It makes me sad how I play with people who I will probably never come across again. We’re all on different servers but I don’t understand what the point of separate servers is anymore, considering everything is cross-realm now. Why not just merge a bunch of servers into a mega-server so we can keep playing with a constant playerbase?
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WoW isn’t build for mega servers although sharding is in essence pretty similar.
Only issue if that WoW don’t seem to be able to run with more than 40 players fighting in the same area without heavy lags although sharing was build to reduce those issue.
Pretty sure the game would be unplayable in his current state with a mega server rather than sharded servers
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Why not just have a mega-server with sharding?
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ESO does use that so really, why not?
I alreasy suggested the mega server idea before, but it didn’t got much attention and some people unfortunately didn’t agree with me.
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The very concept of a mega server is to use sharding afaik but i’m under the impression that it’s on a much bigger scale, where the performance issue Plays a Big role.
Gameplay wise ESO is much easier than WoW, and by that i mean internal CDs, debuffs, buff, auras, number of spells and abilities and so on.
Imo comparing the ESO megaserver to WoW shards isn’t really fair as it doesn’t take into account this gameplay factor. WoW classic can host hundreds of players in the same area with minimal lags although BFA has crazy lags everytime you have a 40v40 WPvP fight or a World boss fight.
I would even bet that the 3 azerite pieces alone have more performance impact on a server/shard than a lvl60 classic character.
For OP : I don’t remember Blizzard commenting about mega servers and i doubt they’ll in the near future so this is pretty much pure speculation from our side.
Imo from a tech point of vue it can’t work in the current state of the game.
That said if they manage to optimise and fix their gameplay then it could be considered but at this point that’s a design debate, which i think would end in the Victory of the pro servers.
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I think they should make big merges of Low servers, this would allow those Low servers to actually become as capable as a High one, as it isn’t achieved with just sharding because you cannot join guilds from other servers you are not merged with.
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Yeap, with you on this. it would also make the realm list look much more healthy which would be a good thing for the game and give new players a better impression of the game before they start their own adventure!
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It’s absolutely required at this point.
If they do not address it then the exact same thing that’s happened with the factions will happen with servers (to some extent it’s already happened) where everyone is just going to transfer for recruitment and ease of play meaning those will be defacto mega servers regardless.
The server I am on, Bladefist, has been merged with 2 other servers and yet it is completely dead and there is no growth. In wod/legion we actually had some great guilds and there was some fun competition despite being a small server. All of the good ones that remained active in BFA have moved to the big 5 Horde servers, mainly Kazzak, leaving us with 0 options for a hardcore raiding experience because all the players have gone with them. Nobody will replace these players and it’s very hard to convince people to transfer TO a realm like this.
I don’t see it ever being fixed properly though, Blizzard makes a ton of cash from players like myself who are debating spending hundreds of dollars to transfer server with the many alts we’ve invested years into and it saves them the hassle of doing any meaningful work to solve the issue.
To be honest I think Activision Blizzard doesn’t want to remove servers because it is admitting defeat.
WoW is no longer the universal standard for MMOs and hasn’t been for some time, as its subscription numbers remain lower than ever, dipping lower than other sub-only MMOs, but you won’t see Activision Blizzard admitting to that fact.
Megaservers, plus a VALID option for Free-to-Play, would be the only thing that could genuinely ‘save’ WoW as an MMO. Subscription-only is going to remain a reason for people to quit for good, a gate keeping out new players, and condemn the whole game to being a relic of a bygone age, played by a relative handful who stick with it just because.
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The servers can’t even deal with 200 people in a same area.
Merge all servers into one? Even if we skip the fact that it would destroy the server economy completely, by suddenly adding 50 other servers into the mix, i’d rather not experience lag of nazjatar event on a regular basis wherever i go.
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Mega servers is not the same as one big server. It means to not have characters attached to a single server and just have characters distributed theought enought shards as neccesary.
If servers cant handle 200 players in an area with megaservers means it wont be 200 players in the same shard
100% this - when EA/Bioware started merging servers in SWtOR you knew they had a reason (losing paying customers) and now there are very few left. It’s no longer a “big” game but it’s still bringing in enough cash to warrant keeping some servers running. It was easier to do it with this game though, since MMOs isn’t the main thing the companies are known for. EA/Bioware reducing spending on a faltering franchise is seen as good business sense. If Blizzard did the same it would be the end of the world in the eyes of investors who still only remember them for WoW…
Isn’t that the case currently? If I remember correctly they said that the old understanding of what a server is disappeared with bnet 2.0.
My impression (without playing) is that servers are nothing more than a character tag and servers are kept only for PR purposes (as merging is interpreted as negative sign for the game’s health). Isn’t that servertag used only for the sharding/crz systems to make better decision (with many more factors like bnet friends, past grouping, etc) how to group people in the same instance?
That’s what i don’t get, there is a lot of dead realms where it’s very hard to find raiding guilds etc… still they don’t merge nor connect them to Other realms. I honestly don’t know why they don’t aside from the fact that they’d want us to pay for server transfers. It makes me really mad honestly, there are literally two italian servers and they’re both pretty dead afaik, the only reason they were two to begin with was because one was pvp one was not, why are they still separeted god d*mn it.
You all think blizz will give up on those sweet transfer services they are profiting from since the beginning.
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Personally i think is due to the database, different servers means different databases to simplify the search. Average player has 5-10 toon with tons of item, mounts achievements etc and they’re all entries in a db. A single one for the whole population would be so big that would create delays in every search.
Because it would looks exactly like Battle for Lagjatar. …And if u shard the living hell out of it whats the point anyway?
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point would be that, regardles if they shard it to 100 layers, it would still meen there is way more players to recruit for guilds, and Ah would be much better for everyone, specialy getting members for guilds would be the thing, becuse as it is now, people can not find members for their guilds or all just transfers anyways to big servers.
I would be sad to lose our servers, it’s been a part of the game from the start. Whilst I absolutely think more connections are needed for dying realms or some other solution, I don’t necessarily think it should come at the cost of every realm going.
If you’ve ever played on any busy realm you’ll know the AH and things like Guild Bank do not function well when the servers are full. That system just can’t handle every realm all at once as one.
I’m personally not a big fan of those games with one big mega server and lots of shards. I think it’s nice to have rankings on each realm. Everyone would just become part of the Hall of Fame and that’s it. We currently enjoy server firsts.
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Seeing how poor larger servers like Draenor run - especially when there are big launches happening, I would not mind seeing most servers run on a smaller scale.