With several large groups roleplaying in the new zones, it’s becoming dififcult to interact with other people. I understand how it’s done to mitigate server load, but isolating RP realms shouldn’t be a major issue.
There was sharding in Stormwind at the start of the Shadowlands too, which was quickly removed and I hope the devs are still responsive to player concerns. I’m sure there are ways of introducing small tweaks to push all players form the RP realms together without straining servers too much.
Please give a +1 or make some noise in the comments if you agree.
Not going to happen simply because it would inevitably cause issues for the game itself on these servers, with insane amount of lag. And while it would be nice to not have to rely on grouping up in new zones, it´s not worth it. The lag is already pretty bad whenever the theatre thing in Isle of Dorn happens, now imagine if everyone on AD was in the same phase doing the content.
Current content will always, and Should always be sharded. due to how it will affect game play. I am all for Shard free zones, where it makes sense.
I want blizzard to shard the living crap out of Tanaris during the anniversary. damned be the desert folk. the sever would not be able to hold it self together if current content area’s are not sharded.
Case and point. Heartstone’s event completely freezing Stormwind. before the sharding.
Though my post isn’t directly related to the topic of sharding and I haven’t taken part in it due to being a little burnt out when it comes to roleplaying, I’m impressed by the sheer number of people who have thrown their characters and communities into Khaz Algar.
I haven’t seen this level of interest in the current story from roleplayers since BFA. I expected the Dalaran community to have an obvious interest in the Isle of Dorn but from what I’ve seen, hundreds of roleplayers have converged on Khaz Algar and are getting involved. It’s really impressive.
It is, especially considering the way some in the Dalaran scene have roleplayed in the past. A part of me did a minoirty of folk on Argent Dawn to just continue using Dalaran - stick to what’s comfortable, don’t challenge the status quo, have any excuse to stay in the past.
As far as I know nobody in any of the wider communities on Argent Dawn has done that, despite the fact that Dalaran was a significant source of RP for many of them, and as weird as it may sound I honestly find that quite commendable. Not to mention the campaigns that occurred around the fall of Dalaran (and likely many, many smaller little events ran between friends or guilds or what have you).
Anyway to get back on topic - RPers do content too, as evidenced by how quiet the start of an expac often is for roleplay, so I would much rather have sharding limiting open-hub roleplay on Khaz Algar if it means actually being able to play the game normally. And honestly, for anything involving less than forty people, just invite folk and RP together that way!
Khaz Algar has been the GOAT for RP spots and stories as far as new expansions go. It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted to entertain the idea of a single-shard “RP mode” like warmode to help bump into other RP’ers.
Of course removing sharding would vause absolute chaos, mainly because there aren’t just RPers on AD and everything would end up lagging immensely between the large number of RPers and people doing content. It would also make RP nigh impossible outside the lag as all those spaces you’re RPing in would be full of people doing content.
I do however think an RP phase would be cool, phases you in with all people using RP mode, turns off loot drops, world events and quest progression and allows you to report people who just turn RP mode on to find RPers and troll them.
This feels like a reasonable middle-ground to also dis-insentivize abuse and not make the entire world a barren sandbox. I’ve heard others come with the idea of removing npcs entirely from an “RP phase” and that just feels wrong to me lol
I think turning off rares, treasures and resources would be enough of a disincentive for non-RPers (trolls aside of course) to not turn on any “RP-mode” setting.
Can’t speak for other guilds but since Dragonflight I feel like there’s been more of an inclusion in current content zones in RP (if I had to guess its cause a lot of people ignored shadowlands and not including DF in the RP would mean another full expansion of end-of-BFA status quo) and I feel like this has caught on and will be the norm for many RP guilds going forward.
I know its not just RPers on RP realms, but I do believe that an RP realm should facilitate RP.
If they can’t, as others have said, an RP mode would be highly desirable
You could even disable events in it so that they’re less performance heavy and can carry more players