Alternate Option To Sharding

[Lightforged]

Server culture matters. That is one of the most important things people are advocating for with Classic.

Let's say the high amount of tourists flooding the game lasts for a month.

SameNameServer 1-5 are each going to develop their own culture. Once they get merged, those unique cultures will be irrevocably altered, especially for those SameNameServers with the lower populations.

How do I know this? Because I experienced it when Blizzard connected the server my characters were on to another one. The entire culture of the server changed. Not for the worse, necessarily. It was just, different.

Sharding is not ideal but I definitely prefer it to suddenly having thousands of people whom I do not know, and have no relationship with, join my server

But Lightforged, we could just create SameNameServer 1-5 but link their chats and auction houses. We could even allow players to group up together! Then there will be one shared culture on the server! My response would be, congrats, you just created a more complicated version of Sharding that also breaks the Design Goal of not allowing cross-server play. It also runs the risk of two servers gaining populations that are large enough to not be able to be merged together, which means you are stuck with SameServerName 1 and SameServerName 2 forever more (good luck trying to change one of the server's names. It will cause a massive backlash).

We don't know how popular Classic will be; what the population of tourists will be compared to the long term player population; we do not know how high or low the population caps will be; we do not know how many people Blizzard intends to be on the server at peak hours. Point is, we have very little hard data to go off of. What we do know is that Blizzard believes the number of tourists coming to Classic WILL be large enough that it will ruin the experience, both for the tourists and the long term players, which is why they want to use Sharding. There are lots of other solutions to the tourist problem but they are just as fraught with other problems as Sharding, while also being more complex and less friendly to long term players and tourists.

I do not want sharding but it is the least bad solution to the Tourist Problem, IMO.

[Holtzmann]

There are lots of other solutions to the tourist problem but they are just as fraught with other problems as Sharding, while also being more complex and less friendly to long term players and tourists.

In addition, sharding is the only one of those solutions that's both temporary and reversible.

Merging servers is extremely disruptive to the community, economy (a lot of people don't pay attention to that!) and the culture of all the servers involved. Just connecting two servers is enough of an issue to be jarring, connecting/merging multiple servers at once is even more so. That's not even considering the technical issues involving in making sure character and guild names are unique through all those otherwise unconnected servers, which is not a solution Blizzard never had to develop.

Sharding, on the other hand, can be activated on release and deactivated over a single maintenance period. Maybe even on-the-fly, although I doubt they'd risk doing that. It's the safest and least disruptive solution: what you get out of it is essentially a mega-server where everybody can interact together, which is what people playing in private servers have been enjoying for a long time now.

[Chaelexi]

It is the sharding, just manual. I don't think that it's a good option. They should turn on queues instead of sharding. It's the only viable solution.

Queue's are a horrible option. Because not playing a game is better than playing a game. Queue's will just push people to quit the game. This is not the mid 2000's when people are willing to wait to play a game because to get another game you had to go to the store and buy it. This is 2018 where if you can not play one game you load up Steam, Battle.net, or one of the 10 other platforms and grab a free game and play that and forget about the other game. Sorry but you are horribly wrong.

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Better than sharding.

Se my lost post. Not playing the game in 2018 leads to not having a player base. Sharding is the best option for server population, stability and end user experience. Prove me wrong.....PS you can't.

[Vynestra]

what is the big deal if sharding is only for the first few weeks concentrated in only the most popular areas?

I don't get it.

[Chaelexi]

And ironically the same applies to the "omg literally UNPLAYABLE, we needz sharding omg" crowd too.

You're so scared of a little competition you want a fundamental change made to the game.

Actually it is the knowledge of how poor severs without sharding have been during a launch vs how servers play with sharding. It is not ignorance at all, it is taking what you have experienced in the past, mixing it with a health knowledge of how the technology works and learning from past experiences that leads a logical person to see that sharding is the option that has the best end outcome.

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Thing is you keep saying "little"
IT IS NOT GOING TO BE LITTLE IT WILL BE MASSIVE
if there is 6000 people on that will be 1000 people per starting zone
even if its only 3000 which would kill servers in the long run that is still 500 people per starting zone, 100x more then what they are made for.


you are literally making up nonsense of "it is just a little issue" no
you seriously have so little hope for classic if you think so few people will play it, there is going to be INSANE AMOUNTS of people playing it.

I would put money that it will be closer to 10000+ server caps and there may not be logon caps at all but they may put character creation caps on some servers that are incremented up daily(that is even a tough one the think about). Sharding is implemented to remove the need for queues.

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And that's why "let in" people in portions will be in this sense (in long run, in the sense of filling servers) much healthier than shards, that will “encourage” (but actually allow impatient ones) choice of already populated servers, which can ultimately lead to uneven of servers' filling and inevitability of their merging. Shards will eventually beget even more demand for shards (such situation will arise that "without them it becomes impossible to live, even after launching"; in fact, this way it happened on live with all "newfangled bells and whistles").

As already mentioned, demo situation was different.

What is suggested in 1st post isn't good solution either. Problem of all discussions is that we still have no idea about what amount will company choose for most possible server's population. Will it be “hard” figure (ie, server's online after all perturbations will let in no more than 5k accounts simultaneously, and keep rest in queue) or, as on current version, it will be a stretching value. It's worth to bring it to people in large bright letters, so that even most stupid could take a glossary and read about what'll waiting them, in order to “try” to make a right choice.

You're discussing only very hypothetical things without having this data

Still wrong Alk, if you let people in in portions you are only going to push people away from playing the game. This is 2018 where there are literally 100,00's of games released and over 1,000 triple AAA titles released every year. If people cannot get access when they want to you are only going to lose that person as a player. And that is a lose lose situation for both Blizzard and the classic player base. Everything you want to do will only lead to a smaller player base in Classic. You have yet to present an idea that works at a corporate level, a player base level and a server hardware efficiency level. I will put money on it that there are no queues because queues lead to people not playing a game and people not playing a game means they are playing something else.

[Alkizon]

Chaelexi
Still wrong Alk, if you let people in in portions you are only going to push people away from playing the game.

And this is still as always just only your opinion

If they so want to play all these 100.000 games, then what keeps them up? Why are they like crazy asking Classic? And if they want Classic, then they will wait a couple of days/week... have been waiting dozen of years. In order for game to be successful, a correct start-up is required, and in no case shall they hurry with it, I hope everyone will agree about this. They missed this opportunity for actual game at the time and got a lot of unbalanced and unipolar servers, there is a high probability that by doing “your way” they will repeat it. Either everyone tolerates and servers will be normal, or everyone will have to pay for it later... or you suggest that everyone should succumb to "go-go" mentality and instantly succumb (and therefore inherit) to all retail's sins?

By the way you repeat here with wrong judgments, so let me repeat with laughter over it:

ps. The most funny part in your message is mention of people who will go to play MOBA's and etc. As far as I know, those who love Classic are characterized by sufficient patience. And those who "will go to play MOBA's" may not worry much and just stay there.

Yes, I'm not an engineer, I'm weak in telecommunications system, OK. Well, man, I'm sorry, but you, my dear, absolutely don't understand psychology, and you're very weak in analogies. Maybe this offense or anger that "closes" your eyes... don't know But most of your recent statements have weak argumentation base.

And one more time, I repeat:

This shouldn't bother you, moreover, it (my version) will be guarantee to a smooth and uniform servers' filling.

- you're trying to get into something that shouldn't concern you in any way. The only thing that should worry you is how not to overdo it Take care of your health!

ps. 10000+ server caps in Сlassic (for 1 realm)? Dude! Now I need popcorn. Is it for playing simultaneously? No? And what will they do after, if this crowd won't subside? Continue with sharding? So I was right after all? Maybe people don't need realms at all, let's all play shards!
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As I heard, Korean games at least has not automatic shards (channels) and choice still belongs to players, but Blizzard is always at watch of "lack of initiative"!

<<BACK|FORWARD>>

[voidillusion]

ps. 10000+ server caps in Сlassic? Dude! Now I need popcorn. Is it for playing simultaneously? No? And what will they do after, if this crowd won't subside? Continue with sharding? So I was right after all? Maybe people don't need realms at all, let's all play shards!

If you recently had 10k+ simultaneous players on 1 realm launch in a pserver why is the idea so strange that the same same may and will happen in official realms?

[Alexeht]

How it would be better from allowing sharding for first 2 weeks after release?

[Hobbes0773]

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

Oh so instead of dynamically creating new shards you just hardcode the number of shards to be 10 for a set period of time. And therefore preventing anyone from talking in chat to each other from the servers. A hardcoded number...for a number they can't predict.

This is literally sharding with more restrictions and holes in it, with no benefits to it. The only reason anyone would like this over sharding is if they have just boogeymanned the word "sharding" and want to avoid it regardless of context.

[Alkizon]

If you recently had 10k+ simultaneous players on 1 realm launch in a pserver why is the idea so strange that the same same may and will happen in official realms?

I didn't. Never heard or spoke. Or we're talking about "that" server? But I have never played there. Moreover, I'm sure that such number of people there could cause some complications. Can someone tell me how cool it was? Didn't it seem like a bit... too much? People claimed here that average classic server was something around 3k. Even if cap is 2 times larger, then this is already a little overpopulation, but we're talking about more then x3.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with private servers, it's difficult for me to judge what happened or is happening there. Need more context.

[voidillusion]

I didn't. Never heard or spoke. Or we're talking about "that" server? But I have never played there. Moreover, I'm sure that such number of people there could cause some complications. Can someone tell me how cool it was? Didn't it seem like a bit... too much? People claimed here that average classic server was something around 3k. Even if cap is 2 times larger, then this is already a little overpopulation, but we're talking about more then x3.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with private servers, it's difficult for me to judge what happened or is happening there. Need more context.

It's a bit too much for my taste yes. Without sharding the first couple of days were just impossible to play, for my taste, and the mid lvl areas like STV in the first couple of weeks felt like i was in AV, its fun the first 10 times you die, after that you just want to get on with your quest, but i digress, to the point, 10 to 12k which was the max it hit if my memory doesnt fail me feels too much, too damn much, a reasonable cap in my view would be something around 7k.

[Alkizon]

It's a bit too much for my taste yes. Without sharding the first couple of days were just impossible to play, for my taste, and the mid lvl areas like STV in the first couple of weeks felt like i was in AV, its fun the first 10 times you die, after that you just want to get on with your quest, but i digress, to the point, 10 to 12k which was the max it hit if my memory doesnt fail me feels too much, too damn much, a reasonable cap in my view would be something around 7k.

The fact is that my version allows them to stop at level at which they want, but at the same time none of existing realms will be “under populated” (they all will be approximately under same bar, since people will be forced to settle evenly), but shards exclude it. Is this clearer?

It can (and should) be done only at servers start, because later it will be difficult to do (if not impossible; look at what is happening on retail... and how is it? Is it normal? and imagine Blizzard will get in with own so “useful changing services” but naturally they are not going to do anything, as my opponent said earlier:

Also still blizzard does not care

it's true, they have shards, CRZ and other disgrace).

<<BACK|FORWARD>>

[huth]

I can respect that, but I guess instead of being one of the fifty people waiting for that closet to respawn for the dreamcatcher I'm quite happy off grinding owls or cats (to give a night elf example) and levelling my cooking or even fishing while (ultimately) levelling even faster than the people waiting. I wouldn't call it unpleasant.

And then you come back to another 50 people waiting. So you gained nothing from it.

Sharding won't affect the community anyway. It wasn't the way it was in Vanilla because people randomly ran into each other, it was because they had to form groups to achieve anything, which was mostly done through zone chat. And guess what isn't affected by sharding.

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The fact is that my version allows them to stop at level at which they want, but at the same time none of existing realms will be “under populated” (they all will be approximately under same bar, since people will be forced to settle evenly), but shards exclude it. Is this clearer?

No, because they can just do the exact same thing with sharding and have it happen automatically based on current need.

[Alkizon]

No, because they can just do the exact same thing with sharding and have it happen automatically based on current need.

If they put limits, than they won't need shards, but if they use shards, than they won't need limits Who's next?

[AeneasBK]

Actually it is the knowledge of how poor severs without sharding have been during a launch vs how servers play with sharding. It is not ignorance at all, it is taking what you have experienced in the past, mixing it with a health knowledge of how the technology works and learning from past experiences that leads a logical person to see that sharding is the option that has the best end outcome.

You follow up this comment with admitting immediately you have do'nt know how big or populated the servers are going to be. And forgive us for caring more about the game experience (with all its quirks) than ideas that work at "corporate level".

In fact if the Acti-Blizzard shareholders in the thread could try and look at this from the players perspective instead of using their status as a bludgeon to say "This is a bad idea because they might not make the most money" that'd be great. Making changes to try and make the most money is why retail exists.

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And then you come back to another 50 people waiting. So you gained nothing from it.

Well I'm a higher level than them. (?)

[Chaelexi]

You follow up this comment with admitting immediately you have do'nt know how big or populated the servers are going to be. And forgive us for caring more about the game experience (with all its quirks) than ideas that work at "corporate level".

In fact if the Acti-Blizzard shareholders in the thread could try and look at this from the players perspective instead of using their status as a bludgeon to say "This is a bad idea because they might not make the most money" that'd be great. Making changes to try and make the most money is why retail exists.

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Well I'm a higher level than them. (?)

You realize a game being successful and having a larger player base is only good for the end user right. So launching with queue's, unbearable lag, impossibility of actually getting a tag on a mob to complete the first quests that open up the rest of the quests, server instability, etc sounds better than a stable, environment where you can play the game, progress at a natural rate and still have player interaction....... Either you are highly illogical or missing a chromosome. It comes down to actually getting to play the game vs not playing the game for the first couple weeks for many players. And this will have many players giving up on the game and moving on to the next thing........Does that sound like a logical idea????? (guess what the only answer is no)

[AeneasBK]

And this will have many players giving up on the game and moving on to the next thing........Does that sound like a logical idea????? (guess what the only answer is no)

You start off this paragraph with a completely false premise that "more players" can only = "better for players". If a bit of lag or a play queue is enough to switch someone off Classic then it's just saving everyone a lot of time and hassle and they were never gonna sub for more than a month anyway. Making design changes for the purposes of catering to these people is counter productive to the people this game was aimed at. Anyone who's been bleating for classic for 10+ years is not going to be put off, and if the ones who are don't pick it up again in 30 days of subscription, hardly likely they were that interested in it in the first place.

Sorry, the "cater to the most possible people" would be a shit way of running Classic. The devs have to have the balls to say "This is the game, enjoy it, or don't." All the little shitty changes they've done over the years is what put us here in the first place.

But oh noes, muh shareholders.

[Alkizon]

You start off this paragraph with a completely false premise that "more players" can only = "better for players". If a bit of lag or a play queue is enough to switch someone off Classic then it's just saving everyone a lot of time and hassle and they were never gonna sub for more than a month anyway. Making design changes for the purposes of catering to these people is counter productive to the people this game was aimed at. Anyone who's been bleating for classic for 10+ years is not going to be put off, and if the ones who are don't pick it up again in 30 days of subscription, hardly likely they were that interested in it in the first place.

Sorry, the "cater to the most possible people" would be a shit way of running Classic. The devs have to have the balls to say "This is the game, enjoy it, or don't." All the little shitty changes they've done over the years is what put us here in the first place.

But oh noes, muh shareholders.

I have already repeated it 3 times, it's useless. He doesn't understand, don't trouble yourself

See, told you :

Yay you are

Okay, let's play this card: imagine that they suddenly decided to do something similar to what I offered and it won't work, but don't you think that you'll have such a good opportunity to say "But I told you so!" You love it so much, why lose such a moment? So, how's that? Would be such burst to your self-conceit.

Yet I have called most things before they have happened.......You sound like the one who is not understanding things.

You didn't. Nothing of what you said was confirmed in any way and I already explained this to you (twice). What else would you say?

ps. I see that you haven't reviewed your strategy about "not interfering with offtopiсs".
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If they put limits people will be stuck not playing, if they put shards then everyone plays......hmmmm there seems to be a logical choice and an illogical fanatical choice here........ You Chose.

You don't know this. You were explained "why" and that "it's just your opinion" more than twice. Do you think that I'm going to make it one more time? No of course. Stay with your opinion if this is really one and not just stupid stubbornness. I don't mind, why waste time

Lets list things that I called
You mean that there would be sharding, ̶C̶h̶e̶c̶k̶
There are no shards yet, they are talked about them, but they haven't yet decided finally, otherwise we would have nothing to discuss now (although when we were arguing (we were arguing more about semantics) you didn’t say quite that, but anyway)
that it is launching using the new client, ̶C̶h̶e̶c̶k̶
I explained to you a long time ago about what I understand by client, you claimed that it would be literally the whole "client" and by the way, we still haven't seen final result, and every day it less and less looks like a "new client"
would be build it on the New Data Base, ̶C̶h̶e̶c̶k̶
Same as with client, I said that "there will be no new whole database", but only its shell with actually old content, which means that "data" base is formally old
it would have color blind, true wide screen support and updated textures, ̶C̶h̶e̶c̶k̶
You could go back to old Textures, ̶C̶h̶e̶c̶k̶
We discussed models (at least with me), not textures and let's see... somehow I don’t see toggles yet, right? Although again, we haven't yet seen the result, so I won't going to do same mistake as you with overconfidence.

- fixed.
By the way:

(I repeat, I didn't say how it will be, just how it should be done according to rules - already answered)

Good luck and I repeat, take care of your health, rage is a killer.

[Chaelexi]

And this is still as always just only your opinion

If they so want to play all these 100.000 games, then what keeps them up? Why are they like crazy asking Classic? And if they want Classic, then they will wait a couple of days/week... have been waiting dozen of years. In order for game to be successful, a correct start-up is required, and in no case shall they hurry with it, I hope everyone will agree about this. They missed this opportunity for actual game at the time and got a lot of unbalanced and unipolar servers, there is a high probability that by doing “your way” they will repeat it. Either everyone tolerates and servers will be normal, or everyone will have to pay for it later... or you suggest that everyone should succumb to "go-go" mentality and instantly succumb (and therefore inherit) to all retail's sins?

Yay you are talking about a select section of the player base of classic. But that player base will not fill the servers and keep them active consistently. You have to look at it as a whole player base and realize that the small portion that wants classic to be vanilla in every single way are going to have to make concessions as launching classic with absolutely no changes would not be a successful endeavor as there will be player bleed that would lead to empty servers and a dead game. But I have proven this to you in the past and you put your blinders on and provide poorly laid out ideas that would only lead to a smaller unstable player base..........Yup same old Alk...........I repeat again it is not the people who "love Vanilla" that will make the game successful it is the people who have interest in it(the larger player base) that will make it successful. The group who Love Vanilla are the ones who will bring these other people in be it streamers, friends, youtubers, family and the end game guilds. It is the same as current WoW it is the casual player base that makes WoW successful but the high end players are the ones that drive the interest. The mythic raiders, Gladiators, M+ streamers, etc that bring the casuals in. And it is the same story for many players I started playing in .... expansion, I raided a bit but nothing serious in that exansion. Next Xpac I found a guild early and raided some early Mythic got some progression and now am hooked and need that Mythic clear.

Classic will hear the same story.....I played in vanilla but did not raid everything and want to experience it........Where as I already have done almost everything classic has to offer(only thing I missed was Grand Marshal stopped at Field Marshal)

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I have already repeated it 3 times, it's useless. He doesn't understand, don't trouble yourself

See, told you :Okay, let's play this card: imagine that they suddenly decided to do something similar to what I offered and it won't work, but don't you think that you'll have such a good opportunity to say "But I told you so!" You love it so much, why lose such a moment? So, how's that?

Yet I have called most things before they have happened.......You sound like the one who is not understanding things.

[Shisui-kun]

Well I'm a higher level than them. (?)

Oh, you ment the grinding that you wanted to do and get ahead while leveling professions? Probably the same idea that another 1000 have? Good luck with that. If any previous QQ you did in the past is an indication, if sharding isn't implemented, you will cry for it after a couple of days tops and realize you wanted it after all. Your grinding spots and questing spots will be busy and you won't get ahead unless you don't care about professions and just mindlessly level for a good 48 hours straight to get ahead of the curve and keep going afterwards. Your image of how things will be without sharding are skewed into your own idealistic bubble that doesn't even come close to reality.

Even with dynamic respawns after a week or so on pirate servers, everything was loaded. Let alone with 3 minute respawns (Truly Vanilla like), you won't even get a tag anywhere because the most valuable resource at that point isn't gold or gear, but it is experience and time (xp/minute) if you want to get anything accomplished at all during the first couple of weeks, thus also being the most contested and sought after. If even pirate servers come with solutions, why shouldn't Blizzard with an even better one? You will still be contested, but at least you can play during the first month instead of watching mob respawn simulator with a 3 minute timer.

I started playing during TBC, and the world was a very different place to what I'd remembered. I won't list all the questions, but as some were on a "who are these blue elves and why have the proper elves joined the horde?" I could see I had some catch up.

Old citation by yours dearly. Also, you never had to wait for Vanilla for 10+ years since you started in TBC, not knowing what the game was prior to that. How do you even know how the launch went if you were never there? How do you even know the Veterans that have been asking for it since TBC wouldn't want the proposed sharding as a good middle way solution? Don't use pirate servers with dynamic respawns or natural spreading as an option because the dynamics are way different than back then.