Ever-enlarging WoW realms spell continued success
by David Bowers 
Jan 18th 2008 at 1:01PM
Apparently these upgrades allowed Blizzard to keep pushing the maximum realm population up all this time, as more and more players joined the game. There are some relatively "low" population realms, of course, but only in comparison to the new much-increased maximum limit. As Drysc says, "aside from literally a handful of realms (I could count them on one hand), every other realm has a population that would have been considered high to overpopulated before the launch of Burning Crusade." Only recently have certain realms become truly crowded enough to merit free transfers to other realms.
People always like to talk about the eventual downfall of the strongest player in any arena, but the steady growth Drysc is talking about continues, it looks like WoW will be the biggest 800-pound gorilla in the MMO jungle for a good long time to come.
Filed under: Realm News, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Justin Jan 18th 2008 1:14PM
I've heard millions of random answers to this question, but does anyone know what the actual population limit is on each realm?
Rapap Jan 18th 2008 3:14PM
Before the upgrades it was around 3.2k. Now its about 4k.
jrb Jan 19th 2008 5:11AM
i've been playing on and off since the game came out. it's only anacdotal evidence, but i don't see IF being any more crowded today as it was when i first hit 60.
However, i can see that what blue says makes perfect sense, with the advent of products like vmware it's totally feasible for blizz to be able to scale a realm's resources, or move the virtual servers around between differently specced hardware with relative ease.
Heike Jan 18th 2008 1:41PM
All I know is that my server - Doomhammer US - has started hitting queues again in the evenings. Sometimes as much as 15 minutes right now.
It's a first release server but we haven't had these problems since TBC was released.
So the game definitely has legs.
Derryl Jan 18th 2008 11:53PM
Arygos has also started having evening queues. I haven't seen anything longer than about 100 people (10-15 minutes), but it's still a scary thought to think we may be having queues like back on Durotan (before the free transfer to Arygos).
Jeff Jan 18th 2008 1:59PM
WoW is the most popular MMO in history. How many did Everquest have at its best, 500,000? WoW game could lose six MMOs worth of players and still have twelve MMOs worth of players.
shadowwolf007 Jan 18th 2008 2:05PM
It's hard to imagine the prospect of WoW no longer existing.
Eventually, it will fade away to some extent, but I think games like Counter-Strike and even EQ demonstrate that some games are fairly timeless.
Even when WoW becomes yesterday's news, it's going to be hard to say when it will finally die.
Vhailior Jan 18th 2008 2:11PM
Of course Wow will end, all good things as well as bad things come to an end. Those who predict that some other MMO will eventually take it's place may as well take credit for fortelling that the sun will set and rise again.
But it will be a long time before the dominance of WoW is challenged on a serious level.
Naix Jan 18th 2008 2:40PM
The day WoW starts to die is the day the execs at Blizzard have a meeting go something like this...
*que the lightly strummed harps*
Exec: How can we get people interested in wow?
Devs: *Collective Hmmm..*
Devs: We go it! Make WoW II!
Exec: Make an announcement, but don't give a date. When you do give a date push it back once you get close.
Devs: On it sir!
I could so be a manager at Blizzard.
franz Jan 18th 2008 4:22PM
It's not the developers that make those announcements...
Drak Jan 18th 2008 3:47PM
I think the only thing capable of killing WoW is Blizzard. There's a decent chance they'll kill it for something bigger, like WoW II (See above comment), Universe of Starcraft, or something Diablo-wise. I think that much is fairly predicatble.
Jellodyne Jan 18th 2008 4:02PM
Any time you see a loading screen (ie travel between continents, or to and from Outland) you're transferring from one server to another within the same group. So the addition of BC gave each realm more servers to handle more people. Also they added more landmass for the players to spread out in. If they kept adding landmass and didn't up the population caps then the population density and therefore apparent population would go down.
Ooglie Jan 18th 2008 5:43PM
The problem is they don't spread out. They move to the newest areas. So they are packing more people into a smaller space. Most of the population moved into the relatively small part of the new areas hence the hellfire syndrome of the BC release.
I never experience much of the camping phenomenon in wow until the expansion. But just ask anyone trying to do the skettis prisoner escort or gathering motes or any number of other popular activities if the realm needs more people :)
Dave Jan 18th 2008 4:18PM
I'd personally like to see statistics on a few things in the game to truly assess the health of the population.
#1: veteran accounts that were around on day 1
#2: accounts with 24+ months of continuous time
#3: acccounts with 12+ months of continuous time (new players from the expansion)
#4: accounts with less than 6 months of subscription time.
I think at the point where #3 and 4 overtake #1 and #2, the game is probably in a bit of trouble. I also think we're at the point where a lot of the #1 and 2 players are going to get bored with the whole experience and the reset of 10 more levels and a grind with rep grinds and then raid/PVP grinds.
Of course the next expansion will still sell millions of copies, and wow will still have millions of subs.. but that's not really the same thing. WoW clearly has a lot of customers they can bleed and still be the most successful MMO around. I'd really just like to know the churn rate and the veteran attrition rate. They can claim all the 9+ million subs, but how many people are really still playing from the launch of the game?
PeeWee Jan 19th 2008 12:16AM
"Account Created:
11 February 05 00:11 CET"
Thats 11 minutes after the servers opened here in EU. And it's still my main account, even though I have more now.
enkafiles Jan 19th 2008 2:22AM
I wouldn't make any of the lists, since I have been playing for over two years, but have had three breaks of 2-4 weeks when I closed the account because I wouldn't be able to play (vacation, moving, vacation).
Where would you put accounts like that? ^^
enkafiles Jan 19th 2008 2:25AM
I wouldn't make any of the lists, since I have been playing for over two years, but have had three breaks of 2-4 weeks when I closed the account because I wouldn't be able to play (vacation, moving, vacation).
Where would you put accounts like that? ^^
jtrain Jan 18th 2008 4:18PM
I know you can check wowcensus for realm population, but those numbers aren't always accurate. Does anyone know for sure what the 5 or 6 lowest pop. realms are that Drysc was talking about?
PeeWee Jan 19th 2008 12:16AM
Whoa, that reply ended up waaaay wrong! I was replying to dave above ^^
enkafiles Jan 19th 2008 2:27AM
ditto - early morning server misdirect?