Population: Too much or not enough?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jan 18th 2007 at 2:24PM
When I first started questing in Hellfire Peninsula, I felt like I was visiting a mall two days before Christmas. Everyone was after the same thing, pushing and shoving, and yelling at their friends across the zone/store. Alliance and Horde were being relatively peaceful, but there was no immersion, no beautiful landscape, no herbs to pick -- just a ton of people fighting across an extremely red wasteland.
So I took off for Zangarmarsh and Terokkar Forest. Here, I encountered a different problem: emptiness. There was no one to quest with or answer questions, and if you got attacked by multiple mobs, you would die alone (as opposed to in Hellfire Peninsula, where any untagged mobs are quickly taken off you.) It was pretty creepy, and I hightailed it back to HFP, which had quieted down a bit from the original gold rush.
Realms are a bit like these zones. Some, like (for example) Mal'Ganis, are so overcrowded that you have to wait in line for hours to get in. Sure, you've got a vibrant culture and playerbase, but the populations makes the servers laggy and queuetastic. On the other hand, you have dead servers that have lost most of their players to transfers or rerolling, where there are one or two raiding guilds and you can't find a group for anything. It's hard to say which is worse, but I think I would prefer the overcrowded realms to the dead ones. The free realm transfers might do a bit to alleviate this problem, but if everyone from one server transfers over, it could make it even worse.
What's your server's population like, and what do you wish it was?
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Hooper Jan 18th 2007 2:46PM
I'm on Thunderlord Horde and the overall population (forgetting the common 2:1 ally ratio 4:1 ally/horde online ratio) its decent. No queue to log on, slight lag here and there, but enough players to usually get a quest.
Except since the xpac, first time playes like myself who are still doing the 50-60 level range dungeons can't find enough for a full group usually cause everyone is in outland.
Kaze Jan 18th 2007 2:49PM
Well, I'm on Vashj (Pacific, PST, PvP realm) which released within November 2006, and it seems to have settled down. It isn't abandon and most zones have people in it, I just don't see any real big activity, other than the start zones having floods of alts.
If you want a place to escape from the queues, Vashj is the place to be.
Aler Jan 18th 2007 2:44PM
I play on Zuluhed US, we are the lowest pop server in all of US. Right now I love it no lag and easy questing. But back in the day of 40 mans, you would have to zerg recruit to get 40 people on.
Wartoad Jan 18th 2007 2:54PM
Emerald Dream (RP-PvP) is pretty packed. 1-300 queue in the evenings to get on, Hellfire Penn was a Barrens Chat revisited last night, everyone and their mother trying to do the same quests. That's the downside.
On the upside, a full realm makes for a very nice Auction House, a real "alive" feel to the cities and server, good guild and group opportunities.
The upside/downside of an almost too full server still beats the pants off the upside/downside of an low pop/ghost server.
layne Jan 18th 2007 2:54PM
ive been on magtheridon since the beginning. i love the population. its just right. not too many but still never empty. the list generally has it at medium which sounds about right.
it also has a fairly decent alliance to horde ratio.
Spookap Jan 18th 2007 3:15PM
Elune is disgusting. Sick queue during primetime, constant reboots during the Hellfire Zerg, and a population that... well...
Just check the realm forums, if you're curious. A lot of the more repulsive posts ARE representative of the social elite on the server. There's a minority of friendly fun folks and a majority of elitists and trucker-mouthed 12 year-olds (some of which are actually 12).
Sylythn Jan 18th 2007 3:19PM
Elune's been bad since the expansion. 500-700 queues are not unheard of. East Coasters don't have an issue if they log in after work...but wait until 8-9pm and you'll be at least 30-60 minutes in line. The other night we had server crashes around 11:30-midnight...but that seems to be a one-time issue.
Dan Jan 18th 2007 3:24PM
I'm a server jumper. i transfered from a PVP server to Skywall (sucked) to play with friend. Then when they stopped I had no friends to play with, so I jumped on the chance of moving to Arathor. Such a low-pop new server at the moment but I've had good luck finding people to group with (doesn't hurt I'm a Undead Priest).
Once i moved out of Hellfire I ran into the same problem, no one was around, it was creepy but i was able to get a lot of stuff done.
Ekimus Jan 18th 2007 3:31PM
I reside on Medivh US-EST (Alliance), we have a high-pop server with a good social environment. Since our hardware upgrade, there has been little queues (5 min at most) and little lag. However, with the rush of people to Outland, it (Outland) has been very laggy and multiple restarts followed. I considered a realm transfer, but I think we'll be ok once the initial rush has moved on from Hellfire Peninsula.
Given my fluctuating play style/time, I enjoy the population level of Medivh. It allows for a good player atmosphere, and I can pretty much get a group whenever I want.
Deusirae Jan 18th 2007 4:03PM
I am sure that everyone on an overpopulated server thinks the same, but Terenas has to be one of the worst to deal with. The sheer impact of people trying to complete a single quest all at once is amazing. Yesterday in HFP trying to kill the voidwalkers was like trying to watch 30+ wolves competing at a rabbit den. It was almost expected by everyone to have to steal all the mobs you could get your hand on before someone else hit them. To top it off, the lag was not all too helpful either. I have true sympathy for those in the West Coast on the server who get off work and cannot log in without a queue of at least 300+...on a good day. I have heard rumors of Blizzard realm splitting Terenas to alleviate the issues, but I take most rumors with a grain of salt until I see something in writing.
panahi Jan 18th 2007 4:28PM
I just decided to start my new expansion characters on Blood Furnace instead of my earlier choice Tortheldrin because despite it's time zone being on the other end of the country (it's PST) it is actually located on the east coast (whereas tortheldrin is EST but is located on the west coast and my ping counter is always yellow). However, I did a quick /who and found A TON of blood elves, and maybe a total of 50 non blood elves. I'm debating whether I want to really play on this new server for 2 reasons: 1) will it pick up rather quickly? and 2) will I want to roll my new Blood Elf on a server where there seems to be a glut of brand new blood elves?
I'm sure it will pick up with players fed up with huge queue times, but will all of the new players be blood elves? and will the factions be somewhat balanced?
Ulfghuld Jan 18th 2007 3:48PM
I have been on Feathermoon (RP) since the beginning and don't want to leave, but our Queues have been pretty rough. 600-700 each night and takes about an hour or longer to get it. I would say it was the Burning Crusade, but it was like this before it came out. Maybe that is why we have had 2 free moves lately.
Hopefully all the new players to the server will move and leave us veterans there to enjoy it once again... ah memories of no queues and good times...
Matt T. Jan 18th 2007 8:16PM
I am on Dark Iron and the problem is people aren't spread out, everyone is in the outlands....everyone. We had like 30 people in Org last night. And the rest of the normal world has maybe 200 people spread out.
Matt Jan 18th 2007 4:03PM
My server is paradise. Sen'jin has enough people that you can ALWAYS find a group for a 5 man, yet it rarely ever has a queue, unless a lot of other realms are shut down. I was able to log right in when I got home from Gamestop after I installed BC and upgraded my account. I have only gotten DCed once since Tuesday morning, and that was only because my wireless cut out.
I love Sen'jin.
Supamunky Jan 18th 2007 5:38PM
I did start fresh on the server Thunderhorn. Since the expansion it has crashed every night. Good thing there was a migration to Bronze Dragonflight (normal server). I think the server has become a regugee server as that and one other have low population. The rest are all full. I think I may have made the right choice at the moment. Especially if a decent amount of people move across before they stop letting people across.
Greg Jan 19th 2007 3:19AM
Absolutely not enough, my highest character is lvl51 and every lvl58+ character has migrated to Outlands! To be honest even the "full" servers were never that busy before TBC, sure there are queues, but that was only ever a hardware issue (jeez). 8 million players? you'd never know, that sucks, and they STILL keep openining new realms even though there are plenty of realms permanently on LOW.
Dave Jan 18th 2007 7:30PM
My preference is a server with a lot of people for easier grouping and questing and everything... but I wish that there happened to be more of a balance with the expansion as far as new people to the zone goes. I can't help but think that if they made two "separate but equal" starting zones (ie: designed specifically for green-geared L58-62 characters with appropriate instances) and attempted to shuttle people to either zone rather than pouring everyone into the same zone... the expansion might make me hate the high pop my server has right now. It's a mixed blessing. I can't quest during peak hours, because the mobs are camped and it takes an hour for a single quest just to tag the 12 mobs or collect the 12 widgets or whatever. However, finding an instance group takes roughly 30 seconds where pre-expansion I could spend upwards of an hour trying to find a 5th man for some instances. I guess this balances out somewhat with the 30-min queue to get on the server... but i'd rather have more people than less people when it comes to finding people to play with.
I hope they'd consider merging realms on a frequent basis. Two low-pop realms could really benefit from a merger on a regular basis. Wipe the "old" realm and use it for a fresh realm or a new transfer realm and basically continually balance the populations. Instead, things will continue to follow the same old pattern of how it seems to be where after a while the new realms stop attracting players who roll on an even newer realm instead. That doesn't help anyone really.
Jeff Taylor Jan 19th 2007 11:34AM
Related to the question of whether highly populated servers are good or bad, is that what is to be expected with the new server(s) allocated within a realm to 60+? Since each realm is effectively three server(s), one for the expansion areas, and one for each continent, shouldn't we see the queues somehow related to load for that area? Instead they all seem to be tied to one queue, so you wait 20 mins to get on then if you're in IF for instance... it's a ghost town. We've all heard how the realms are supposed to support 25% more players... if so, why the heck should anyone need to consider moving at this point? How can a mature realm where 70% of the players are all in the new content server be considered "full" when the continent servers are light? Someone explain this to me, it just doesn't seem right. I think the queue system needs to be revised to allow you to instantly log in to a realm... but then enter a queue for the particular character relative to the realm-server zone. Possible or not I don't know... but it doesn't make much sense to have 60 levels of content sitting there empty with 300+ queues because all the 60+'s are over in the new content server.
Guernia Jan 19th 2007 2:58PM
@18
Consider this example.
Outlands is at 85% capacity.
Eastern continent is at 10% capacity.
Under your scheme, you could let more people into the east continent becuase it's lightly loaded, right?
Eastern continent goes up to 35%, say.
Now. Everyone in Outlands hearths back to IF.
If the servers work like you specify, you can really only ever have a total population across all servers equal to the maximum capacity one server can handle in the event of the above happening (though in practice you'd have a higher total capacity to take advantage of the statistical improbability of the above happening).