Role players in World of Warcraft breathe a sigh of relief – Blizzard saves the largest RP event with an extremely quick hotfix.
Yesterday we reported on the largest role-playing event of the World of Warcraft community. The American RP server Moonguard was supposed to host the Tournament of the Ages and entertain several hundred players for a week. However, the first day of the event was a disaster. The culprit is the phasing or sharding technology that World of Warcraft has been using for some time.
As soon as many players are in the same area, WoW creates multiple instances of that area, so it doesn’t get overcrowded. This can be bypassed with a raid group – then at least 40 players can be in the same area.
However, for the Tournament of the Ages, it was supposed to be many more players. This led to the problem that many players were alone in the Argent Tournament grounds and could not see the large event.
Blizzard disables sharding in Northrend on RP realms
To the community’s astonishment, Blizzard has reacted “blizz-fast” and announced on Twitter that they are currently deploying a hotfix. This will disable the sharding technology for the continent of Northrend on RP servers.
It is rare for Blizzard to respond so quickly to the community’s wishes, and especially role players have felt neglected over the years. The fact that action has been taken so swiftly and that a large part of the Tournament of the Ages can now take place as planned with many players sends a clear message: Blizzard cares about its community.
The reactions from the player base are overwhelmingly positive. Blizzard has definitely made a powerful move here – at least among the role players.
