Dear community,
since the last 2-3 weeks we are working on a solution to improve the server performance to a point where basically no population based queue is needed anymore and things like server sided lags should be history.
Layering is specially designed to emulate what it would be like to play on a populated server back in the day while simultaneously increasing server stability. Layering will only be present in the first few weeks of Classic World of Warcraft as a way to support the initial player base. Learn more in our WoW Classic Layering Overview. Successfully complete the first Layer of The Soulforges in Torghast, Tower of the Damned. In the Torghast Achievements category. Added in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Enchant your friends and beguile your foes with magical iridescent wings and dazzling antennae inspired by the fey drakes of Azeroth. For a limited time, get this transmog set with your purchase of a 6-month World of Warcraft subscription.
The solution for that is “layering”. You can find all available information about layering here: https://www.apollo-wow.com/layering/
Layering will be a temporary solution to the current situation and will be disabled again once it is not needed anymore.
Today we could finish our internal testing and we reached a point where we now need a “population” to determine the functionality. Since we are the first private server to ever implement such a mechanic, there is not much data available. Therefore we will need YOU to help us with that and getting rid of the long queue times in the evening.
Tomorrow 19.04.2020 at 17:00 server time, we want to invite everyone of you to join us on the PTR and test this new feature. Information of what needs to be tested can also be found on the website linked above. Please make sure to report any issues you find here: https://cata-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?issue=21157
We will need as many people as possible to make sure that the implementation of layering will cause no issues for your gaming experience. The more people take part in this testing, the faster you will have no queues anymore. 🙂
Your Apollo Team
- For other uses, see Sharding.
Sharding is a game design tool created to prevent player overcrowding in outdoor areas of World of Warcraft, and improve server performance.[1]
- 1Behavior
Behavior
When too many players are in an area, the game automatically creates a new 'shard,' a copy of that area. Players entering the area will be placed on the new shard. The world appears identical from the player's perspective, with minor differences:
- Players can only see other players on the same shard.
- Each shard has its own set of NPCs. As such, rare NPCs may respawn at different times on different shards.
- Each shard has its own set of objects such as herbs and mining nodes.
Shards can be any geographic size but are usually limited to zones or smaller areas. The borders of a sharded area are invisible to players.
Wow Layering Abuse
By design, players usually do not notice when the game moves them between shards, but players may notice NPCs momentarily disappear.
Sharding is enabled on all retail World of Warcraft normal realms. Sharding is disabled by default on retail RP realms to facilitate player-run events, but Blizzard occasionally enables it on these realms for server stability when needed.[2]
Sharding and parties
When joining a party or raid party, all party members are automatically moved to the leader's shard, but only if they are in the same zone as the leader. This and toggling War Mode are the only known ways for players to move themselves to a new shard.
Wow Layering Exploit
Comparison to related tools
Phasing is distinct from sharding. Phasing refers to the changing of the world's appearance to match the player's current progress in the story. For example, the area surrounding Wrathgate appears different depending on whether you've completed the Wrathgate questline. But similar to sharding, players in different phases cannot see each other.
Layering is the same as sharding, but affects an entire realm, covering all zones. Layering was used to alleviate overcrowding at the launch of World of Warcraft Classic, but was later removed.[3]
Cross-realm zones (CRZ) is very similar to sharding, but is designed to prevent under-crowding. If a zone on a realm has very few players, the game automatically moves players from multiple realms into the same 'instance' of the zone (effectively a shard) to make it 'feel active and alive.'[4]
Patch changes
What Is Wow Layering
- Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Added.
See also
References
Layer Hopper Classic Wow
- ^a small appeal re:phasing. Retrieved on 2019-11-02.
- ^WarcraftDevs on Twitter. Retrieved on 2019-11-02.
- ^Guys calm down!. Retrieved on 2019-11-02.
- ^CRZ is getting really old. Retrieved on 2019-11-03.