US servers:
Over the five weeks since we launched WoW Classic, we’ve continuously monitored realm populations and utilized layering when necessary to handle launch populations. As we’ve said before, we will have all realms on a single layer before introducing world bosses, and a great deal of progress has been made toward that goal.
First and foremost, players have leveled up and spread out around the world. This allowed us to accommodate more players per layer, which means fewer layers required per realm. The last time a server in this region had more than three layers was the first week of September, and almost all realms reached two layers shortly after that. This includes high population realms such as Faerlina, which has had only two layers for three weeks now.
Along the way, some select realms reached their end-state of a single layer, and we locked that in. With a change we made earlier this week, the following WoW Classic realms are now permanently set to one layer:
Be on the lookout for another change that we will make in the coming days: soon, realms that are operating with more than one layer will indicate that on the realm selection screen. Those realms will say “Layered” in the realm list. Thereafter, you’ll only see the Full/High/Medium/Low markers for realms that are permanently set to one layer.
We plan to move more realms to a single layer over time, and we will continue to offer free character moves to balance populations and manage login queues. In order to avoid queues in the future, we encourage you to use that service as soon as possible.
Thank you very much!
EU servers:
Over the five weeks since we launched WoW Classic, we’ve continuously monitored realm populations and utilized layering when necessary to handle launch populations. As we’ve said before, we will have all realms on a single layer before introducing world bosses, and a great deal of progress has been made toward that goal.
First and foremost, players have leveled up and spread out around the world. This allowed us to accommodate more players per layer, which means fewer layers required per realm. The last time a server in this region had more than three layers was the first week of September, and almost all realms reached two layers shortly after that.
Along the way, some select realms reached their end-state of a single layer, and we locked that in. With a change we made earlier this week, the following WoW Classic realms are now permanently set to one layer:
Bloodfang
Dragonfang
Earthshaker
Hydraxian Waterlords
Judgement
Ten Storms
Be on the lookout for another change that we will make in the coming days: soon, realms that are operating with more than one layer will indicate that on the realm selection screen. Those realms will say “Layered” in the realm list. Thereafter, you’ll only see the Full/High/Medium/Low markers for realms that are permanently set to one layer.
We plan to move more realms to a single layer over time, and we will continue to offer free character moves to balance populations and manage login queues. In order to avoid queues in the future, we encourage you to use that service as soon as possible.
Thank you very much!
Does anyone have good data (read:not just your personal opinion) on how the increased population per server is affecting the resources available in the world? What I'm getting at is with the servers being significantly larger than vanilla, and assuming unchanged spawn rates for herbs/ore/devilsaurs/etc, and only 1 layer, will farming for endgame tradeskills be significantly more camped... forever?
From my memory way back when playing on a medium pop server, I could always find devilsaurs or black lotus - the only issue was the travel time involved. I would occasionally bump into other people doing the same thing, but the world was big enough that I never had to camp particular spots.
Thoughts?
Nice!
Does anyone have good data (read:not just your personal opinion) on how the increased population per server is affecting the resources available in the world? What I'm getting at is with the servers being significantly larger than vanilla, and assuming unchanged spawn rates for herbs/ore/devilsaurs/etc, and only 1 layer, will farming for endgame tradeskills be significantly more camped... forever?
From my memory way back when playing on a medium pop server, I could always find devilsaurs or black lotus - the only issue was the travel time involved. I would occasionally bump into other people doing the same thing, but the world was big enough that I never had to camp particular spots.
Thoughts?
This will depend on the final populations. We still dont have population counts, so we would be guessing. I'm set for resources that this point. I have all the arcanite I will need, I was done devilsuar on week 1-2 (continued periodically for some easy gold), and I have slowly been selling guild mats to build up our black lotus stock. We should have enough lotuses for all of our BWL progression at this point. Glad to see layering gone and feel bad for the guys who wont get to abuse it and are hitting 60 a bit later.
I also question everything that is said about layering because while I was abusing the system, Blizzard was ensuring everyone that it wasnt a big deal and promising that the system had boundaries in place so that it wouldnt be so easy to manipulate, yet they didnt have any restrictions. So while this is great news, they also have a really shady track record with layering in my mind. I'm just excited to move into phase 2, put layering behind us and start playing a pure version of Classic.
Does anyone have good data (read:not just your personal opinion) on how the increased population per server is affecting the resources available in the world?
I'm not sure how the community would be able to achieve that. For one, Blizzard actively prevents census add-ons from functioning in a manner that would yield accurate population data. On top of that, you're also asking about data on resource availability, which as far as I know is impossible to gather unless you're the administrator of the server. You'd need to have data on each individual node, item drop rates, etc.
I love this but I'm scared of how much more congested all my questing areas are going to be now.
awesome!
Thats really nice, does the EU server layers get reduced too? :)
Anecdotal evidence time
I have a dedicated window for guild chat set up so I can join in on the shitposting. I also send invites as often as I can for layer requests when I'm not in a party or am leading a party. At first nearly every person I invited reported a new layer upon invite. Over the past week or so, it seems like half the time I send a party invite the person reports that they didn't get a new layer.
I'm on Fairbanks, which was never the size of a server like Herod but has been one of the larger servers here. We had 16 hour queues in the first week, and even like 2-3 weeks in login queues were in the 4+ hour range. My seat of the pants guess based on the bluepost above combined the amount of times I fail to bring people to a new layer tells me that we're probably down to 2 layers now.
Updated with the post for EU servers.
Updated with the post for EU servers.
Thanks! Good news :)
probably down to 2 layers now.
"This includes high population realms such as Faerlina, which has had only two layers for three weeks now."
I would say so pip, I think all servers are 2 or less now. If faerlina (streamer server) has been 2 layers for 3 weeks, it's hard to imagine any are still with 3.
I have to start leveling up my character and Boris! (Boris is the companion)
I noticed a login queue yesterday. Fairbanks had been queue free for a long time now, and suddenly yesterday I was hit in the face with a 1k queue. I checked the server page, and while we are still layered, most servers have been squished now. I looked around, and apparently there was a bluepost about this yesterday:
Link
Today (October 22nd, 2019), we took the final step to reach a state where there are no longer multiple layers on the following realms:
Atiesh
Benediction
Bigglesworth
Blaumeux
Bloodsail Buccaneers
Grobbulus
Kirtonos
Kromcrush
Mankrik
Myzrael
Rattlegore
Skeram
Stalagg
Sulfuras
Thunderfury
Westfall
Yojamba (Australia)
These are in addition to the realms that we listed on October 3.
We continue to closely monitor player populations and realm performance, and we expect to move the remaining layered realms to their final state soon.
Free Character Moves continue to be available from many of the highest-populated realms, and as before, we suggest that anyone considering using that service do so as soon as possible.
It's beautiful. There are only 6 layered servers left on the servers that I can see.
Selexin You've reached the promised land m8. Looks like Fairbanks is soon to follow Yojamba and the rest of the servers.
@Selexin You've reached the promised land m8. Looks like Fairbanks is soon to follow Yojamba and the rest of the servers.
Fuck yeh!! I knew we were down to 2 recently based on feedback from others and my own experiences. I was suspicious based on some reddit posts yesterday that Yojamba might now be 1 layer. You'll be with me soon in the promised land Pip!