Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsNo PvE servers are under populated
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 9th 2009 at 11:15AM
We've been paying pretty close attention the server issues lately. From the missing mail a few months ago, to instability in instances, to the creation of a new U.S. PvE server.Zarhym has come out and said there are no PvE realms under populated, and that's the reason why Blizzard has introduced a new PvE realm, and not a new PvP realm. He goes on to point out that while some PvE realms are not having queues, they are only a few hundred people away from having to suffer through them every evening.
And while there are PvP realms that have queues, there are "several PvP realms that are a little too under populated."
So what does this mean?
First, it is a very clear indicator that people prefer to level their characters and immerse themselves in the game in a PvE style.
Second, it means that the game is going strong enough still to warrant new server openings; unlike Age of Conan which just combined servers. While the PR on combining servers is terrible for a company, the actual effect of isn't usually too bad. If it weren't for all the bad press combining servers would get for Blizzard, I have to wonder if they'd combine a few low population PvP servers.
Finally, I think this helps illustrate a significant reason why PvE to PvP transfers were finally opened up a few months ago. PvP servers need more population, and PvE servers seem to be what the majority of people want. If you think about it, a good way to get people to go to PvP servers is to open up transfers, thereby increasing the PvP servers populations overall and alleviating the stress on the PvE servers. Now since Blizzard is still having to opening up new PvE servers, one has to wonder if the PvP server transfer option is a success in this regards. My personal opinion is that is has been, due to providing more options for the playerbase, but I'm sure others might disagree.
Nonetheless, it's quite interesting to know that the PvE realms reign supreme in the Blizzard universe.
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 7)
zappo Jan 9th 2009 3:14PM
Err, PvP servers on the list of "low population"
Sorrowind Jan 9th 2009 11:41AM
Perhaps Bliz could consider level restrictions on PvP servers where high level players can no longer one-hit low levels players and roll along. The lack of honor incentive does not appear to dissuade may gankers. This would give leveling players a fighting chance in PvP encounters where the player base is largely max level. This may improve the PvP playing experience and increase desire to move to, or persist on, PvP servers.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 11:56AM
Perhaps they need to bring back dishonorable kills and apply them to ganks of lowbees as well.
If Dishonorable kills (who here remembers when that is what DK stood for?) cut into your honor, arena and perhaps even faction rep, that might discourage ganks where the defender had no chance to defend.
Bulk Jan 9th 2009 11:57AM
The easiest way to fix high lvl people ganking lowbies is to make any "honorless" kill actually make the killer loose honor, with a sliding scale depending on the level of the ganked toon. So a lvl 80 killing a lvl 75 might loose only 15-20 honor, but a lvl 80 killing a lvl 30 might loose them 400 honor.
Problem solved.
Meira Jan 9th 2009 12:21PM
"So a lvl 80 killing a lvl 75 might loose only 15-20 honor, but a lvl 80 killing a lvl 30 might loose them 400 honor."
Humm, lvl 75's still give honor to an 80 ganker.
I agree that Dishonorable kills should be implemented when lowbies are ganked by "skull-leveled" chars, but the discount should be more noticeable (because, seriously, gankers will not lose their stupidity with a 400 honor loss)
I think an accurate formula would be:
((lvl of ganker- lvl of ganked)^2) (the lvl difference must be higher than 8)+random number between 9 and 18 loss of honour with a bonus loss of arena RATING of 5x(lvl of ganker- lvl of ganked)+random number between 1 and 10
That way lvl 80 gankers would think twice about ganking a defenseless lvl 30 in STV, before 1.6k honour and 200 arena rating fly in the wind.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 12:22PM
Works for me, Miera :)
Corazu Jan 9th 2009 1:01PM
It used to be like this. This doesn't work.
Especially now with the prominence of raids on city leaders.
Group of 80s come in, attack the boss.
Lowbies flag and run into the room. Get killed by the aoe that is ALWAYS going to be there.
Raid loses TONS of honor and arena rating, they're not ganking them in this scenario.
All I hear is QQ. Everyone knows there are gankers on PvP servers, it's part of the experience, as bad is it can be.
Until you get to northrend, and with the exceptions of DKs in outland (not that bad now), there aren't really a lot of people in the old world, and anyone you face are going to be closer in level to you. Ganking is not as much as an issue anymore. Unlike at 60 where outside of raids there wasn't much to do so lots of people sat in STV ganking - there is plenty to do in the game now.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 1:36PM
@ Corazu
Your objections show that, yes, there are some exceptions that need to be programmed in. It's a forum. Ideas we propose are not perfected and ready to be sent off to Blizz as is for implementation. However, your objections merely show some things we need to work around, not things that make it worthless
However, for your "flagging" objection, the assumptions are for PvP where everyone is always flagged. If some lowbee is dumb enough to flag himself in a room full of attacking 80s, that is quite different than a high level killing a level 25 in Duskwood.
People who spam AoE near innocents probably need to realize that their actions are going to seem as bad in game as it would for a cop IRL to bring down a bank robber by throwing a grenade into a crowd where the robber was hiding.
I believe we could find a way around some of your objections. If a lowbee attacked a high level character, of course the high level would not lose honor. We could work out rules for AoE spam.
But the principle is still valid... we want to punish the ganker to discourage griefing, not hinder valid PvP
Salacia Jan 9th 2009 3:28PM
I miss dishonorable kills. I wish they'd come back as well.
As for hitting lowbies while raiding a city, I think that'd be the risk you'd just have to take. You take the risk that the other faction will be ready for you, that NPCs will overwhelm, that any number of variables could mess up your well-laid plans. That's why it's exciting to do those city raids, I believe. And sending in a bunch of flagged lowbies during a city raid would be a fascinating strategy to kind "honor bomb" a raid IMO.
Of course the likelihood that dishonorable kills will come back is almost nil, but it's fun to think about.
SimpleSurvival Jan 9th 2009 3:40PM
I like the return of the Dishonorable kill concept...
Here's the fix to lowbies getting asploded during a city raid and griefing the entire raid into 0 honor.
The dishonorable kill only works in Contested Territory.
Anyone who chooses to flag themselves in their home territory accepts that they can get killed, and there is no dishonor in killing them. Those in contested territory understand that they might get killed, but would rather not be 1shotted by some bored endgamer.
There has NEVER been a problem with lowbies gettin ganked outside goldshire... The problem happens once players venture into contested territory.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 3:42PM
Well, I would not want to encourage a WoW version of "Human Shields" so I would want WoW to make this unworkable. Seems to me if you can be unflagged and choose to flag yourself (perhaps if you automatically unflagged by default in your home territory) that would count as attacking a level 80 with your level 20 and be no honor loss.
My plan is not perfect of course, but my time on Burning Legion made me hate PvP servers with a passion and I'd like to discourage the ganking/camping of lowbees.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 3:45PM
"There has NEVER been a problem with lowbies gettin ganked outside goldshire... The problem happens once players venture into contested territory."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unless you are a noob and don't know you are samfe on home turf... I think I did not know that at first and when the Horde raided westfall, I would try to "take a few with me."
I felt stupid later when I found out I didn't have to die
snowleopard233 Jan 9th 2009 11:41AM
Are you guys on firetree by any chance? bc that sounds exactly like my server.
Salacia Jan 9th 2009 11:46AM
firetree here.
Tridus Jan 9th 2009 11:42AM
This just shows that a majority of players don't like random PvP. They may or may not want to PvP, but they want to make the choice on their terms when to do it.
What they don't want is to be out levelling herbalism at level 71 and suddenly have a T7 Rogue swoop down and kill them in 2 seconds. There's a minority that does want that, and they're the ones on PvP servers.
Nothing really new that way, PvE servers have always had more total population then PvP ones.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 11:48AM
I've been on both. I prefer PvE.
Unless PvP servers have changed since I left, there is a lot of ganking lowbees and general griefing cross faction. STV tended to be the place where "Gank the alt, meet the main" tended to escalate into the server version of WWIII, as skirmishes with toons in their 30s became full blown wars with both factions on their 60s (and later when TBC came out 70s. I haven't been on a PvP server for awhile so I don't know if the story is repeated with 80s today)
The reason I prefer PvE is, I can enjoy the game without worrying about some high level horde running around low level areas killing and camping, and disrupting areas you need to complete quests.
That's why I won't go back to PvP servers anyway. If others think like me, it could very well explain why there are no PvE realms which are underpopulated
Chuddy Jan 9th 2009 11:55AM
I leveled up on a pvp server then moved over to pve. Totally had enough of that bs. Some dudes I used to play with were OBSESSED with pvp whereas I saw it (bg's) as a means to fill in the gear I couldnt get. IE running Shadowlabs for the spear or getting my dungeon set head piece outta mech for the druid. Shit like that. But they were just obsessed with beating people. I had enough of them and now looking back it's really obvious someone was picked on growing up and is now compensating in a game. that's my general view on world pvp now.
Amaxe Jan 9th 2009 12:00PM
Yeah one of my friends (we were both noobs then) had an idea that if we were not hostile to the Horde, they would not be hostile to us.
That idea died in Tanaris, when around 3pm every day people would start ganking us (I'm pretty sure it coincided with when school let out, and had led me to believe for awhile that Horde were mostly immature Junior High kids [Later I came to learn that the Horde saw the Alliance the same way])
So by the time we had clawed our way to 70, he had abandoned that principle, and when he became GL, our policy became "All Horde KoS"
Ganking does tend to be a vicious circle
percinho Jan 9th 2009 11:53AM
"First, it is a very clear indicator that people prefer to level their characters and immerse themselves in the game in a PvE style."
Without further data this cannot be stated as anything but speculation. I'm not saying it's not true, but it cannot be divinied purely from his statement. This only stands up if there are at least as many PvE servers as PvP servers. It could just be that there are more PvP servers therefore for a similar number of players there would be less crowding per server.
So do we know the ratio of PvE to PvP servers?
BrianD Jan 9th 2009 1:36PM
There are currently, according to the US realm status page:
106 PvP servers
108 Normal servers
16 RP servers
6 RPPvP servers