How long will layering really be around for?

[Vampyr78]

I don't think it will last longer than 4 weeks. And I think that after 2 weeks most realm population stabilize to the point where they will only have one layer. So effecively they won't have layering.

[Mukind]

I don't know. What was the quote?

Was it a mistake based on something he didn't know that he later corrected? Did plans change? Or are you going with the idea that Ion sits in his office cooking up lies to deliberately lead MMO-C users astray?

Stuff like this always makes me think that Blizzard is better off to Never. Say. Anything.

He in the original QA on classic* said "we understand the importance of high level mats like thorium and people wanting to control these resources". That isn't an exact quote and I think he named some more resources. But the gist was the same. He was saying we're not gonna have multiple instances of high level mats

Point is I think they are very very flexible on how they are going to deal with the population changes. Nothing is in stone.

I wouldn't trust anything they say on the subject as fact at this point. I can't think of any other out right lie they've told.

[Eapoe]

Or, or...they are testing it on Classic vs sharding to see if they want to use layering for retail in its place.

[Mukind]

Or, or...they are testing it on Classic vs sharding to see if they want to use layering for retail in its place.

That may be true too

That would explain their total 180 on controlling thorium lol

all just a test doesn't matter

[BananaHandsB]

My guess is you will hardly notice it after the first week, but it won't be completely removed for at least a month. It's really just those starting zones the first week (mainly the first day or two), with everyone logging in at the same time, that will require layering. Just look back to different expansion releases before sharding existed. It was really only ever that first week where the servers would crash. After that, the servers were fine. Layering will just help prevent those week 1 crashes, but after that, just like in the past, it shouldn't be needed.

[dayne87]

I think layering will be around for a few months until the initial "rush" in the congested low level zones dies down to a point where everyone and their mother is standing around waiting for a single boar to spawn.

Once levels get spread out, you might still see it "kick in" on high pop servers as people re-roll alts. I mean, if 10k people who have level 40+ characters re-roll at level 1 within a week of one another you're going to have pseudo-launch-day-congestion and layering will need to kick in.

[Mukind]

My guess is you will hardly notice it after the first week, but it won't be completely removed for at least a month. It's really just those starting zones the first week (mainly the first day or two), with everyone logging in at the same time, that will require layering. Just look back to different expansion releases before sharding existed. It was really only ever that first week where the servers would crash. After that, the servers were fine. Layering will just help prevent those week 1 crashes, but after that, just like in the past, it shouldn't be needed.

Problem is once you hit 60 you have to pay attention to the layers and meta game them for the best farm.....

Leveling you might not notice. But if you're trying to get anything specific not being aware of the layers would be irrational

It's not the same as sharding, you could spawn into layers with all the high level zones empty

[Annelie]

The devs have invested all these resources into the layering system, and have spent even more resources fine tuning the system so it is smooth. And all of that effort for just a couple of weeks of use at launch? Sharding (despite its flaws) would've been enough to address the issue. People would've put up with it for a few days until the rush was over.

But to create an entirely new custom made layering system...? It feels like the system has been tailored to be around for the long term. It does not bode well with me. I'm concerned that if layering is accepted in any form, the devs would just leave it in indefinitely and ignore the vocal minority like they have for CRZ, sharding, etc.

They wont turn it off, they wont be able to.

[Omega-Tau]

I really hope they get this sorted with a stress test, it has the potential to ruin the first week of game play for everyone

[Chaelexi]

The devs have invested all these resources into the layering system, and have spent even more resources fine tuning the system so it is smooth. And all of that effort for just a couple of weeks of use at launch? Sharding (despite its flaws) would've been enough to address the issue. People would've put up with it for a few days until the rush was over.

But to create an entirely new custom made layering system...? It feels like the system has been tailored to be around for the long term. It does not bode well with me. I'm concerned that if layering is accepted in any form, the devs would just leave it in indefinitely and ignore the vocal minority like they have for CRZ, sharding, etc.

The best answer is layering will exist as long as it is needed for. The need will be based on server population and stability, not the need of the vocal minority who cry #nochanges. So if the tourists stick around for 5-6 months then expect layering for that long. I also believe that it will never be turned off just the population threshold where it enables gets bumped up to a point where it will not enable unless a high % of the active population ends up in one Zone. The AQ40 opening event could be one of these.

- - - Updated - - -

I really hope they get this sorted with a stress test, it has the potential to ruin the first week of game play for everyone

You realize that the stress test is here to test how layering work and if they have it in a place they are happy with.

[calanos]

Layering will be around for a few weeks, maybe like 6 tops. Depending on how many people show up to see it and leave early, and how accurate Blizzard's predictive model is (I would assume they are assuming a certain attrition rate, and allowing server populations around that figure from launch hoping that X number of Layers will end up with aprox 1 layer worth of people after 2-months or so) they might well be combining servers rapidly.

I think the launch period may match or dwarf retail, and by the time most of those folks are in the 30s or low 40s they will almost all leave. So I think layering will likely be heavy early and essentially gone for most serious players after a very short period.

[avitush]

My understanding is that Blizzard only plans using it for the first month or so of Classic, just to help deal with the massive numbers of players in the lowbie zones. Aside from the speed levelers who will be hauling ass through everything (and will mostly have the higher level zones to themselves at first because they'll be so far ahead of the general population), pretty much the entire population of Classic WoW will be packed into the same zones for a while.

Hopefully, that will get better as players level up, spread out to different zones, take different paths, etc. Not to mention the overall population will probably start to drop as the less serious players lose interest (I'm imagining that there will be a lot of abandoned < level 20 characters on Classic WoW when the slower pace turns off new players, or even some Classic WoW veterans decide that Classic isn't as perfect as they remember). If that all happens, we'll get to the point where the layering tech isn't needed anymore.

[Unholyground]

I am just going to grind to level anyways, skip as many quests as I can = max level profit.

It effects all zones currently, and I am guessing it will last a month, maybe 2

[BreakoutK49]

IMO the whole life of classic. At some point someone is going to complain about something. For example a guild that cannot kill one of the world bosses, because they aren't as hardcore as they think they are. So, they are gonna make a post on the forums complaining about it. then other guilds are gonna do the same, and layering will be back in so everyone gets to kill world bosses.

[Ozurson]

Definitely seems like layering is in for the long run, we will see when they reveal how many servers they will have. If the number is low. We will be stuck with huge servers that have to use layering for a long, long time.

[Velerios]

I think that they will disable it when Phase 2 starts, reenable it when someone is opening Ahn'qiraj and then disable it again.

[Raone]

The devs have invested all these resources into the layering system, and have spent even more resources fine tuning the system so it is smooth. And all of that effort for just a couple of weeks of use at launch? Sharding (despite its flaws) would've been enough to address the issue. People would've put up with it for a few days until the rush was over.

But to create an entirely new custom made layering system...? It feels like the system has been tailored to be around for the long term. It does not bode well with me. I'm concerned that if layering is accepted in any form, the devs would just leave it in indefinitely and ignore the vocal minority like they have for CRZ, sharding, etc.

Sharding wouldn't be okay by a majority of the "No changes" community, and also would've changed the initial starting experience of vanilla to a large degree. They want the launch of classic to run smooth because if it doesn't there is many who will rage and quit, or quit and won't come back for several months, or will just go back to some private server. It doesn't "feel" like the system has been tailored for long term at all, it feels like they want the launch of classic not to be a mess. Your just reaching conclusions from nothing.

[vsb]

My reasoning is as follows. Server should be alive when majority leveled to 60. So that's an ideal time to turn off layering. If they would turn it off earlier, it means, that many people would drop the game before they leveled to 60 and in the end server is underpopulated. If they would turn it off later, it means that their estimation was wrong and server is overpopulated.
The majority will spend 2-4 months, so that would be an ideal timer. I think that it's similar to first phase length.

[Khrabanas]

I think Classic will launch with a surprisingly small number of servers, like 5-10 per region. Tens of thousands will play on each and layering will be what makes that possible. Then when phase 2 is about to begin, Blizzard will open a whole bunch of normal-sized servers and offer free transfers to them. After that, layering will no longer be a thing and each server will go whatever way its playerbase takes it. The servers that are home to some big streamer will be crippled by queues and faction imbalance, but there won't be a need for layering anymore because the population caps will be low enough.