How Layering COULD end up destroying the classic experience from the start

[bloomy]

layering is fine, and it's actually an idea that a lot of people threw out but in other forms. people were worried about servers dying when the tourists realize they don't have the will power to even hit 60. an idea to combat that was naming servers like Tichondrius1 and Tichondrius2 etc. and then people would go in knowing that when the server population fell off those servers would be merging. obviously they have better tech these days so they can effectively do the same thing without needing to number them and have them be separate.

They are selling it as a way to help server load, which is true, but in reality it is more of a way to allow the classic tourists to come in and then quit without completely killing servers off. The potential problem with that is that if the player quitting rate is far less than they expect then layering will be around for much longer, also if people come back for p2/p3 etc. they will either need to turn it back on or add a server queue.

for now i will take their word for it, that layering will be gone by p2 and hopefully within the first month, and they better hope they are right, because it will be a shitstorm if layering is ever turned on at any point beyond p1, and that includes the opening of AQ.

[digichi]

Even with layers i foresee a lot of bottlenecks + packed questing areas, w/ ppl grouping and trying to tag mobs before others, etc.. Layers will simply reduce lag/potential server crashes.

[Aeula]

If Blizzard can find a way to sync up mining/herb nodes and rare spawns to prevent layer hopping then I see no issue with layering at all as a short term solution to keep the servers stable on launch.

[Gavll]

This. Layering seems like the lesser of three necessary evils when it comes to Classic launch. With layering you get the consistent exposure to familiar names, avoiding sharding's biggest issue where names pop in and out with no rhyme or reason except that determined by an algorithm, without the crowding and dozens of people waiting on individual spawns that an unleashed release would involve. And once things normalize, it's going away regardless.

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I think the plan is to disable layering across all servers at a given point once the population generally stabilizes, not so much based on users per server. It's just to avoid bottlenecking situations like where 20-30 people are waiting for that boar outside Lakeshire to respawn.

Ok but let's say there's server A, which has 3 layers, each maxed out at launch. And somehow by the end of Phase 1, it still has 2 maxed out layers.

What happens then? Does server A just get 6k players (which isn't Blizzlike) in 1 layer?

[Pancreatin]

Layering to start the realms off will be a good thing. Nothing worse than making a character, log in and there is 200 people trying to do the quests in each starter zone.

You really think its gonana get mutch better later on? When you reach contested zones youl will compete with the other faction too.
You people have become so spoiled with your retail game you cant even imagine competing for mobs or actually changing location or gruping up.
When you will get ganked in to oblivion in stv are you gona cry to blizzard?
I dont think vanilla was made for you.

[Thage]

Ok but let's say there's server A, which has 3 layers, each maxed out at launch. And somehow by the end of Phase 1, it still has 2 maxed out layers.

What happens then? Does server A just get 6k players (which isn't Blizzlike) in 1 layer?

Yes. They've mentioned that server sizes will be bigger because they use the new server infrastructure.

[Trend]

[SIZE=2]Please tell me i'm full of shit and completely off, and that i can also just hype along, because i really want to, but this is just a thorn in my eye i can't ignore and it makes me worried that classic might do less well because of this. (Also, please note i appreciate the classic teams clear passion a lot, and i wanna see them succeed, which is why i made this post to raise potential issues that could get adressed while there is still enough time)

I don't see that you ever touched on the real issue. They have 3 options and they have to pick the best of the 3:

#1. They can initially over-populate realms and every player will have terrible experiences. If there are too many people in your starting zone(s) there is nothing about community or authenticity or any of that bullshit that will make it be ok for it to be unplayable.

#2. They create a whole bunch of realms because they want people to be able to play the game and do so without layering. Because if people come to play Classic but they can't because servers are crashing and/or it takes 2 hours to kill each boar because there is such a mass of people trying to get taps it will be a shitstorm and a PR nightmare. Then in a few months you'll end up with a majority of servers being vastly under-populated because it is inevitable that a lot of the people who start will not continue.

#3. They can use layering.

Not sure if you are arguing for #1 or #2, but either way I disagree.

[Martymark]

You have two options:

1. Deal with sharding for 1 month to ensure a stable launch until the active player count forms the normal sinusoidal curve
2. Have a shit launch with lots of lag.

2 would give the true Classic experience.

[Trend]

2 would give the true Classic experience.

Except it doesn't. In 2004 the bulk of people were not chomping at the bit day 1 and subs gradually shot up with new players having to select realms that weren't full which distributed the population over time. This time around there will be a mass of people not even totally serious about playing Classic who just want to check it out day 1. It would be impossible to create the original experience.

[ssviolett]

That sounds kinda catastrophic.
If layering is active in maxlevel zones for 3 bloody weeks that leaves 2 weeks where the cutting edge players can abuse shardhopping while mining/herbing. It will heavily influence the prices of black lotuses and so on.

Well, that's what we've asked for - difficult vanilla, difficult wow

[Wries]

I rember how people like you were saying classic will never happen and how it is waste of resources. Well here we are playing beta test of classic. Literaly every single thing what anti classic crow said never happend and was never right.

Oh god what a stupid response. I'm cringing. Read what you quote next time and don't waste my time.

And I'm sure some of the salty spitoons will try to throw a negative spin on it like "Stupid Blizzard not being prepared by giving us enough realms!"

That'd be QUITE a silly spin, so no. Though I don't think realm splits would be very fun either, it would for sure beat the former.

[cparle87]

Oh god what a stupid response. I'm cringing. Read what you quote next time and don't waste my time.



That'd be QUITE a silly spin, so no. Though I don't think realm splits would be very fun either, it would for sure beat the former.

If I've learned anything about the WoW community is that they can find a way to twist anything to be negative. Do X they'll find something to whine about. Do Y which is the polar opposite of X they'll find something. Do Z which is right in the middle between X and Y, you guessed it.

[plagueshard801]

I would have preferred to see dynamic respawn rates for the first couple weeks instead of the current plan.

[Sezh]

Are you sure about that? maybe it will be 98.9% ?
We have people that can predict the future here lol.

When I asked my soothsayer she said 99,0% for sure.

[dwarven]

“We’re going to recreate the vanilla experience exactly as it was, except we’re adding this tech that will make it completely different”

Ion Hazzikostas everyone.

[willemh]

Add-ons that allow you to swich between layers at will with 1 button press will ruin a lot if they get developed. And I don't see how they can be stopped as long as you'll be able to switch between layers when grouping.

[Gsara]

You really think its gonana get mutch better later on? When you reach contested zones youl will compete with the other faction too.
You people have become so spoiled with your retail game you cant even imagine competing for mobs or actually changing location or gruping up.
When you will get ganked in to oblivion in stv are you gona cry to blizzard?
I dont think vanilla was made for you.

I could care less about retail, havent seriously played it in a while. Its not gonna be as bad as private servers for sure but I can see why they are doing layering. Competing for mobs is fine, waiting 5 minutes for repops is annoying which is why I dont mind layering to start off the servers.

[FelPlague]

I'm not looking foward to making alts and inviting my main until I get a gankfree STV pocket of space to quest in. People rushing to 60 getting their guildies to invite them to get multiple black lotus spots will also be extremely unfair.

layering will only be in the low level areas, it will effect none of the areas black lotus spawns in, and also i doubt straglethorn vale since its high enough

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I think people don't understand that layering is sharding. Blizzard is just calling it something other than sharding because sharding has a bad name.

PR spin.

no, layering is far less intrusive then sharding.

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I'll take the lag even if it crawls up my ass thank you very much

so why dont you just not play for a month, and sharding wont effect you?

[Jtbrig7390]

“We’re going to recreate the vanilla experience exactly as it was, except we’re adding this tech that will make it completely different”

Ion Hazzikostas everyone.

Are you going to be playing using a P1 Computer running Windows 95 with Dial Up as your internet? If not then you are using tech that makes it completely different to play.

[FelPlague]

Can't help but feel like a lot of people would jump ship before the Classic journey even begins if they'd to wait for hours on end in the queue or wait as 100th in the row to loot some random quest item in the starting area. Obviously 'layering' could and probably will be exploited by some hardcore players, still I also believe that this is a necessary evil we'll have to deal with. It's still some time until the actual launch, so who's to say there won't be any more changes to this idea.
I'm all for it that they remove it ASAP after launch, but not having it at all seems like a dangerous precedent for an unstable player base, in my opinion.

So far we definitely can't criticise Blizzard for not putting in the effort and trying their best in reviving Classic in a way that appeals to MOST players.

it will only be in the over populated starting zones.

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will have an impact on black lotus economy, probably huge impact depending on if there are 3,4,5 layers per realm

except layering will not be on in the zones that have black lotus.

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As much as I would like to see that happening, has there been any evidence to support your belief? Since Blizzard didn't explicitly state that, I can only assume that layering, as for now at least, will happen on a realm-wide scale.

they literally said it would only be in the lower level areas where MANY players would all be clumped together.

as time passes some will get ahead, some will fall behind, and many will stop playing 18 hours every day, meaning that the playbase will be spread out by the time people are getting to level 50ish

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Again, would appreciate any evidence to support the argument of layering to not be in higher level areas as of today. I'd love if that were true, but I didn't see any argument from Blizzard to support the idea of them limiting layering to specific zones so far.

From my point of view it only makes sense to do so, since it's the first couple of zones (probably up until like level 30ish) that will be home to a lot of players initially. Anything above that would probably survive without layering anyways.

from the very begining, from when htey literally first mentioned sharding "we will only be using it in the starting zone where players will be most clumped"

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That's not true. Layering doesn't work by zone like sharding does. It basically creates an new instance of Kalimdor and EK once a threshold is hit

It looks something like this

Realm X
- Kalimdor Layer 1
- Kalimdor Layer 2

- Eastern Kingdoms Layer 1
- Eastern Kingdoms Layer 2

So layering applies to every zone. Not just the starting areas.

Incorect, in higher level zones the layers merge, but upon going to the low level areas you return to your layer.

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They've changed their plans from sharding the starting zones to sharding entire servers, multiple instances of each continent lasting the entirety of phase 1

they never said the entirity of phase 1, they said it would be removed a few weeks after, and after phase 1 it will NEVER come back, as prep for possible resurgences in phase 1 of "its christmas, TONS OF NEW PLAYERS!"

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Tbh i prefer the pserver approach too. Increase respawn rates according to the number of players. Some caves became death traps and farming fire elementals nonstop is a bit iffy, but its still better than phasing and layerhopping later on.

Really now? ruin the entire economy by making mobs respawn instantly, making items from rares insanely common and easy to farm, make caves impossible, and quests instead of "explore and find more mobs" into "find 1 mob then camp its spawn over and over"

nah mate that aint it.

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Gankers in STV would cry :'( Imagine you start to gank and corpsecamp a guy to satisfy your overgrown ego, but then he just *puff* and gone Poor gankers.

Seriously, I dont think this will ruin Classic expirience by any way. Zones still be overcrowded since there wont be like 50 ppl per layer, but more like 2-3k - there still be fights over wolf spawn points But there will be 1-2 guys per wolf instead of 20-30 per wolf which I actually like. I remember the launch of WoD - there were crowds over log spawn points for the first quests after intro. Terrible and boring expirience.

Another point - the communty still be there. For me the community is not the people you hang in IF with, looking on their epics, but more like guys you party with then doing UBRS runs. You still have one chat per whole server, one AH, if you want party or duel with someone - just inv him to your group. The communty is still there.

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We might, but not for long. Their first estimate - 2-3 weeks was right I think. 2\3 of players will quit during 20-40 lvls after their realise questing is slow, rewards are scarce, ganking is hard. 2/3 of the rest will quit earlier or soon after reaching lvl 60 realising there is no locals, no free epics. This will happen in 1-2 months or so. We will see huge decrease of players in the very first weeks. No point for Blizzard to keep layers after that.

i highly doubt you will be able to layer switch in combat, also getting all your friends in different layers to try and pull this off will just be a constant annoyance to not even make it worth it.