Sharding on RP Servers still active in zones they shouldn't be and upcoming content will make it worse

[Orokana-argent-dawn]

As part of the Celestial Circle that primarily is stationed on Pandaria sharding hurts us a lot during the weekly market on Tuesdays.

And currently it hurts us as well, one of our guild members had to level an alt to 70 for our ongoing Dragon Isles expedition and it was done in a bit of a rush.

I firmly believe that the Roleplay community is always active despite where we are in a patch. Where raiders might unsub and return the next patch because of down time, Roleplayers keep on trucking because of our stories and our dedication.

So please stop sharding where we don’t need it to be active.

[Rottian-argent-dawn]

Greetings,
Yes, please fix this at last, someone mentioned here a RP Mode which ngl does sound rational and IF you guys really struggle with the technicalities, then at least give us that. It would make so many things easier. For now, people who just want to do RP on a RP server need to either seek some secret knowledge and communities or even worse - join very limited raid groups, which is completely NOT what enjoying a RP server was supposed to be about. We already experience hardship with trying to resurrect the Horde RP, and there are people who do wonderful job to keep it going, despite all. So please don’t make it even worse.
Thank you.

[Zoléná-argent-dawn]

Blizzard, RP is a massive part of your subscribers. Make space for us. I don’t think it’s much to ask that sharding in hubs that aren’t used frequently anymore should be removed.

RPers help keep dead hubs alive. For example, at Dawn’s Blossom in Pandaria, there is a market every week (it had to move there after Dalaran was destroyed). A market that’s been going on for years. It speaks of dedication from a big player base, and if we’re gonna talk money: it helps keep subscribers around. If RP dies, you lose.

And so do we because we love it.

But if it’s made difficult to practice, it takes the fun out of it.

Please help us flow more easily with our inspiration so we can help reinvigorate the beautiful world you host for us.

Much love,

Z

[Wumza-argent-dawn]

Sharding broke my event which was out of TWW zones. Pleasse fix.

[Thendira-argent-dawn]

Just jumping in here to add to the voices. We need this!
And I second the idea for an RP phase in which hostile mobs are phased out, making so much more areas available for RP.

[Lírìa-argent-dawn]

As Warden it is my Duty to enact fair judgement, and listen to both sides of the same coin.

The Big unknown in this, therefore, is, what do Blizzards ressources look like? What’s the Server structure? What are the technical limitations? How much benefit yields active sharding for them in terms of keeping the Servers on a long liveability? How big would the investment be to create a “solution”, where mayhaps the status quo, by numbers alone, already seems rather solved?

Look at me, being defensive for Blizzard again, despite having played through Shadowlands…seems that the recent development in the game have managed to sway me a little. Good job, Blizzard, we might repair our near 20 year relationship at this point and continue on being friends.

However much I bring empathy for whatever unknown variables for us there might be on your end, I too would very much welcome less sharding, or even an RP-Mode, in a style of an extra shard for the roleplayers.

We’re a relatively small percentage of the overall playerbase, mayhaps on par with the PvP Player Base at best, but we’re rather self sustaining and safe costumers. You don’t make content for a few months? No Biggie, we make our own content, and will safely produce you income.

If we are not hindered by things we cannot influence, to do so, of course. We can and will use everything we have available to us to make our play happen, we are passionate about it, but if things get overly complicated and stressful it breaks immersion and the will to invest the work.

There’s really not much we would require to be catered to to probably play this game until it’s eventual shut down when nothing makes financial sense anymore.
We want to meet each other without barriers.
Full control over the full scale of animations a character can do would be dandy.
-…there, that’s it. Done. Can’t even think of a third item on the list. Everything else would be, to me, nice to have to add to the experience, like Housing for example. Hyped for that, but i would’ve been able to survive without it being a Roleplayer. Esspecially if I had my own shard to share with my people.

May your enemies beware you, Blizzard

Your friend, Liria

[Merella-argent-dawn]

Adding my voice to this as well.

I’ve had ton of ideas for RP events to have for example in Dragon Isles, and I’d rather it to be available for everyone despite their level (under level 70 cannot see people above level 70, and are in different phase or shard).

RP has been one of the major things for me to do in WoW anymore in these days (if not years), because it’s easy get back into 'cause it doesn’t require you to have specific gear level and/or to unlock things - and it usually doesn’t require you to be specific level either.

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Adding to that as well, that was said earlier: RP should be easy to access on RP servers - be it then that RP servers get their own “RP phase (Roleplay Mode?)” that can be enabled from a main city like Warmode, and make it so that it’s not effected by which part of story-/questline you’re in and what level you are (okay, realistically add some small level requirement to avoid the Death Knight Pandaren Tradechat Spambots).

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Also to add: last year, when Dalaran’s fall happened in-game, and it also of course hit the Dalaran RP Community rather hard as well (which is fine, it gave us RP campaign to fight for Dalaran as well as event to mourn Dalaran), and there was plans to maybe settle at Valdrakken in Dragon Isles, because it’s large area with ton of buildings and market areas, and somewhat similar to Dalaran - perfect for Neutral RP. But like said earlier, the phasing is causing issues for everyone to have access to the events in Dragon Isles.

Even thought the community has settled at Dawn’s Blossom, Jade Forest in Pandaria temporarily, now there’s sharding issues. It’s old expansion area from 2012, it’s at least 13 years old zone.

[Kréhadaras-argent-dawn]

To add context to this post, RPers add up a large chunk of Subscriptions and player base. I did some math using two resources (though bare in mind, this math is not exhaustive and I could only use the information provided to me, I can only relay what the two sites have stated they use in their calculations and the numbers may well be much higher in some cases, and lower in others. But regardless, these numbers are telling that we are not a small number of players.)

Using WoWprogress.

16,006 Total RPers on EU servers: the number of unique players that meet either of the two conditions:

• has a level 70 character and killed something in Nerub-ar Palace Heroic Mode

• has a level 70 character in a guild that killed something in Nerub-ar Palace Heroic Mode

Using Raider.io.

190k+ Characters on Argent Dawn alone, with the other RP English Servers with 103k characters. And French Servers with the same 76k characters. German Servers with 54k Characters. Plus an additional 50k Characters on other German RP servers

English Servers: 293k+ RPers.
German Servers: 104k+ RPers.

French Servers: 76k+ Rpers.

Totalling: 473k RPers on EU servers alone.

This list will never be 100% accurate, as Raider.io also uses a similar algorithm to WoWprogress. However, unlike WoWprogress, Raider.io registers any max-level characters, and alts are also considered.

However, not all RPers do content, so some will not be included in the numbers, and not all people on RP servers are RPers. This is a fact that I should provide too. but hopefully this helps the Dev team see how important it is for sharding to be switched off if no longer needed.

[Acrona-argent-dawn (Acrona)]

I agree, please minimize sharding on the roleplay servers!

[Nemec-argent-dawn]

The sharding is really annoying. You see multiple people RPing in he area, you get there and then there is no one because you sit in another sharding. The open World RP really is hard to do when you end up alone. I’m not the type that want to bother people with whispers and hope they might will invite me into party.

Specially on large events this isn’t an option.

A fix would be great or like some sort of RP mode for RP servers.

[Zakariye-argent-dawn]

Please do something about this issue.

[Kaytlinne-argent-dawn (Kaytlinne)]

Agreed with what others have said here, in a much more thorough way than I could.

[Daedion-argent-dawn]

Here to give the thread and the posts above a +1.

While the main issue stated here is that we’ll need sharding to be disabled wherever possible, I am also in favour of a role-play phase that one can toggle in and out. This would remove the need to disable sharding on the other phases to begin with, causing less of a hurdle for developers and gamemasters.

The Quel’thalas community is already experiencing a gradual revival due to the “Midnight” expansion coming closer. If sharding will be implemented in the old zones of Eversong due to a potential pre-patch taking place there, it’d instantly kill off this resurgence.

[Torkazi-argent-dawn]

Highlighting this from the rooftops, taking the hit for a spot of lag in the two release days of a patch is a small price of admission for being able to utilize the gameworld creatively, in near-perpetuity, without there being barriers hindering our process.

[Kaerlynn-argent-dawn]

Concur with the suggestion of an RP mode.

Further to Kréhadaras’s points and summation, I would point out that there are a lot of people whose only reason for maintaining their sub is for RP. They may not do content, but they are a continued source of revenue for Blizzard. It would be in Blizzard’s own interest to instigate phasing for RP / RP Mode simply from a financial point of view.

[Skvala-argent-dawn]

Posted on the US Forums in the vauge hope that a developer actively sees this and realizes how big an issue it is

Sharding on RP Servers still active in zones they shouldn’t be and upcoming...

[Bertel-argent-dawn (Bertel)]

What is the point on having RP servers, if Blizzard makes it impossible to actually RP on them!

Stop this nonsense now!

Or make a selectable RP Mode feature in game, somewhat like Warmode, that puts all who have chosen it in same phase/shard, and be over with many other issues, such as lag.

Has there been made an X/Twitter post to make Blizzard aware of this yet?

I should maybe add that RP’ers tend to be some of the most loyal subscribers Blizzard got, keeping up WoW sub even in content drought periods.

And that my main activity personally in WoW is RP, and that I am not sure I would even play WoW if my RP experience got obstructed by this nonsense.

[Kytheríon-argent-dawn]

I just want to be able to RP in my homeland and meet people without having to group up for pre-planned, scripted events and just discover new social encounters in a free-flowing, organic way.

[Obilot-argent-dawn (Obilot)]

Excellent, they are more inclined to listen to our American/Australian friends.

Our main RP hubs (Stormwind and Orgrimmar) are once again made unavailable for RP for a full month, which is way too long. We truly need a permanent solution for this problem.

[Searixa-argent-dawn]

Even when a patch has been out for a while roleplayers still play the game. A loyal base that enjoy the world for what it is, they create their own content and stories.

For all the talk of noticing roleplayers, these issues have been long standing and disruprive.

Please fix this for us all.