One of my big beefs with MMOs is that I have friends all around the world and can't play with them. For example, most of Team WoW.com play on US realms, a couple on Oceanic and me and
the T in the EU. Of course the biggest problem with playing any MMO will be timezones (especially if you like to raid) but that doesn't stop some titles having just
one massive server,
regionless servers or allowing you to
change realms on the fly. Sadly
WoW has none of these and it frustrates me that there's such a divide, even though here in Europe there are
cross-language battlegroups and more servers than you can shake a stick at. However given the number of players across the US, EU and China I can understand the reasons for it.
So readers, putting aside region restrictions, logic and languages for a moment, do you wish
WoW had just one giant server? Would you like the ability to move from server to server for free at a moment's notice, depending on where your friends were playing? Would you rather the game was a bit more like
Guild Wars in that it didn't matter where you purchased the game from?
Tags: breakfast-topic, china, europe, north-america, oceania, realms, regionless-servers, server-transfers, servers
Filed under: Blizzard, Breakfast Topics, Battlegrounds, Europe
Jul 12th 2009 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Defoe Jul 12th 2009 8:05AM
As a New Zealander living in London, I would really like to transfer my character to US/Oceanic servers when I head home. The prospect of levelling up from scratch on an Oceanic server seems very daunting, and may be more so after the next expansion.
Basically I would like to keep playing WoW as I really like it, but I dont want to waste my time on a character I will eventually have to abandon!
The Giant Jul 12th 2009 8:48AM
Signed.
I would love to do the same, as my old characters are all tucked away in another region, unavaliable to play unless I restart my subscription over there. Being able to move them to my current realm would be just perfect.
Bod Jul 12th 2009 12:47PM
totally agree - have friends in phoenix US who play - currently no chance to meet up with them, it's a real shame.
Mardoc Jul 12th 2009 12:59PM
Absolutely agreed.
When I started playing WoW I was living in the UK, and had a raiding mage at level 70 (before WotLK was released).
I now live in Australia, and leveled new characters from scratch. Which is cool because now I know how to play the hunter, priest, DK and druid classes, but I would love the option to bring my mage over, or to send my other characters over should I ever move back.
I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to implement this feature... how about it, Blizz?
nih Jul 12th 2009 8:13PM
What nobody seems to realise is if there were an even distribution of the populations of all servers, just over half the players would be speaking an Asiatic language. A further quarter would be speaking a non-English european language.
Only a quarter of WoW players herald from a country where their first language is English. While you're going to have a better chance of finding people with a few languages under their belt from the European servers, it's not going to make much of a dent in that number.
Language is a huge pain in the ass when it comes to interacting with other people online. I defy you to read trade chat or LFG when 20 different people are having simultaneous arguments in different languages.
Server group partitioning based on geography is a good thing.
nih Jul 12th 2009 8:14PM
"What nobody seems to realise is if there were an even distribution of the populations of all servers,"
* represented on one server.
rulez Jul 12th 2009 8:07AM
The server concept WoW uses is pretty ancient and I hope this will be a thing of the past very soon, at least for new MMOs. Sadly though too many devs still copy that concept :(.
Menet Jul 12th 2009 8:07AM
Stranglethorn Vale.
Morningbell Jul 12th 2009 6:05PM
THIS.
I lol'd.
Azizrael Jul 12th 2009 8:09AM
Sometimes I'd like the opportunity to hop on a US realm (I'm EU), but since midnight here is 7pm EST, the chances of raiding with a guild of adults seems pretty slim on a weeknight.
Timj11dude Jul 12th 2009 9:41AM
Of course it would be nice if we could all be on one massive server and not have to worry about which server to join to be with our friends. Trying EVE online it was fun to think that all the players playing the game can be contacted some how through this one universe. The thing is in order for wow to work I think each mini zone would have to be 'instanced' and realistically that would SUCK! as the game is now it is a real shame that we are all forced onto different servers. A nice solution would be to make character transfers free and instead introduce a queue system, and have to wait till server balance works out for characters transferring realm. Just my ideas, throwing em out at you all.
Presage Jul 12th 2009 8:11AM
Freedom to switch servers at least once without cost (and to an appropriately populated realm) would, I imagine, be extremely helpful for all players. I imagine one massive realm would be technologically unfeasible.
However, I dare say some lower populated realms need to be merged. 1-58 is becoming awfully lonely. A bit of "house cleaning", as it were, would be highly desirable.
Luanai Jul 12th 2009 9:50AM
Go download and play the trial for EVE Online, then come tell me one huge server is unfeasable.
Myria Jul 12th 2009 10:15AM
Eve is a joke. Each "zone" (system) is a copy of 200 other zones. The amount of rendering they have to do is a microscopic fraction of what needs to be rendered and tracked in any other MMO -- no grass, no trees, no critters, nada. There are only a relatively tiny number of NPC to run AI on in any given "zone". Oh, and sound? Limited to "Autopilot Enabled" and weapon sounds that don't properly work half the time.
All this and it STILL lags to hell and back during any fleet battle. Or, hell, in any L4 Caldari system, let alone Jita.
Please, don't ever point to Eve as a model of anything but how to run a submarine sim (Newtonian physics in space? Pshaw! We have fluid space!) for anti-social gate camping nitwits.
Gothia Jul 13th 2009 5:47AM
Luanai
the difference between Eve and Wow is only about 11.7 million subscribers.
Josh Jul 12th 2009 8:23AM
Yes, that would be awesome. To both the worldwide & free realm moving options.
However, free realm moving would hugely disrupt realm stability, and guild stability also.
gultan Jul 12th 2009 8:32AM
well would be fun to have the chance to transfer cross the ocean. but to be honest i like it (as an european) to play on an us server. more herbs and maths on weekend days for me cause most other are sleeping :)
Yltharion Jul 12th 2009 8:37AM
I would like to see 12 million people packed up in one Azeroth, or Dalaran.
Alariel Jul 12th 2009 8:40AM
Egads, nooooo, the lag would be terribad.
Like the idea, but the hardware isn't there to support it.
Barinthos Jul 12th 2009 1:11PM
"Additional instances..." *You were disconnected from the server* .... "A character with that name already exists" ....