Will merging servers help low pop realms?
by Amanda Rivera 
Nov 5th 2007 at 9:07PM
Coriel on Blessing of Kings mentions that the real problem isn't simply the low population, it's also player retention. Hardcore gamers leave the low population realms to go where they can achieve their goals, namely raiding end-game content (I would also add high -level PvP to this.) Simply having more bodies to a server won't keep that player there. Coriel's analogy of server buckets with holes is a valid one. The only thing that keeps a hardcore player on a server is a guild (or arena team) that can get them where they need to go. The guild is the plug that keeps the leaky bucket full.
While some might look at this as elitist, consider for a moment the notion of server pride. We love our realms, love to show off the achievements of the players we play with. Even if we aren't the ones raiding Mt. Hyjal or the Black Temple, there is still a certain level of excitement on a realm that has guilds that are pushing through the progression. I think this applies to the entire realm, regardless of which faction you happen to play on. It's that energy and excitement that make the difference between thriving realms and dying ones. More active hardcore players means more gold flowing for enchants, for consumables, and the economy grows.
I definitely see Coriel's point, but I wonder then, what is the ultimate solution? Merging a low population realm with a medium one, a server with a few healthy guilds? That might work well, as long as the influx of people doesn't begin to swing the pendulum the other direction, and then the problems of overpopulation creep up. Add to this the challenge of keeping a proper faction ratio on a server, and it all becomes a sticky mess.
Still, I think I may have hit on something here. It certainly would make it simpler than recruiting guilds specifically to switch servers in order to help out a struggling group of players.
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zghuk Nov 5th 2007 9:16PM
It would be good for all. A realm with 2500 chars cannot survive. You dont find anyone for your guild's progression and LFG is ridicolous.
As you can see in the statistics most servers have a equal distribution of Horde and Alliance so merging would solve the problems. Even when the ratio doesnt fit, who cares?
Zghuk Nov 5th 2007 9:18PM
Do you have also the feeling that WoW is dying? Only 2 million lvl 70 chars (I have 6 lvl 70 chars...). That's really discouraging!
I thought WoW is gaining more people? Is the market of MMORPG-gamers closed?
Zeplar Nov 5th 2007 9:26PM
There are closer to 6 million level 70's. Check your data.
Charlie Nov 5th 2007 9:32PM
@2 Only 2 million? Wow is the only MMO to the best of my knowledge that has over a million people in its player base. EQ2 was somewhere around 800,000 i believe.
So only 2 million people at the level cap isn't a bad thing.
@OP I think its a fair analogy. I think the whole bucket thing works well, as well as the real top end servers are an overflowing bucket, that as the realms get way to high, you will see large flows of people transfer off, and then free transfers are like blizzard poking a hole in a bucket and then plugging it back up.
I like the analogy, and I, in general, agree with the statement
PeeWee Nov 5th 2007 10:06PM
Practical question... if two or more servers merge, what happens with character and guild name conflicts? Should all be tagged for name change, so that first come gets first served on the "original" name? Or only the ones on the lower population servers? Or should the original name go to the highest lvl character? Or the one created first? Most played? It would suck so bad if you end up having to change the name of your main just because some lvl 45 nab happens to log on before you and tags the name.
dutchy Nov 6th 2007 9:21AM
Boo Aggamagan. Yay merge
theremover Nov 6th 2007 12:25AM
All my characters reside on Azshara and rumor has it that we have had the lowest population server for awhile now. I don't know if this is true or not, but it really hurts not being able to progress any further... it's very uphill for the general populace and the few actually making headway are too self-reliant and self-centered for others to get a chance. Not that I blame them, it's a product of the situation.
I welcome any attempts to fix this.
Chris Nov 6th 2007 12:20AM
It's worthwhile to remember that many so-called casual players, the majority of wow players, actually aren't interested in much more than at most getting to kara. Server Pride? Likely, they don't care if some guild on their server or some other server are x/y in raid ____. They just can't commit to the time needed to raid (and commitment/structure - it's actually quite synonomous to joining a sports league of some sort).
Likely, they care most about how easy it is to find that last person for a PuG, or they care about balance between alliance/horde for farming reasons (ie on a PVP Server).
Dave Nov 6th 2007 12:27AM
I think that the majority of low pop servers should be forced to consolidate. Offer free -entire- transfers from one server to a select group of "not bad, but not full" servers.
Lots of people are reluctant to transfer if that means they lose their bank alt and all the other characters they're working on. Most people are unwilling to spend $200+ pushing alts to a new server, especially if they're not necessarily sure the new server is good or they can't convince their friends to throw down real cash moving their character and alt(s). I'd assume these people who are that dissatisfied with their server, are more likely to quit the game and try something different with less servers and a more consolidated population, than they would be to throw more money at WoW, where in their eyes it's your own fault for rolling on a graveyard of a server that people can't wait to leave.
Combining low pop realms, bad idea. Dispersing the population to other realms (and not just 5 crap realms, give people a full spectrum of choice and even allow PVE -> PVP transfers, which seems to be the biggest reason people restart on a new server anyway) is a good idea that makes sense. Guilds can stay together even if they're only 10 people. Friends can go play on the same server. Again, people may be reluctant to leave if their buddy can't afford to transfer or just doesn't feel like rerolling or transferring at all.
At some point in your playing, the amount of people available to play even of the PUG variety comes into play and can seriously affect your game. The AH sucks, the LFG sucks, everything just sucks when you're struggling to find a reason to keep playing. More people solves that.
But, since Blizzard is all about the $$$$ I'm sure they'd rather milk paid transfers forever. There's no doubt in my mind that this game had a surge with the expansion, servers were opened and promptly abandoned once people hit 70 and decided that neither Arena nor 25-man raids were their thing. It's time to admit that they didn't need as many servers as they opened and go ahead and dissolve the less popular ones and disperse the populations to better realms.
hpavc Nov 6th 2007 1:38AM
For above there is a merger FAQ that deals with the name conflicts.
This all seems like that Gnomergan server asking for the AQ gates to be opened because nobody could take down Nef and what not to bang the gong. Mergers?
Wow has a low server capacity, since TBC that capacity has gotten about 200 characters smaller it seems. The whole idea of all these realms to me is a huge problem, there should be a way similar to lineage to deal with this.
Basil Nov 6th 2007 5:31AM
I like low pop servers. I specifically moved to one BECAUSE it was low pop for rolling a new alt. It's a fresh start, new endgame, not as many hardcore players bitching and whining. I say no to any kind of merger, it would ruin what I enjoy about low pop servers. People who cant find groups just dont know how to. I can find and make groups easier on low pop servers because nobody else knows how to do it. Its great.
Conflag Nov 6th 2007 6:06AM
So i have just come up with a interesting idea due to your article, you say that it is the guild that holds tha game together which i dont disagree with, so what if blizzard in their infinite knowledge, gave discounts or possibly free transfers to these low realms, to a entire a guild? course requirments would have to be met, how long the guild has been in existance, amount of members that would be moving, etc... so please pick holes in this now before i go to the dreaded suggestions forums...
Steve Nov 6th 2007 6:19AM
Here's a hole - why would one of the best guilds on a medium population server want to move to a backwater server with population trouble? They'd be making it harder for themselves to get any decent well-geared players. The only guilds you are likely to get wouldn't be very good; middling fish looking for a smaller pond, so to speak.
Ian Nov 6th 2007 7:35AM
Oceanic are packed to the brim, we honestly don't mind adopting one of the little ones. It's the "dead" US servers that are blocking us getting the new server we really need.
Rambull Nov 6th 2007 10:11AM
Server mergers are likely to be low on Blizzard's current list of priorities. They probably anticipate a period of population growth again once WotLK comes out. Imagine how ebarrasing it would be to have a large group of realm mergers and then have to add new realms a few months from now. If anyone out there is serious about finding a raiding guild/BG group/arena team then there is always the transfer option. *shurgs*
Bearback Nov 6th 2007 11:26AM
I have played on medium and low pop realms. I moved my ally toon from a low [DYING realm] to a high pop realm.
WOW. wow. Its SO much better. I can't imagine going back to my medium [horde realm].
Sure some people transfer off the high pop realm to pursue end game. Fine. We don't even noticed. But the low pop realm. So very dead. Nothing.
Why wont blizz do something?
Me and my alts = 75$
My friends = $175
I am happily on my high pop realm and can get runs likes its going out of style. Even medium pop realms seem like ghost towns to me.
Blizz has $250.
Thats why they won't fix it. Everything they say is an excuse.
Once transfer money < % of accounts on low pop realms going inactive THEN they will do something about it.
Bearback Nov 6th 2007 11:28AM
I fought against the paid transfers for along time. And then i fought with my friends to get them to go. JUST GO.
Pay da MAN his extortion and you can enjoy the game again.
duanpablo Nov 6th 2007 11:31AM
I know nazjatar has a huge problem with lfg and the AH. we lost alot of people. I can honestly say that I just play less now cause im bored of being a dps class looking for tanks and healers and trying to pacify the ones we got in our guild. If we got 15 ppl wanting to do kara but only one tank we cant find anyont to fill in. forget about heroics there is never anyone on. full servers or medium servers always have lfg channel lookin for ppl all the time. its a great change from what we got. Im not paying to transfer. I gave them enough money.
Andy Nov 6th 2007 5:55PM
Combining servers would solve a lot of problems. The holes where guilds should be are there because guilds can't find enough dedicated members, and they all can't pile into one guild. Combining with another server or two would completely fix this problem! There would be a huge new pool of people to recruit and party with. It really shouldn't be a choice, Blizzard just needs to combine 2 or 3 low pop realms into medium pop or even high pop realms.
I don't understand why anyone would think that's a bad idea tbh. I played on Coilfang, which was the lowest population server, well guess what, they are further than the high pop server I play on now, Coilfang has a horde guild halfway through Black Temple.
Anyhow, I abandoned that server (which had a whole guild full of my friends) because it was horrible. There was NO world pvp and if you weren't 70 (and even then) it was hell to find a group to run anything, especially if you weren't a pve spec. And forget about progression, everyone wants to join ONE guild, and that's the guild furthest in progression and you bet your ass that they will steal any and all of your members that start to get good gear.
Xie Nov 6th 2007 9:25PM
Well... having played WoW since closed beta, here are my two cents.
We picked up our LE WoWs on Tuesday Nov 23, 2004 at 8am, and rushed home to install them. We'd been locked out since beta closed and we were eager to finally level characters we could keep for good. We chose Alleria, one of the very first handful of servers to go live just after midnight.
For a long time Alleria was wonderful. The faction balance, while never 50/50, was about 60/40 in favor of Alliance. Epic battles at Tarren Mill were the norm. There were healthy guilds of all kinds on both factions. There were more raiding guilds on Alliance side, but Horde players had a number to choose from as well.
Alleria was so popular, we got realm splits several times. Each time we lost a few high-end raiding guilds to the free transfer destinations. Some of them were tired of queues. Others wanted to take advantage of being able to re-do the opening of AQ event on a new server. But through all that, Alleria remained pretty high pop and had lots of active raiding and social guilds on both factions.
Then came paid character transfers.
Several things happened immediately. Alliance side had a massive influx of people who wanted to raid, and were following the reputations of guilds like Risen and Surreal. While Alleria was always high pop, you still knew most people before transfers were allowed, even if it was only name recognition. Suddenly, we had unguildeds in t2 flooding the server. People who either wanted to go to AQ40/Naxx, or whose old guilds died, or needed a place to make a new reputation because they'd ruined themselves on their old server. Tons more DPS, of course, than healing, which created a whole new set of issues for guilds to deal with. It really changed the guild and social dynamic of Alleria's Alliance side.
The second, and worse, thing that happened was this: Allerian Horde players left. We are now 80-85% Alliance, depending on whose population stats you look at. Every single Horde player I was friends with has transferred off Alleria, most in 2006 with a last few stragglers leaving when BC dropped. There are now only a handful of Horde raiding guilds left, and no longer anyone I know over there.
Paid character transfers have resulted, for at least some servers, in severely factionally unbalanced populations. Likewise, we have half a dozen "Scarab Lord" toons running around the server. Yes, that's the person who banged the AQ gong. Yes, that means that at least six people who opened AQ40 on other servers have transferred to Alleria.
There is no WAR on Alleria. It's become the World of AllianceCraft. The world is owned and operated by Alliance players. It's not uncommon to wander Shattrath and not see any Horde.
I got to laughing at a guild mate the other day who is foaming at the mouth to get to Lake Wintergrasp, and raving about how wonderful it will be. I asked him who, exactly, he thought he was going to fight there, since we have so little Horde left. Halaa is perpetually under Alliance control. Horde takes it occasionally to access the vendors, and we let them. They then leave as soon as Alliance start showing up because they are so severely outnumbered within minutes.
Would I support server merges? Yes, I would. I think low pop servers should be merged, but furthermore, I think they need to do something about balancing factions across servers. World of Warcraft isn't Warcraft when it's all Horde or all Alliance on a server.