We need a definitive answer from Blizzard on the phasing question!!!

[Mullet Man]

EDIT: I should have said sharding instead of phasing.
Sharding Example on Beta: https://www.twitch.tv/chaphyo/clip/U...trawberryKappa

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
What are the launch plans for Classic realms?
It is Spring 2019. Release is Summer 2019.
Blizzard knows what path they are taking.
They need to fess up!!!

Are they going to ruin the launch of Classic with <sharding>, so we randomly drop out of the world and everyone disappears, killing the sense of community?

UPDATES:
Ion Hazzikostas - November 2018: "... we understand completely that sharding is antithetical to the concept of a cohesive realm community... that said... we think we can use sharding in a time limited way to solve the initial launch day problems..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-GobXQTf6w
https://www.wowhead.com/news=288412/...and-john-hight

I would expect they are making plans for the following:

• How many realms to release
• What types of realms to release
• What regions and timezones the realms will be
• Under what circumstances they will engage sharding
• If some realm types will have sharding completely disabled
• Etc...

Too many times Blizzard has left it up to the community to discover after the fact and in game.
This is bad, and the reason many people don't trust them.

For example, with the demo they didn't tell anyone they implemented sharding until people started zoning into different shards.
Simply stating beforehand that demo was going to use sharding and why would have quelled a lot of concerns.
Instead, by not being open about it, it fed into the fear that Blizzard was going to ruin Classic with full blown sharding, phasing, and CRZ.
It now has been months since their last comments, and just a few months from launch, and we have no new or definitive information on how sharding is going to be implemented.

Obviously players are going to figure it out as they play.
Why not tell us what to expect?
Is there something to hide?
Are they hoping to sneak it in?
I don't trust them at this point.

[vsb]

Launch is July, 16. There won't be phasing, only sharding.

[Echocho]

It won't have phasing. No content was designed for it.

[Frolk]

What are the launch plans for Classic realms?
It is Spring 2019. Release is Summer 2019.
Blizzard knows what path they are taking.
They need to fess up!!!

Are they going to ruin the launch of Classic with phasing, so we randomly drop out of the world and everyone disappears, killing the sense of community?

Im pretty sure the launch would been ruined if it was 1200 ppl in Elwynn forest more than 120 pople with sharding, but if u like fighting 30 people/groups for 1 quest item or mob u can always wait 10min between each mobs u pull.

[Mullet Man]

They said no phasing, but the demo had phasing... so I don't believe that was the final answer.
They said the are considering sharding, but never gave an update.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=288412/...and-john-hight

- - - Updated - - -

Im pretty sure the launch would been ruined if it was 1200 ppl in Elwynn forest more than 120 pople with sharding, but if u like fighting 30 people/groups for 1 quest item or mob u can always wait 10min between each mobs u pull.

Ever heard of a login queue?

[THEORACLE64]

They said no phasing, but the demo had phasing... so I don't believe that was the final answer.
They said the are considering sharding, but never gave an update.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=288412/...and-john-hight

- - - Updated - - -



Ever heard of a login queue?

I believe they said they’ll use phasing/sharding when server stability is more important i.e. launch day.

[Mrbleedinggums]

What are the launch plans for Classic realms?
It is Spring 2019. Release is Summer 2019.
Blizzard knows what path they are taking.
They need to fess up!!!

Are they going to ruin the launch of Classic with phasing, so we randomly drop out of the world and everyone disappears, killing the sense of community?

At what point do you think they're going to need to use phasing? There were no events back then that were so significant in difference on the story quests that it required a phased version of the zone. (ie: in current version Stonetalon Mountains, after you blow up the tree with the civilian Alliance the place is phased.)

Do you mean phasing? If so, yes they said they were going to do so ONLY AT THE START AND ONLY ON THE STARTING ZONES. It is to allow everyone to still experience the game without massive crashes and then hours of people not even able to join in. Honestly? They shouldn't even do that. People want Classic with no changes, they deserve to have massive crashes and the old buggy systems that prevented them from playing.

[Mullet Man]

I believe they said they’ll use phasing/sharding when server stability is more important i.e. launch day.

"I believe they said" is not a definitive answer from Blizzard.

- - - Updated - - -

yes they said they were going to do so ONLY AT THE START AND ONLY ON THE STARTING ZONES.

Where do they say this is happening? They said the are considering, but never updated.
Did I miss that update?

[Cerus]

At what point do you think they're going to need to use phasing? There were no events back then that were so significant in difference on the story quests that it required a phased version of the zone. (ie: in current version Stonetalon Mountains, after you blow up the tree with the civilian Alliance the place is phased.)

Do you mean phasing? If so, yes they said they were going to do so ONLY AT THE START AND ONLY ON THE STARTING ZONES. It is to allow everyone to still experience the game without massive crashes and then hours of people not even able to join in. Honestly? They shouldn't even do that. People want Classic with no changes, they deserve to have massive crashes and the old buggy systems that prevented them from playing.

Did you mean sharding in your last paragraph? ������

[NMX-]

phasing is different from sharding
sharding is different than cross realm zoning

Phasing - when progressing through a quest line changes the NPCs and environment depending on where you are on the quest line. It's used as a story-telling tool, not for population reasons at all

Sharding - buckets of players put into different instances of the world zone in order to make it feel less/more populated than it is.

Cross Realm Zoning - the thing that lets you see other players from other realms next to you out in the world. Somewhat tied to Sharding, but not exactly the same thing.

There will be no Phasing in Classic.
There will be no Cross Realm Zoning in Classic.
There will be Sharding, but sparingly used, and probably only in the starting zones so 800 players arent standing there trying to do the same quest to kill boars or wolves or whatever.

[Dergiab]

100% sure there won't be any phasing.

[Mullet Man]

phasing is different from sharding
sharding is different than cross realm zoning

Phasing - when progressing through a quest line changes the NPCs and environment depending on where you are on the quest line. It's used as a story-telling tool, not for population reasons at all

Sharding - buckets of players put into different instances of the world zone in order to make it feel less/more populated than it is.

Cross Realm Zoning - the thing that lets you see other players from other realms next to you out in the world. Somewhat tied to Sharding, but not exactly the same thing.

There will be no Phasing in Classic.
There will be no Cross Realm Zoning in Classic.
There will be Sharding, but sparingly used, and probably only in the starting zones so 800 players arent standing there trying to do the same quest to kill boars or wolves or whatever.

Yes, I should have said sharding, not phasing. Your definitions are good.
But, I don't find a definitive answer from Blizzard on this topic.
Just a few "we are evaluating the use of..." and "considering..." posts.
Do you have a link to something definitive from Blizzard?

[Nasuuna]

idk why they care about launch day stability

Lag and dcs were part and parcel of vanilla

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

They need to fess up!!!

No, they do not.

[Kynario]

It won't have phasing. No content was designed for it.

People don’t seem to understand the difference between phasing and sharding, although sharding is a form of phasing, specifically player-phasing and not environment-phasing.

[Jazzhands]

What are the launch plans for Classic realms?
It is Spring 2019. Release is Summer 2019.
Blizzard knows what path they are taking.
They need to fess up!!!

Are they going to ruin the launch of Classic with phasing, so we randomly drop out of the world and everyone disappears, killing the sense of community?

There won't be phasing, but there will be sharding in the starting zones to avoid having to camp a spawn point for 40+ minutes just to kill 8 wolves.

Phasing and Sharding are very, very different.

[Frolk]

idk why they care about launch day stability

Lag and dcs were part and parcel of vanilla

Cant wait for news sites posting

"ActivisionBlizzard cant launch a 14 year old game without major stability issues" And then u scare of a lot of potential players.
Using sharding in lvl 1-10 areas for the first few days wont ruin Classic forever, even tho some of the fanatics around here may say otherwise.

[NMX-]

Do you have a link to something definitive from Blizzard?

There has not been anything mentioned outside of the Classic panel at BlizzCon 2018. We are getting closer to Classic's launch, and there are still a few unknowns for Classic, including itemization changes made from 1.1 -> 1.12 and what version of items we're getting on Classic realms. We also have not heard the exact plans for sharding.

If they have an alpha/beta before launch, it might be a good time to look at user experiences for certain zones to help make their plans of sharding more solid before they announce anything. Do they need it in only for the first starting area? First entire zone? First 2 zones? Do they need it on only for the first week? first month?

They could, also, not announce anything for sharding and just let players experience Classic organically without any knowledge of where sharding is happening.

Time will tell.

[Zyky]

What are the launch plans for Classic realms?
It is Spring 2019. Release is Summer 2019.
Blizzard knows what path they are taking.
They need to fess up!!!

Are they going to ruin the launch of Classic with phasing, so we randomly drop out of the world and everyone disappears, killing the sense of community?

They've already said for the first couple of weeks sharding will be utilized in questing zones to ensure that the zones aren't an overloaded mess. General Chat will still hold the entire servers discussion, the only thing you won't see is a hundred people trying to tag the same respawn.

[THEORACLE64]

"I believe they said" is not a definitive answer from Blizzard.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=288412/...and-john-hight

i.e. it's not 100% confirmed but it's a possibility to control server populations, like I said.