Realm mergers are a last resort
by David Bowers 
Sep 1st 2007 at 2:02PM
Realm population problems don't affect me too much, thankfully -- my server has neither too many people nor too few, and the faction balance tilts in my favor. But some people complain that their servers are ghost worlds, with not much at the auction house and not many to group for quests and dungeons. The "Recommended" tag Blizzard is using to help out low-population realms sometimes just doesn't do the trick: people play there for a while, see that no one is home, then decide to go somewhere else.So, while some people say the only way is to combine two low-pop realms into one, Drysc says that such mergers can only be a last resort:
There are a couple issues with merging realms though that we would need to take into heavy consideration if one were to be considered. As many of the lower population realms are PvP, faction balance has to be taken into careful consideration. Would a merge worsen, improve, or leave any faction balance unchanged? Would a merge move the population up too high, queuing or leading to queues for the realm after that point? Do we have realms of the same time zone and type that would merge well under these conditions? There also many logistical issues with merges which ultimately effect the end user, such as conflicting character and guild names. So, in the end, a merge would only be considered if all other possible options have been completely exhausted.So, what is there to do besides merge realms? Drysc calls that the "million dollar question," which I figure means that Blizzard doesn't know for sure, though at least a couple ideas come to my mind: They could have some kind of incentive to players who join low-population realms (that's what the Army is doing, I hear), or perhaps all but force new players to start out there unless they have a referral from another player. Of course any solution to this problem is going to create still more problems of another sort. What do you think would work best?
We're not just throwing recommended tags up on realms, and calling it a day. The recommended tag has done a lot of good for a lot of realms, but if we're seeing that they're no longer helping reach the type of population numbers we would like to see, then we would investigate alternate means. That's sort of where we're at now.
Filed under: Realm News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Sep 1st 2007 2:35PM
Reset the world events like AQ on low pop servers. Then all the people that QQ about new servers so they can experience "server firsts" will roll on those servers.
Amok2006 Sep 1st 2007 2:52PM
I call bunk on Drysc. Dragonmaw is 3-1 alliance vs. horde. "faction balance has to be taken into careful consideration." I call BS Drysc, now take the shovel and try to sell us another line.
Really, if Blizzard wanted "balance" they'd have a 1 for 1 systems. 499 horde, 500 alliance so a horde toon has to be made before an alliance is allowed. Or make it +/- 10 per side. However, seeing as how you have 10K Alliance and 3K horde (fake numbers) on a server and no balance system, Blizzard should reconsider their stance.
epsilon343 Sep 1st 2007 3:06PM
Well I remember when I started playing WoW and Aries Peak was listed as a recommended realm. New to the game, I assumed it was just something to do with lag times and what not. After I came back, it was no longer on that list and was full, so I think that, in some ways, the "Recommended" tag is good because new players have no idea what that means.
But seeing as this seems to be pertaining to PvP servers, maybe that means people should take a look into the entire system and see why it is that they're low population. I know for myself, the horror stories of PvP realms turns me off to that and I think I speak for the majority in that matter.
Zghuk Sep 1st 2007 3:08PM
I am playing at a RP-PvP-server and we have a little over "low population" (it's switching daily).
I think, servers with full population are better. better AH prices, more recepts in AH, better groupfinding, a better userbase for your raids, etc.
E.g. silbermoon is a really extincted place on our realm :-(
Zghuk Sep 1st 2007 3:13PM
By the way:
In the beginning "full servers" were unplayable because of the lag problem. But now blizzard has solved the lag issues well.
At German realm which are "full" there arent waiting lines or any lag issues.
There is no reason now to play not at a "full" server!
CVJ Sep 1st 2007 4:09PM
@Amok2006 And how did you come to this information you posses? And your idea of only allowing a horde toon to be created if an equal alliance toon exists or is created sounds good on paper but reality is more people play alliance anyways due to asthetics of the races.
Manasseh Sep 1st 2007 5:22PM
I'm sorely disappointed to hear that Blizzard is not considering this. It would be such a joy if they would.
[Begin Rant/Anecdote]: I recently rerolled Horde on the low population Zuluhed server to play with some friends (coming from high pop Anvilmar) and in the three months I've played there every halfway decent guild that was making any PvE progress or posting any decent PvP numbers has transfered off. I'm a far more casual player, but the economy is terrible (you can see every SINGLE epic item being sold on our AH in a single search page -- yesterday around noon there were 8 [EIGHT!] total epics for sale, including enchanting shards) and I've lost hope of ever getting my epic flyer unless I can dedicate 4-5 hours a day for grinding and daily quests since greens are vendor trash and even blues don't sell. There is definitely a problem with realms like Zuluhed and from what I hear, we're not the worst.
Neil Paris Sep 1st 2007 7:00PM
@2
They would have to take faction balance into account even more with a server like one you pose. What if they merged two realms that are 3-1 alliance? That would make the merged realm even worse.
Amok2006 Sep 2nd 2007 2:18AM
@6: True, people play alliance for looks. All I am saying is if we're going to be fed the line about faction balance, there actually needs to be faction balance implemented. Even 1.5:1 wouldn't be too bad as "balance".
@8: They could balance the combine by offering free xfers for horde to the new server. They can implement a cap as to how many are allowed to xfer to new server with the rest spread out. Archimonde was a full server and entire guilds moved to other servers as a whole (mostly) when they offered free xfers.
Brian Sep 2nd 2007 6:39AM
I think the balance thing is a good point because if you have 2 realms that are 3-1 in favour of alliance then it's not going to help to merge them. Sure if you had one realm with a horde imbalance and one with alliance they might level themselves out but what do you do about player names? In game my character is called Kili, there are lots of us about and generally the dwarves nick all the names from the Hobbit fairly early on. How are Blizzard going to resolve 2 players who have both levelled to 70 with their character and now they have to change a fundamental part?
A guy up above complained about low populations effecting the AH for their epic flying mount. That's what daily quests are for. Once you do the 5 man quests you can earn 100 gold a day easily and Blizz are adding more. For a small amount of repetitiveness you can earn your mount money in 50 days. That's a couple of months max. Sure the Ogrila quests need groups to get to the dailies but if you can't get groups most of the Sethekk quests can be done solo.
And on a positive for low populations - some players like soloing. Recommended realms often give the right amount of 'going to a capital city for a group' compared to 'thank grud nobody else is grinding in the shimmering flats'. Unless you are a twink you really don't need instances till outlands. And if all you want is leet gear go grind the BGs. Some of the individual BG gear is quite cool looking and not commonly seen.
Anyway low population isn't all bad, but you have my sympathy.
PNess Sep 2nd 2007 8:44AM
TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.
this is more then enough reasons not to merge the servers till its almost too late. make as much as you can on transfers then merge the remaining people who did not want to pay.
its big business for sure.