Is there other data I should be considering other than population/time zone/faction/pve vs pvp?
I want to start playing again after a 2 years break. I plan on playing as Alliance on a PvP realm. How should I go about picking a realm?
Is there other data I should be considering other than population/time zone/faction/pve vs pvp?
I want to start playing again after a 2 years break. I plan on playing as Alliance on a PvP realm. How should I go about picking a realm?
EU? Ravencrest or Outland. That's about it.
edit: Jk saw your sig after i posted, discard
How do you have a 491 ilvl if you haven't played in 2 years?
Population + balance + check wowprogress, usually an active server = many guilds that managed to kill some current bosses. I usually make a new alt on the realm, go to a capital city, browse the AH, check out trade (to see how many guilds are recruting, how many pugs are being done and how active it is in general). I don't do much pvp, so can't give you any good advice here, but asking in trade usually worked well for me, even on cesspit servers like BL you will get some useful answers if you ask in trade (I imagine you'd need to ask about wPVP, pvp guilds recruiting etc).
Btw keep in mind that the top realms EU suffer from long queues, Draenor for example makes you wait 60 minutes + during busy times, I can only imagine it's even worse on Outland or on Silvermoon.
Also don't look at alliance:horde ratio, many servers with the lesser faction are actually more competitive(especially since you want to do PvP).
If you are from europe i think good choice will be.
Silvermoon (if you are going to play alliance, it's pve realm with full population nearly 100% alliance)
Draenor (same as silvermoon, just horde version)
Outland or Stormscale (great pvp realms, as far as i knwo there are more alliance on outland idk about stromscale)
I heard alot of good things about Kazzak,Frostmane and Ravencrest aswell.
Play dragonmaw EU.
join us! JOIN US!
I like my coffe like my mages.
No, don't send him to Draenor, we have 90 minute queues as it is.
Economy, that is a very good thing to consider.
I normally tend to stick to servers where I know people, but would say, look for population, economy, type and how the community is looking like in the area you wish (raiding or PvP)
FOMO: "Fear Of Missing Out", also commonly known as people with a mental issue of managing time and activities, many expecting others to fit into their schedule so they don't miss out on things to come. If FOMO becomes a problem for you, do seek help, it can be a very unhealthy lifestyle..
US Alli PVP servers are Darkspear, KT, and Tich
If you want more info go look on Wow-progress or something for faction numbers, time zone, population, ect.
There are no realms with high active world PvP, its dead. World PvP is now ganking lowbies in outland ect. Zones are now merged over many servers so there's always levelers to gank, or groups of 3-5 camping cities out there.
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The realm you choose really means nothing anymore. I used to play on a Latin server and we had GREAT server community. It was probably as close as you could imagine to having "Vanilla WoW back again", because of the language barrier people tend to shun LFR, LFD, etc. and like to group up and do instances the "old fashioned" way. There was world PvP at all levels, everybody knew everybody (and everybody's alts), it really was like a big family. Even through the end of Wrath and Cataclysm all the stuff people were complaining about their servers "dying" we laughed at.
Then came CRZ...
And now with the idea of "virtual realms", it will matter even less. Just choose one with a cool name and be done with it.
Take a moment to check the prices for basic commodities, i.e. current tier mats (herbs, ghost iron ore, leather, ench dust), weapon enchants, consumables (pots, flasks) and gems. Dead/low pop realms have very little supply and slow turnover, so prices tend to be ridiculous (like, 8k for a simple weapon enchant ridiculous). There are also supply issues (no BoE items, no raid drops, e.g. spirits, only a handful of pets). Generally if you see lots of stuff with decent prices and fast turnover it means the economy is alive, if there's just a few overpriced items nobody buys - it's stagnant. After comparing a low pop realm and a high pop realm you will see the difference very very clearly at a glance.How can I tell which servers have the best economy?
I am thinking of heading over to the Emerald Dream PvP RP realm. High population with a near 1:1 ratio of Horde vs Alliance. What do you guys think?