Pretty soon you'll be facing 'dead realms' with 'voluntary free migration' followed by server mergers every two months. A more modern approach with 50.000 pop and sharding seems more likely.

[Nomads]

Nearly everyone on both sides of the classic debate seems to agree that there will be an initial huge spikes of interest in Classic, with significantly less but healty longterm players. Let's say the launch day interest is 10 million, and twelve months in this has dwindled to around 2 million. How will you do this in the 'old' way without sharding/CR etc.? 10 million with a server cap of 10.000 still would mean a 1.000 realms. Pretty soon you'll be facing 'dead realms' with 'voluntary free migration' followed by server mergers every two months. A more modern approach with 50.000 pop and sharding seems more likely.

This is my biggest question about Classic as well. Anyone with any ounce of foresight knows this will be the case. So how is Blizzard planning to address it? I hope to see some answers about this once more info gets released.

[Mushkins]

Ideal would be 10000. It doesn't bother me too much that the first 1 or 2 days, until population is spread across the world, starting zones will be overcrowded. In one month or so after launch there will be healthy 5000.

[FelPlague]

here is the thing
the launch population and the later population is a big problem
not because of what you think
but if they have for example 10k people on a server at launch, then well you have 10k people split over only like what 10 zones?
but if you have 10k people a few months later, once you have alot of 60s alot of levelers, alot of farmers, you then split 10k people over all zones and instances.


even 1000 people at launch, when everyone is literally starting their first toon, compared to 1000 once everyone is capped will be hell.
it will be IMPOSSIBLE to level for the first week, as every single mob spawn will be farmed. The only ones who will split free will be groups killing mobs as 5 mans in second zone

[Deleted]

Sharding. Sharding is definitely the way to go.

Think everyone agrees that vanilla will see a massive influx on players and a very steep decline after weeks/months.

Sharding can solve the problem of not being able to quest at first and not being able to find ppl for groups later on.

I cant see any other viable solution other then having many realms the first few weeks then start merging them , which also has its downsides

[voidillusion]

From what i've been seing in the last year in a half playing on private servers 4 to 5k is the sweet spot. Specially at the begining when everybody will be after the same mobs and spawns. Played in a 2k server and it felt deserted a lot of times, played in a 9k server and during leveling it's a seriously unpleasent experience at times.

[FelPlague]

From what i've been seing in the last year in a half playing on private servers 4 to 5k is the sweet spot. Specially at the begining when everybody will be after the same mobs and spawns. Played in a 2k server and it felt deserted a lot of times, played in a 9k server and during leveling it's a seriously unpleasent experience at times.

lol "not able to quest at first"
dude, you wont be able to do ANYTHING 99% of mobs will be hardcore farmed

[Flarelaine]

First things first, here's a poll I made (quite a simple one obviously) to know what the community's thoughts are about the future population numbers on classic realms: http://www.strawpoll.me/14814395

Now, Here's my personal opinion: I think that anything lower than 3000 and higher than 6000 is actually a mistake nowadays. On one hand, if your server's not populated enough, you're going to have a hard time enjoying every aspect of the game (mostly pvp and world pvp, but potentially high end pve too). However, if your server's completely full of people (nostalrius-like, with 11 000-12 000 people online all the time) then...yeah, things actually become unplayable.

So what do you guys think? What is the ideal number when it comes to population cap, and why do you think that is?

/discuss

Whatever the hardware can handle... and Blizzard can afford. Beyond performance issues, I cannot think of an argument to lower population limits, whereas high population has practical benefits like better economy and more players around for whatever you want to play, PvE or PvP.

[Echocho]

There's really nothing to discuss. Vanilla had 2500-3500 server caps, so should Classic. #nochanges

[Deleted]

I think 2500-4000 server pop should be fine imo

[Deleted]

Whatever the hardware can handle... and Blizzard can afford. Beyond performance issues, I cannot think of an argument to lower population limits, whereas high population has practical benefits like better economy and more players around for whatever you want to play, PvE or PvP.

If you have never actually played on an overpopulated server then maybe you arent the right person to start talking about it

[Flarelaine]

If you have never actually played on an overpopulated server then maybe you arent the right person to start talking about it

Did you just assume my server history?

How, then, do you define overpopulated?

[MMKing]

Just give us multiple options? I'm sure some people would like to play on 2500 server, while other people would like to play on 10-15k mega servers.

[Deleted]

Did you just assume my server history?

How, then, do you define overpopulated?

If you had actually played on an overpopulated server (without sharding ofc) you would know that it absolutely ruins questing and mob farming.

- - - Updated - - -

Just give us multiple options? I'm sure some people would like to play on 2500 server, while other people would like to play on 10-15k mega servers.

Pretty sure noone wants to level on a 10-15k megaserver if they have a choice

[Wries]

Remember there will be no sharding and no shared tagging of mobs so personally I wouldn't want realm pop to be super high because then it'd be a game of camping spawn points.