9.0 General Discussion

[Chickat]

Ye. Gaming, movies, snacks, candy and other boring stuff like not working.

Horrible!!! ALPHA MINED NAUW!

I have to work weekends.

[Gangreflamme]

I don't expect anything tomorrow though

[Doffen]

I have to work weekends.

I wish for you, and you only(and me and the rest of us, and some more) that we get datamined alpha tomorrow.

[ercarp]

I think a datamineable build next week is highly likely.

[Dracullus]

I think a datamineable build next week is highly likely.

I have feeling they'll skip that part and reveal video/datamine/launch will be same day (whatever this day is).

[George Costanza]

I think a datamineable build next week is highly likely.

50/50 for a friday alpha tbh. any earlier than that is a straight no.

[Revamp Man]

50/50 for a friday alpha tbh. any earlier than that is a straight no.

Welcome back

[George Costanza]

Welcome back

Thanks.

My speculations are mostly based around the past tbh more specifically BFA alpha.

[Yarathir]

Since everyone is making predictions again, I may as well spin the mental wheel.

Thursday the 12th.

[Edward Wu]

I expect Ion to do another video and give his and the team's thoughts on Shadowlands to get us up to date, right as the first build is coming up for us to data-mine. Either that or a Q&A with Lore.

[FlubberPuddy]

I have to work weekends.

Same, got a lot to do today. Dislike writing papers ~_~

[Fawkess]

I could see it happening this upcoming week, the week after is probably going to be the big hearthstone announcement so they probably don't want to draw hype away from that

[George Costanza]

Actually I am gonna say i am skeptical of a stream at all actually at this point. BFA didnt have one. a Q&a stream is out of the question entirely.

[zeir]

Actually I am gonna say i am skeptical of a stream at all actually at this point. BFA didnt have one. a Q&a stream is out of the question entirely.

They showed so little at blizzcon, answering 'at this moment its tbd" to a lot of the questions in the interviews. So maybe an Ion presentation wouldnt be out of the question

[Alga]

Actually I am gonna say i am skeptical of a stream at all actually at this point. BFA didnt have one. a Q&a stream is out of the question entirely.

There were two Dev Q&A's during the start of the BfA Alpha. Well maybe not a Q&A after community responds to those like apes, but a presentation is not far fetched like we got for 8.2 or 8.3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDnzdzL2iyU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN0MSAzupjw

[Taeldorian]

I don't even know why Layering is in classic. Well I do(Cause of server issues but.... I feel like it wouldn't be an issue these days). Yes Sharding is well its good to make a nice questing experience but.... well sometimes it feels very well not accurate to how many people are around you. Don't mistake me for hating Sharding blindly, I get WHY they did it, I just never noticed until like maybe around July last year.

I can't say I know the solution either other then MAYBE and thats a big if is Megaservers. It might help but the starting zones/low level zones would still suffer from not many people(Even ESO has that problem but I digress).

A short term solution would be to do what they did for classic. I fully believe classic at launch had more players than retail did in 8.2, so what did blizzard do? They added Layering and slowly removed it over time (2-3 months). When WoW expansions launch, that’s when we have a majority of issues and that’s why it was brought into place, so instead of that they can just use Layering tech and slowly remove it over time.

Layering is a better/improved version of sharding anyway. It opts to keep you with the same people in the same layer so you always see the same people whereas sharding can throw you into an empty shard with nobody in it when you log in or phase into a different zone. It’s really sad. When I get into a full shard and boralus is packed it feels so good, I love seeing people all over the place, however I’ve been in new shards/dead shards as well and it’s a ghost town which are two wildly different experiences. I don’t think it’s good for the game at all personally. We usually only have issues for the first month or so of an expansion at launch, I think it’d be a good idea to remove sharding after that time period is over.

[Chickat]

Since everyone is making predictions again, I may as well spin the mental wheel.

Thursday the 12th.

I'm gonna say we get a blog post Monday the 9th but don't get alpha until Thursday. I'm hoping for Wednesday as I'm off that day.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I just love it when they do a live stream or such, and end it by "Oh and you can access X right now. Have fun!"...

Sadly, it doesn't seem to happen very often. <.<

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I'm gonna say we get a blog post Monday the 9th but don't get alpha until Thursday. I'm hoping for Wednesday as I'm off that day.

Then I shall rub the cheekpouch (they so poofy!!) of every Hamster in my care for luck to try and make that happen!

[Sondrelk]

I just love it when they do a live stream or such, and end it by "Oh and you can access X right now. Have fun!"...

Sadly, it doesn't seem to happen very often. <.<

I could see it happening for this one.
Blizzard knows that streamers have probably finished being carreid through content and need something new to occupy them, and playing around in Alpha being profitable little beacons of hype would be an ideal way to keep players engaged.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I could see it happening for this one.
Blizzard knows that streamers have probably finished being carreid through content and need something new to occupy them, and playing around in Alpha being profitable little beacons of hype would be an ideal way to keep players engaged.

I sincerely doubt that they make decisions based on Streamers. Towelliee himself said a lot of people over there don't even know what streaming is about in the first place and he particularly said on more than one occasion that he is very VERY careful about potential bugs being potential exploits because his ass would be grass should he get caught promoting/using such things. And he's on very good foot with the team.

Nah, it'll likely come out once they're satisfied with showing the initial parts of this Alpha. Nothing more, nothing less. Even when Streamers are whining about being bored... <.<

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A short term solution would be to do what they did for classic. I fully believe classic at launch had more players than retail did in 8.2, so what did blizzard do? They added Layering and slowly removed it over time (2-3 months). When WoW expansions launch, that’s when we have a majority of issues and that’s why it was brought into place, so instead of that they can just use Layering tech and slowly remove it over time.

Layering is a better/improved version of sharding anyway. It opts to keep you with the same people in the same layer so you always see the same people whereas sharding can throw you into an empty shard with nobody in it when you log in or phase into a different zone. It’s really sad. When I get into a full shard and boralus is packed it feels so good, I love seeing people all over the place, however I’ve been in new shards/dead shards as well and it’s a ghost town which are two wildly different experiences. I don’t think it’s good for the game at all personally. We usually only have issues for the first month or so of an expansion at launch, I think it’d be a good idea to remove sharding after that time period is over.

And I experience lag during peak hours in Uldum and the Vale, there's also spikes when an Incursion begins and players descend into the zone under attack. Sharding not being there would make it far far worse.

So, I think it's best that the people with actual insight when it comes to the number of players and engagement, decide whether sharding is needed or not. And lo and behold, we still have it. Unlike Layering on Classic.