WoW Classic relies on a layering system to make the start as pleasant as possible for players. “New” content will only be available once layering is disabled.
In just over a week, many Warcraft fans will finally see their long-standing wish fulfilled as WoW Classic is released. However, to ensure a smooth launch, several technologies are in play that weren’t available back in 2006.
One of these is “layering,” which divides players at the start, even though they are playing on the same server. But this will not remain active forever. In fact, WoW Classic will remain in Phase 1 for at least as long as the layering is still active.
What is Layering? Simply put, layering refers to different shards (or simplified “instances”) of an area. For example, there could be three copies of the entire game world on a server, so each of these layers would contain only a third of the players.
This results in less contention over enemies in starter areas and a more pleasant entry experience. However, later all players are expected to be merged back together and the layers will be disabled. Then, all players of a realm will actually be permanently in the same world.
The Classic servers are already so full that Blizzard “Stop!” is calling.
Why is Layering needed this time? There are several reasons for layering. The most important is that this time all players will start at the same time, as WoW is already installed on almost all players’ computers. Previously, about 15 years ago, this was not the case. Brian Birmingham explained in an interview with colleagues from GameStar:
Back in Vanilla, you had to drive to a store for the midnight release, buy the game, drive home, install it, patch it, and only then could you start playing. Naturally, this spread players out more evenly in the game.
This time, that will not be the case. Just in time for the release, hundreds of thousands of players will flood the servers, leading to overcrowding. Layering is intended to mitigate this.
New content only without layering: The content of World of Warcraft Classic is staggered across several phases. This simulates the patches that were available during the Vanilla era.
Phase 2, the first “new content”, will not be released until the layering is disabled on all servers. There is no exact timeline for this yet. However, it is likely that Blizzard will wait until the initial rush is over and the player base is distributed across multiple areas.
What do you think about layering in WoW Classic? Is it a good and sensible thing? Or does it ruin your Classic feeling?
Still not sure what you want to play in Classic? Then you should check out this post:
