If I had to take a wild guess, I would say that I would be very surprised if more than 50% of the people who created a character day one of Phase 1 were still actively playing on day one of Phase 2.
Okay, so youre speculating a 50% dropoff and how many players do you estimate are on each realm?
Mate, like I stated several times before, I have no idea about how many players are currently on each realm. For anyone to try and make a claim otherwise is complete speculation generally stated in a negative context.
My first post was me just simply stating that I don't mind that the realm I'm playing on has a high population because I enjoy playing in a populated world.
Mate, like I stated several times before, I have no idea about how many players are currently on each realm. For anyone to try and make a claim otherwise is complete speculation generally stated in a negative context.
My first post was me just simply stating that I don't mind that the realm I'm playing on has a high population because I enjoy playing in a populated world.
Right. So have you followed the beta or participated in any of the stress tests? The layers actually make the world feel a whole lot smaller because they dont auto fill or balance. So lets assume you are on a full pop server. And lets assume that that server has 50k users. That will be about 17 layers... However, because of how layering seemingly functions, there will be additional layers that arent naturally squishing, and layers themselves wont operate in the manner that Blizz has insinuated... So assuming you are not playing at peak times, your world will NOT feel full. Your world will feel incredibly empty. As it did during the beta. As it did during the later stress tests. As it did during the previous stress test last week... My point is that a "full" realm that has an extended period using layers (which is realistic if we are anticipating 30-100k players per realm), may feel a whole lot more empty, than a low pop realm that has fewer layers or potentially has layering removed and is operating with 6-10k players in one cohesive world.
Mate, like I stated several times before, I have no idea about how many players are currently on each realm. For anyone to try and make a claim otherwise is complete speculation generally stated in a negative context.
My first post was me just simply stating that I don't mind that the realm I'm playing on has a high population because I enjoy playing in a populated world.
Right. So have you followed the beta or participated in any of the stress tests? The layers actually make the world feel a whole lot smaller because they dont auto fill or balance. So lets assume you are on a full pop server. And lets assume that that server has 50k users. That will be about 17 layers... However, because of how layering seemingly functions, there will be additional layers that arent naturally squishing, and layers themselves wont operate in the manner that Blizz has insinuated... So assuming you are not playing at peak times, your world will NOT feel full. Your world will feel incredibly empty. As it did during the beta. As it did during the later stress tests. As it did during the previous stress test last week... My point is that a "full" realm that has an extended period using layers (which is realistic if we are anticipating 30-100k players per realm), may feel a whole lot more empty, than a low pop realm that has fewer layers or potentially has layering removed and is operating with 6-10k players in one cohesive world.
Which is also why in my first post I said, "..come Phase 2". Where Blizzard stated that layering will absolutely not be happening. :biggrin:
Which is also why in my first post I said, "..come Phase 2". Where Blizzard stated that layering will absolutely not be happening. :biggrin:
Which is why this conversation is important :biggrin:. Because if you assume a 50% population loss, and you also estimate as few as 30k players per realm, they wont be able to squish that to one cohesive layer at 15k players by phase 2. :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
Which is also why in my first post I said, "..come Phase 2". Where Blizzard stated that layering will absolutely not be happening. :biggrin:
Which is why this conversation is important :biggrin:. Because if you assume a 50% population loss, and you also estimate as few as 30k players per realm, they wont be able to squish that to one cohesive layer at 15k players by phase 2. :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
Literally my first post word for word:
I don't mind having to wait for queue times come Phase 2 because that just means that the world is full of people!
If 15k people want to play on the same realm come Phase 2, then I guess we will just have some queue times eh?
If 15k people want to play on the same realm come Phase 2, then I guess we will just have some queue times eh?
Probably not. You will probably have extended layering as layers will be squished pending the population as needed. But this is still presuming 30k, you obviously arent willing to make yourself vulnerable and throw out an estimate, but I would say that 30k is on the very low side of what most realms will look like.
If 15k people want to play on the same realm come Phase 2, then I guess we will just have some queue times eh?
Probably not. You will probably have extended layering as layers will be squished pending the population as needed. But this is still presuming 30k, you obviously arent willing to make yourself vulnerable and throw out an estimate, but I would say that 30k is on the very low side of what most realms will look like.
"Make yourself vulnerable by throwing out a complete guess."
"Make yourself vulnerable by throwing out a complete guess."
Not quite. I participated in the stress test. I seen the servers go down. I jumped in a wait queue that showed 15-20k players. I was on disc with many people who got in before me. Taking this experience and using it as an educated guess to deduce that servers can host upwards of 30-40k players is not unrealistic. Arguing against that when you have no experience on the subject is a bit illogical though.
Funny thing about this. I currently live on the West Coast of the U.S. but will be moving to East coast in about 2 months..so I currently selected Whitemane but not sure if it's the best choice for latency.
Which is also why in my first post I said, "..come Phase 2". Where Blizzard stated that layering will absolutely not be happening.
I know Blizzard has said they're going to get rid of layering as soon as possible and they don't want it in phase 2. They may have even said there's no way laying would stay on in phase 2. But at the same time, there is absolutely a number of players that is too high to exist on a single flat server. 10k? 20k? 30k? No idea. Actually I don't think the exact number matters, I mean obviously it does but since we don't have real numbers I don't want to get hung up arguing over guessed numbers. The idea itself is the important thing. There absolutely is a point where too many players is a problem and can't exist on a single flat server at the same time.
So what happens if a server has way too many active players come time for phase 2? I don't think they'd flatten servers into an unplayable mess if there are still too many players. They would just say 'sorry, we can't eliminate layering yet' and keep it moving instead of forcing it into an unplayable mess.
I would say that [a large number of players] is on the very low side of what most realms will look like.
I want to boil your idea down to this - you think there are going to be huge numbers of players on each server. So many players that Blizzard won't be able to squish them all into a single flat server by the end of phase 1.
We know two things for sure:
- Each server has a maximum capacity, and Blizzard set this upper limit in advance
- Blizzard wants to be able to squish each realm into a single flat server within a couple of months of launch
I think it's safe to assume this:
- Blizzard has a number in mind for the most players they want to play on a single flat server
Based on this, the only variable is player retention percentage. The idea that layering would go away at all implies that people would leave and stop playing, which is what would reduce the player base enough to flatten the server in the first place.
I hope they got their retention number guess right, because that's really the only variable they would have in their population calculations when they determined how many servers to stand up.
"Make yourself vulnerable by throwing out a complete guess."
Not quite. I participated in the stress test. I seen the servers go down. I jumped in a wait queue that showed 15-20k players. I was on disc with many people who got in before me. Taking this experience and using it as an educated guess to deduce that servers can host upwards of 30-40k players is not unrealistic. Arguing against that when you have no experience on the subject is a bit illogical though.
I also participated in the stress test and sat in a long queue. We have the exact same amount of "experience on the subject".
A pretty significant difference to note between the stress test and now the realms is that the stress test had 2 realms for all of NA, and now we have a spread of 11 realms with varying amounts of players.
Pippina's making some good points and actually rationally explaining the issues without jumping to a number conclusion.
I would say that [a large number of players] is on the very low side of what most realms will look like.
I want to boil your idea down to this - you think there are going to be huge numbers of players on each server. So many players that Blizzard won't be able to squish them all into a single flat server by the end of phase 1.
I think that any time you are estimating your retention rates within a playerbase, there is a wide margin for error. While I believe Blizz will account for this, servers will need to be as low as 6-10k to be playable. I feel that naturally burning down to a playable cohesive world within 1 phase while launching with 30-100k players per server is a pretty big risk.
I hope they got their retention number guess right, because that's really the only variable they would have in their population calculations when they determined how many servers to stand up.
Me too. The reality of layers and the squishing phase will be unique to each individual server. So there will be no set date that Blizz can aim for. A low pop server will naturally reduce to a playable single layer quicker than a full pop server will. A full server pop that is split between many layers may feel a lot more vacant than a low pop server with 1 cohesive world - as has been indicated by the beta and stress tests.
Can anyone think of gameplay implications besides the queue times? I doubt layering will be a cure-all for this. Rank 10-14 grinds will probably be exponentially more difficult.
Well one game play implication is no one is going to want to log out.. So people will probably be playing even longer than they plan to.
I've got a group of 5 people willing to play a character dedicated to the group, and another character for their solo/duo experience. This sets up a great dynamic as it means we won't be very impacted by layering as we will be spending a lot of time in dungeons/elite quests as a group of 5, or just solo/duo leveling our other characters. We will also be joining Gallow in <GRFR> so we will mostly be hanging out with them in our layer.
so related to this thread, what happens when the realm is full? Can no one else join?