US servers:
SourceBlizzard Entertainment
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:
- Anathema
- Arcanite Reaper
- Ashkandi
- Azuresong
- Deviate Delight
- Earthfury
- Felstriker
- Heartseeker
- Netherwind
- Old Blanchy
- Remulos
- Smolderweb
- Windseeker
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:
Source
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!
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Frosted • rijndael • Stfuppercut • Pippina • Selexin • atkars • Redstain • ClassicRaids
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.Frosted wrote: ↑5 years agoDoes 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?
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.
2000 IQg0bledyg00k wrote: ↑5 years agoNever making a single investment again until I 100% know it pays off.
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!
Chablo - Undead Mage - US Sulfuras
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.
Vylizana Undead Frost Mage
<Czechdream>
"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.
Lvl 60
Lvl 35
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
It's beautiful. There are only 6 layered servers left on the servers that I can see.
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.
@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!
Lvl 60 Lvl 35
I'm on my phone so I'm not gonna try and link.. but I saw a Bluepost today saying that 4 EU server were flattened yesterday as well. Seems like the EU servers are not deflating nearly as fast as the US servers. They're going to have a hell of a time getting these last servers down to size small enough to remove layering...
There are far less EU servers, compared to US. The two big German servers (Lucifron and Venoxis) have 2-4 hour queues each evening. I'm playing on Heartstriker, the transfer target for Lucifron (and previously Venoxis). It's getting more crowded each day.
At one point blizz will reduce layers regardless of population. The main reason to switch from High to Low/Medium pop is queue times, so the best course of action is to make these queues great again
Are you gonna transfer servers if your queue comes back and stays high?
I'm referring more to the EU megaservers that Leandros is talking about which are both still layered and have 4 hour queues. I wonder how these will have layering removed since they don't seem to be losing many players. I don't think Blizzard would release phases at different schedules on different servers, and Blizzard said they will not release Phase 2 until layers are disabled. So we look towards the highest population servers with the highest remaining queues as the bellwether of phases to come.
Cant wait for one Layer Gehennas HEHEHE! :D
Twitch Channel, feel free to take a look :)!
