Pretty much the title. You guys think that you can make a reputation for yourself as well as you could back in the days? Or will the "layering" ruin it? Or will the servers be too big and players will be easily replaced?
Thoughts?
Depends entirely on populations. Layering will obviously separate the community and reputations will be non-existent during this phase, but thats only temporary. The larger a community is, the less intimate it becomes. If servers are 3-5k, you will know everyone. At 5-8k, you will know a lot less people and the social ramifications for your actions will be less. At 12k+ players, you wont know anyone and you will not be able to make a meaningful impact on the people you play with.
Think of a small town VS a large city. People are MORE valuable when there are less of them. In a small town you know your neighbor because they are your support network. In a large city that is overcrowded, people are nuisance and you intentionally avoid them when possible. From my experience on retail and private, private servers were like a large city and there were almost no social ramifications to your actions at about 10-12k players.
My behavior on private was VERY different than on retail because I knew that I would not be held accountable for my actions, and I wasnt.
We don't know what the desired pop will be for Classic from Blizzard and that population will dictate if you are actually able to make a meaningful impact on the players around you. When they collapse these layers what are we looking at? What about the server that has 4-5 layers at 3k per layer. What is Blizz willing to collapse that down to? When will servers be merged? What is low pop and what is high pop? We dont really have a lot of information at this point.
Think of a small town VS a large city. People are MORE valuable when there are less of them. In a small town you know your neighbor because they are your support network. In a large city that is overcrowded, people are nuisance and you intentionally avoid them when possible. From my experience on retail and private, private servers were like a large city and there were almost no social ramifications to your actions at about 10-12k players.
Very good comparisons, great reply. Thank you!
reputations will be non-existent during this phase
You are overstating this very dramatically. Do you really think you can just go around in one of 3 layers ninja'ing, being a cockhead etc. and not feel ramifications? That is really short sighted dude. Your post is well discussed and thought out, but I still think you are being overly dramatic about the layering impact on social aspects. It's not sharding, you will see a lot of the same people all the time during layering, you can't ignore that.
EDIT: I don't think we should get back into a layering argument and derail another thread, just wanted to point out my concern with the layering rhetoric.
You are overstating this very dramatically. Do you really think you can just go around in one of 3 layers ninja'ing, being a cockhead etc. and not feel ramifications?
I believe that social ramifications and the extent of shunning will be directly correlated to the amount of players on a given realm. I believe that layering will reduce the social ramifications of your actions. Do you disagree? Why?
Your post is well discussed and thought out, but I still think you are being overly dramatic about the layering impact on social aspects. It's not sharding, you will see a lot of the same people all the time during layering, you can't ignore that.
Nothing too dramatic. Take another read. I'll put it in simpler terms that may be more relatable... If 2 people are in a room and you fart, the other guy knows who it was. You will be held accountable for your fart. If 50 people are in the room and you fart, everyone avoids the group of people (guild/group) in the fart radius but aren't certain who is at fault. If 20,000 people are in a stadium, people are farting everywhere and no one can keep track of all the farts. You just plug your nose and try to surround yourself with the people you know. You silo yourself to avoid as many farts as you can but the reality of the stadium is that you will be smelling farts occasionally and you accept that as your reality.
The population of a server will be directly correlated to the social ramifications of your actions.
Edit: Concerning your layering comment, I totally avoided getting back into that... Lol, was surprised you aggitated the layering debate but I'm not interested in revisiting that either. I will try to keep this productive as possible!
I'm sure blacklist addons will be returning. With the hardware most people are packing these days gathering evidence with shadowplay will be very common and call outs won't be a bunch of hearsay.
Nothing too dramatic. Take another read. I'll put it in simpler terms that may be more relatable... If 2 people are in a room and you fart, the other guy knows who it was. You will be held accountable for your fart. If 50 people are in the room and you fart, everyone avoids the group of people (guild/group) in the fart radius but aren't certain who is at fault. If 20,000 people are in a stadium, people are farting everywhere and no one can keep track of all the farts. You just plug your nose and try to surround yourself with the people you know. You silo yourself to avoid as many farts as you can but the reality of the stadium is that you will be smelling farts occasionally and you accept that as your reality.
But your 'simpler terms' example gives more credence to being a dick in a layerless high population server with dynamic respawns. By your reckoning if you 'fart' in your layer, people are more likely to know, but if you 'fart' on a high population server with no layering no one will know. That is completely contradictory to your dramatic original comment, and yes it was dramatic, let me just quote it again for reference:
Layering will obviously separate the community and reputations will be non-existent during this phase
Please tell me how this isn't a complete black and white dramatic reaction to layering. If you're a dick, people will know. Once there is no layering, more people will experience it, but while layering is active you will most certainly generate a reputation (Good or bad) on at least your layer, if not all layers. A good case would be the examples you have provided previously by layer hopping to gank/grief in PvP or layer hopping to camp/grief rare spawns. You really think "reputations will be non-existent" during that phase? Come on dude, I like having discussions with you about stuff, but you are being entirely unrealistic.
But your 'simpler terms' example gives more credence to being a dick in a layerless high population server with dynamic respawns. By your reckoning if you 'fart' in your layer, people are more likely to know, but if you 'fart' on a high population server with no layering no one will know. That is completely contradictory to your dramatic original comment, and yes it was dramatic, let me just quote it again for reference:
Layering will obviously separate the community and reputations will be non-existent during this phase
Please tell me how this isn't a complete black and white dramatic reaction to layering. If you're a dick, people will know. Once there is no layering, more people will experience it, but while layering is active you will most certainly generate a reputation (Good or bad) on at least your layer, if not all layers. A good case would be the examples you have provided previously by layer hoping to gank/grief in PvP or layer hopping to camp/grief rare spawns. You really think "reputations will be non-existent" during that phase? Come on dude, I like having discussions with you about stuff, but you are being entirely unrealistic.
We don't want to return to the layering debate. We know how that went. The primary focus of my post is based on the population numbers we will see after layers have collapsed. If you want to revisit the layering debate, the most obvious highlight would be that you would be even MORE removed from smelling a fart in a separate stadium, but I really don't want to go down the layering hole with you again, only for you to come around later on... This isn't a dramatic response to layering... As usual you are blowing things WAY out of proportion and being a bit silly. Layering separates the community into layers. The transparency of a players actions on one layer will have a reduced chance of impacting their reputation on a separate layer by the very nature of layers. Layers act as a barrier between players. Was I unrealistic during our last layering debate? How did that one end? With evidence from another user of my very concerns about layering. I have played a game with sharding. I have played vanilla with 12k players. The social ramifications of your actions on a server of 12k are non-existent. This is true. You can experience this for yourself on Northdale or any other premier private server.
Read this: "I believe that social ramifications and the extent of shunning will be directly correlated to the amount of players on a given realm. I believe that layering will reduce the social ramifications of your actions. Do you disagree? Why?" - Me
And please respond to it so we can have a constructive conversation.
Read this: "I believe that social ramifications and the extent of shunning will be directly correlated to the amount of players on a given realm. I believe that layering will reduce the social ramifications of your actions. Do you disagree? Why?" - Me
That was not your original quote which I called out on being dramatic, you changed your tone with this secondary version of your original hardline stance of "reputations will be non-existent during this phase" to "social ramifications and the extent of shunning will be directly correlated to the amount of players on a given realm"
If you go and change your sentiment or wording and ask me to comment on that instead the original intent of my question, that's on you being 'silly', sorry mate. I completely agree that layering will have a temporary impact on social ramifications - of course it will. Just like sharding or similar tools will have an impact on social ramifications. I don't believe that reputations will be non-existent during that phase though. Which was what my entire original post was about, you changed your wording and meaning and tried to belittle my comments. And don't worry I won't "come around later on" regarding that stance. Reputations will exist during layering. Quote me on it.
That was not your original quote which I called out on being dramatic, you changed your tone with this secondary version of your original hardline stance of "reputations will be non-existent during this phase" to "social ramifications and the extent of shunning will be directly correlated to the amount of players on a given realm"
We don't know if there is a layer cap. We don't have confirmed numbers on each layer (estimate of 3k for now). We don't know what a high pop server will be and how low a pop needs to be for Blizzard to entirely collapse layers. We don't know if layers will be collapsed on a specific date or the collapsing process will be entirely dependent on a servers total population. If you are on a server with 4-5 layers of 3k population, as I assume can happen, you will not have a reputation in phase 1. If you think you will be able to track to the social hierarchy and individual relationships of 12k users that are ALSO separated on several different layers, you're out of touch. Very out of touch.
And don't worry I won't "come around later on" regarding that stance. reputations will existing during layering. Quote me on it.
Hmmm we've gone down this road before, I have faith that you'll come around. You just need evidence and that will be readily available in Classic. =)
I suppose the best evidence would be a private server of 12k without layering where ninja looting is rampant and no one is held accountable for their actions due to the shear quantity of players. You could always try Northdale!
Bloody hell Stfuppercut, I didn't think you were this close minded and condescending. I can see we are at an impasse on this matter, and we shall move on to bigger and better things.
Oh btw, here is an example of a ninja looters list from Northdale. I have played on most of the big PServers from Feenix Servers, Nostalrius, Lights Hope, Elysium and people definitely do generate a social reputation - even with active 12k populations. Obviously less so than a 4k pop tight nit server, but again it's not as clear cut.
Bloody hell @Stfuppercut, I didn't think you were this close minded and condescending. I can see we are at an impasse on this matter, and we shall move on to bigger and better things.
Oh btw, here is an example of a ninja looters list from Northdale. I have played on most of the big PServers from Feenix Servers, Nostalrius, Lights Hope, Elysium and people definitely do generate a social reputation - even with active 12k populations. Obviously less so than a 4k pop tight nit server, but again it's not as clear cut.
As you can see from the ninja list you linked - 20 players. Its unrealistic to police a server with a high population. You think there were only 20 proliphic ninjas on a server with 12k players actively online 24 hours per day? This is just not effective... I actually raided with Sharphealz, a VERY known ninja who took Domos chest pretty early on in the server. He made a return and raided in several high end guilds after BWL release. The general take was "its on master looter so he cant ninja and we need healers". A large community means that the individual plight of others are of less concern to the majority. Where there is a HUGE population, there are simply too many players to concern yourself with all of the interactions others are having. Ninja lists like this will exist but they wont be effective enough to put a dent in the issue IF we are dealing with populations above 10k players.
Considering society as a whole is all about worshipping ecelebs and anyone they think is more """important""".. The world has changed to value attention over value, all those people who sit in front of a camera all day are worth more than people that actually put in work, yeah.
I think it will be even more important this time around. Its much easier to share and find information these days.
I certainly hope it will be so again.
Having a good rep paid off in the end, e.g. for crafters, raiders. Thus these people were more inclined to behave.