It's kind of a mix. I think that sharding is what players who are used to EQ or WoW are accustomed to, but there's been a good number of other MMOs that use the open shard system. I think the biggest reasoning behind it was that it makes it so that you can always get together with your friends, and you won't have a situation where you and your friend are like, "I'm level wow gold 17! I'm level 15! But we're on different shards and can't play together."
I don't think I can give out exact playerbase numbers yet, but the game is doing really well! We have a lot of people on every night, and an awesome and active community. We keep seeing our sub numbers continue to rise. But I think PR is waiting to give out the exact numbers, so...
Celebrated by both the Horde and the Alliance, the Brewfest is a time to enjoy the fruits of the harvest: pretzels, cheese, and brew! The competing breweries Thunderbrew, Barleybrew, and the Ogres, all come together outside of all the major cities in a bid to outdo each other with their special ales, meads, and beers. Brave adventurers are invited to sit back, take a pull, and sample the finest wares these brewers have to offer!
It's really easy to have a more open community with a shardless system. In order to make a friend, all you have to know is their display name. I've met people in-game who I've wanted to be friends with, send an cheap wow gold invite to their "@name" and boom, they're on my friend's list no matter the character. So the single biggest reason was that the developers liked the idea that people could just get together and play.
We do a lot of very under-the-engine things in terms of trying to get people together. When there are people playing on your friends list, we'll automatically put you in the same layer of a map as long as there are openings - I think as you go around the world and play the game and meet people, it's a simple matter to friend them and then you'll see them around a lot.
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