The plague of the reroll locusts
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 25th 2007 at 12:13PM
If you ever visit the WoW forums on a daily basis, you'll notice that a large portion of the posts are people asking, begging, wheedling and whining about their wish for new servers. These posts have gotten so bad that Blizzard has now classified "new server plz" posts as spam and threatened to ban posters from the forums. But even so, you can see "Are there new servers today?!?!?!?!", "New realms: Why they are needed" and "Perfect time to release new realms!"
Blizzard has said that they don't plan to release any new realms until the current servers are overpopulated -- and with the large number of "dying" low-pop realms, this doesn't seem to be on the agenda anytime soon. But many of the rerollers say they don't care that newly released realms will become low-population -- they just want a "fresh start" so they can get server firsts. Devonw, who starts a number of the threads, has rerolled seven times on new servers, oddly enough with mostly night elf females. This has led to the popularization of the term "reroll locusts." The locusts demand a new server to start anew on, roll a character there, and in a few months when it becomes a low-population server, desert en masse to call for yet another new server, leaving the old server a barren wasteland.
I've got to say that the attitude of many of the reroll locusts has turned me off from supporting their cause. They don't seem to care about any of the low-population realms desperately in need of players, but only about their own need for a new playing field. I do understand the fun of starting out on a brand-new realm, having tried it once myself in the past, but I think Blizzard really has to balance that against concern for the low-population realms, and they've decided in favor of the latter.
What do you think should be done about new realms and low population realms? Do you support new servers, or do you wish the threads would just go away?
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
michael Apr 25th 2007 2:02PM
take the two lowest population servers and combine them into one. reformat the old server into a new one. redo that every six months and the chronic rerollers will see they are the only ones on the new servers as they keep gettting transfered from server to server.
Kahja Apr 25th 2007 12:29PM
Blizz did good considering this spam. There are too many low pop servers for Blizz to justify spending money on new servers.
What someone needs to do is explain it in very lay terms so that people understand that servers don't grow on trees.
Hank Apr 25th 2007 12:41PM
While I would one day like to start fresh, right now I would like to see some of the low-pop servers merged, so that we could at least get to 'Medium'. Low pop servers are teh suck. Wish I knew that before my entire guild moved.
Gitr Apr 25th 2007 12:38PM
I moved my guild to Velen because it was the only "recommended" non-PvP realm available last week. The place is still a barren wasteland with barely 5,000 players.
The locusts may behave like locusts, but they don't have the same numbers. So, I suppose they should just shut up until they can support a new server by themselves.
Maybe re-roll locust support groups are called for...
Matthew Apr 25th 2007 12:49PM
Definitely need to consolidate some of the low-pop servers. One of the servers that launched with TBC has only five people in Ironforge on any given friday night!
Hellspawn Apr 25th 2007 12:57PM
NICE, id like to try out a new server but im ot going to annoy for it, it could be cool to be around the same level as the highest on the server (ignoring those people that play for days straight to get 60 first) but for now wildhammer is fine by me, maybe even make a new char on a low pop server (but do items get more or less expensive on lower pop servers?)
Matt Rossi Apr 25th 2007 1:00PM
I don't think we need to merge servers yet, but I would like to see more free transfers open up to low pop realms that need people. I'd move all of my toons to a low pop realm and consolidate if it was free to do so, but I'm not spending a couple of hundred bucks to do it.
Hellbena Apr 25th 2007 1:00PM
@3:
Working from what you said, here's an idea of how blizzard could make it work:
Take 2 low pop servers of the same type on the same battlegroup, merge them together (might require some name changes for characters and guilds) and purge the other server making it a new server again for the locusts to devour.
mchristopher Apr 25th 2007 1:05PM
To satiate the people seeking this they should have a server that gets wiped every two months.
At the end of the two months offer everyone who wants to keep their char a free ride to a low pop server.
BoBoTheChimp Apr 25th 2007 1:09PM
I think any post with "plz" in the title should be considered spam on the grounds they whoever writes "plz" is by nature, a moron ;)
Nyx Apr 25th 2007 1:09PM
Reroll locusts are what turned Norgannon into the shithole it is today, so I'm definitely not enthused. Shut up and roll on a ghost town server.
Dongyrn Apr 25th 2007 1:17PM
@5: Generally I do believe AH prices are higher on low-pop servers. Wish I'd thought of that or I'd have stocked up: i moved from Eitrigg (high) to Ravencrest (low, at the time). As an indicator, Mageweave Bags on Eitrigg regularly went for under 1g; on Ravencrest they sell for 1g25s or so. But, all the mats are higher too.
jaydlawii Apr 25th 2007 1:27PM
I would /ignore them. It is not worth it, hell bliz could afford to consolidate some of the low pop realms and get rid of a couple of realms. i would wait until every realm is at least 45% populated before rolling out another.
Nick Apr 25th 2007 1:36PM
@8 I like your idea of have special servers that wipe every so often to satisfy the locusts with free realm transfers to low population servers.
Hellspawn Apr 25th 2007 2:45PM
LOL i wanna roll a 68 druid transfer toa low pop n be one of few who could fly, but possibly many may play low pop as they may not have TBC, which means outlands may get VERY lonely :(
Predatorprime Apr 25th 2007 2:32PM
Part of the issue is that there are servers added in 07 that are still low pop. I just rolled a character on the Forgotten coast which is pretty new and there is no one there...next to no lvl 70s...nothing. People need to support the new servers in order to justify more new servers.
Strongmark on Arthas Apr 25th 2007 2:12PM
With pricing, I believe it is the opposite. You have a low pop server that does not have that many people who have not had a chance to make that much money, nor is their the sheer buying power in having 3x amount of people = prices being lower. On Arthas, Light leather goes for about 1g 50s on good days. Ravenholdt, if you're lucky, 20s. Competition is stiffer for the low level products, but at the same time, you would think that with lower competition in the higher brackets, you would have people with a monopoly on the market. Although this is true, when no one has the money and there are very few buyers in the first place, it's tough to make high prices.
My own experience is that older servers, higher pop servers = inflation.
Lower pop, newer servers = less inflation and a better value for your dollar.
Metaphyzxx Apr 25th 2007 3:10PM
@8 That is the perfect solution, as it would serve two problems at once. Reroll locusts (I like that term) would get their opportunity for world firsts on every server restart (I say give it like 4 months instead of 2), and when the wipe comes, the server transfers to low pop servers give those servers some new blood. If you don't care about the toon too much, you just let it go with the wipe.
I think this idea was presented on the Forum at one point or another.
Real question is... what KIND of realm would it be? Pvp? PvE? RP?
m?wyn Apr 25th 2007 3:13PM
@14: It's not that simple. These aren't just one computer that can be reformatted at will, realms (as they should be called, not servers) are a redundant, load balanced cluster of many different types of servers. These take hundreds of man-hours to setup.
Also, the merge idea. Honestly, I'd love to see that and hopefully they are taking that into consideration. The low-pop servers are quite abysmal. But this is unprecedented and if Blizz is considering it, they've got to figure out what to do about everyone, really. What about the people who have suspended their accounts? When people come back, and go to look for their realms, they will be gone, only to be replaced by another. Not a fun time for Blizz.
I, though, do not agree with giving the locusts more servers to decimate. To me it seems like they are buying a new car for the new car smell, and then dumping it when that smell fades after two months. They need to stop crying and either play the game as the rest of us do, reroll on low-pops (think using an air freshener? :) ), or just stop playing.
My friends and I have come up with a term for those who are constantly rerolling toons and/or who can't seem to advance at all. "Permanoobs".
Hank Apr 25th 2007 3:58PM
Blizz can do it, easy. Simply tell those people with toons on that server that the server will be shut down. Give them a choice of 2-3 of the other low-pop servers to move to (FREE, obviously), and give them a firm deadline. Come shutdown day, that's it. If you didn't move and your toon is lvl10 or higher, Blizz chooses your new realm. Under lvl10, your toon is deleted.
And that's it. As far as restarting the server as 'new', I'm sure they've done it enough times that they have something like Ghost to do it with.