Poll: Shards?

[Splorf22]

So Noselacri made a post that I really like where he makes two good points. First, the problem with P1999 is too many damn players. The players cannot manage the server ala Sirken because the only thing they can do to fix the problem is try to grief other people off - which is exactly what has happened on numerous occasions. Second, he proposes a solution that I have not heard suggested before called shards which I think is the best solution I have heard yet.

The basic idea is to split the server into multiple servers and allow /movelog, but only the high-end zones. Each guild can only exist on one shard. If you are in a global zone (all the low/mid level zones like Qeynos or East Commonlands or Mistmoore) you could find players of all guilds leveling up together and wearing and trading gear obtained in any of the various shards. However, whenever you zone into one of the sharded zones (zones like Sebilis or Sky) the server checks your shard flag and moves you to the appropriate copy, exactly as if you were playing on a separate server.

The key point here is that this is not instances. They aren't created on demand. You'll share your high-level shard zones with several hundred other players and all of the usual negotiation and sharing and global world nature of EQ will apply. Let's say for argument's sake that we make three shards which I shall call A, B, and C, and after a month or two we end up with Shard A: TMO, Azure Guard, Europa, Shard B: FE, Taken, The A-Team, BDA, Shard C: Full Circle, IB, Divinity, Rapture. Well to me that looks a lot like a classic EQ server: each shard has 3-4 high-level guilds who can and will engage in the competition that the staff loves so much. The key difference is that the staff actually can just turn off variance and say "you handle it" because with a reasonable number of players per shard the players don't have to fight like dogs for one or two spawns.

Anyway I seriously doubt this system would ever be implemented because it would be quite a bit of work to do (certainly far more than the simulated patch days) but I like it because I think it cuts right to the heart of the problem.