Alternate Option To Sharding

[Nootz]

Alexensual suggested a great way to have a Classic launch without Sharding

Let's say the server is Archimonde, there will be 10 Archimonde servers named Archimonde 1 through to 10

All of these servers will be merged into one Archimonde server after the initial launch when the playerbase has stabilised and the number of players is consistent after let's say 1-2 weeks

So initially there will only be one tenth of the population of the total realm at launch not to have too much traffic in leveling zones and still keeping the community alive and seeing the same players around without them phasing out

It doesn't necessarily have to be 10 versions of a server it could be any number really just to keep the numbers stable on a server for the levelling experience

This has been the best solution I have heard so far while not having to use Sharding on launch which no doubt blizzard will have to manage the launch in some way or another to reduce player numbers in zones

You, Alexensual, and a lot of other "content creators" need to learn what sharding actually is before jumping on the bandwagon for views/clicks. You described sharding as a solution to sharding.

[Somnium]

I think BFA will be without content at the time of Classic launch and people will simply go "give it a shot" out of boredom and then ditch it once new expac is close to release or new content.

Classic is slated to release sometime close to the release of patch 8.2 or slightly later, maybe before the release of it's accompanying Raid, and before 8.3 in any case, if we expand upon the current timeline and compare to Legion's (which they are following).
Before the end of BFA's first year. It will not be a time without new content.

[Deleted]

You, Alexensual, and a lot of other "content creators" need to learn what sharding actually is before jumping on the bandwagon for views/clicks. You described sharding as a solution to sharding.

1 time merge =/= Jumping around parallel dimensions whenever you group with people that are supposed to be next to you in-game.

It is really not complicated to see the point he makes.

[Nootz]

1 time merge =/= Jumping around parallel dimensions whenever you group with people that are supposed to be next to you in-game.

It is really not complicated to see the point he makes.

Splitting one server into multiple "copies" of the same server = sharding. It is really not complicated to comprehend definitions and spin them to sound good.

[ManiaCCC]

1 time merge =/= Jumping around parallel dimensions whenever you group with people that are supposed to be next to you in-game.

It is really not complicated to see the point he makes.

I am sorry, but advantages of modern sharding far outweigh anything, what this multi-server monstrosity can offer.

Why are people trying so hard to find problems for every solution is beyond me.

[Deleted]

Splitting one server into multiple "copies" of the same server = sharding. It is really not complicated to comprehend definitions and spin them to sound good.

Except those "copies" won't be available for players to phase amongst them once in-game.

You are avoiding the main point here and trying to make this about the technical definition of sharding when it is not.

[Deleted]

Because i dont want a salution, i'd rather hav the servers burn because of overclocking or something, befor sharding.

[ManiaCCC]

Except those "copies" won't be available for players to phase amongst them once in-game.

You are avoiding the main point here and trying to make this about the technical definition of sharding when it is not.

And this is good how?

So If I join later and server of my friends is full, I am out of luck or what? Have to spend time in queue? Are you people really that stupid?

[huth]

Keep in mind there's more than one type of sharding. There's splitting for overload, which is what we're talking about here for Classic, and Cross-Realm Zone sharding like you see in live for less-than-full zones. My understanding is that they'll do the first type to avoid server crashes, but not the second type.

CRZ isn't sharding. It's the opposite, combining multiple servers into a single one when population is to low.

- - - Updated - - -

Except those "copies" won't be available for players to phase amongst them once in-game.

You are avoiding the main point here and trying to make this about the technical definition of sharding when it is not.

Which isn't actually half as big a problem as you try to make it.

[ablib]

No idea who Alexensual is, so I thought I Google it. And yep...a streamer.

See folks, this is why Twitch and streamers rots your brains. They're nothing but morons. Yet millions of people waste their lives away watching these idiots who's only purpose in life is to try to milk moron gamers out of money, because they're too lazy to actually go out an make something of their lives.

Manual sharding...lol.

[NMX-]

sharding > whatever you wrote

[Warning]

This is a worse version of sharding where you get 10 servers with a population of like 350 each which totally sucks if you're a fast leveler because you'll be entirely alone at max level until the servers merge. It'll also be much harder to make dungeon groups while leveling up. Lastly, there's a solid chance you can't play with your friends at all because you rolled on Kael'thas 1 which had its 350 spots fill up before your friends got online. Dumb idea by an extremely dumb streamer who should leave development to the pro's.

[Nellyel]

Well that's completely untrue.

Classic isn't going to have anywhere near the same sub levels as Vanilla (obviously, hell BFA only has half the subs), and not having sharding didn't make the TBC launch unplayable, in fact that was arguably the best expansion launch due to the amount of people rushing into the first zone.

You do realize vanilla started of with 1.5 mill subs... it didint start with 10mill...

[caervek]

Vanilla also didn't launch all at once, but had people slowly joining in and new servers being opened constantly. Despite that, it was still a complete mess.

You do realize vanilla started of with 1.5 mill subs... it didint start with 10mill...

1: Classic isn't based on 1.0 it's based on 1.12

2: If the system can cope fine with 8m+ players across the servers bursting into Hellfire Peninsula then it can cope fine with a couple of million across the servers bursting into two different start zones. Classic isn't going to have the launch day issues Vanilla did, because no launch since has, the servers aren't running on 15 year old Xeons with SD-RAM just for authenticity :P

[Lucarocks92]

1: Classic isn't based on 1.0 it's based on 1.12

2: If the system can cope fine with 8m+ players across the servers bursting into Hellfire Peninsula then it can cope fine with a couple of million across the servers bursting into two different start zones. Classic isn't going to have the launch day issues Vanilla did, because no launch since has, the servers aren't running on 15 year old Xeons with SD-RAM just for authenticity :P

You forgot the problem of having thousands of players trying to complete the same quests all at once

It won't be possible to quest on launch with some form of separation and the lag would be quite high I imagine on top of it

Blizzard have no choice but to find a way to separate the players

[Az0na]

There 2 sollutions only. Either accept sharding at start, or expect queues of 3 hours, pick and chose.

[Aeula]

Or you could have sharding, which does the same thing without forcing name changes or requiring extra server blades, money and effort.

[Taurous]

This also wouldnt work because theres no way to control which realm players go to. We could end up with 90% of players on Archimonde 10, making this useless.

[Armourboy]

1: Classic isn't based on 1.0 it's based on 1.12

2: If the system can cope fine with 8m+ players across the servers bursting into Hellfire Peninsula then it can cope fine with a couple of million across the servers bursting into two different start zones. Classic isn't going to have the launch day issues Vanilla did, because no launch since has, the servers aren't running on 15 year old Xeons with SD-RAM just for authenticity :P

Except the system didn't cope fine with 8 million players bursting into HFP. I'm not sure what kind of server you were on, but Shattered Hand stayed down as much as it was up that first week or two. It was a freaking nightmare.

[oplawlz]

I like the idea more that sharding, but...
Merging servers after a few weeks breaks the initial realm community.
You go from having names of players that you know, to a server full of anonymous players again.
And it will take time to rebuild the community.
This isn't the vanilla experience.

That's not really true though - new players join the game all the time.