So why has blizzard stopped connecting servers togheter?

[Bigbazz]

Let me get this straight.

You dont think we will see a population boom because the servers are capable of handling it?

is that seriously your argumentation for this?

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All servers are not dead.

This is what happens at the end of an expansion and especially one as bad as this.

Chances are its going to be alive and well come Legion when people start playing again.

Maybe you should relax a little yes? mr. wales

Reading comprehension is not good with you is it? I didn't say at any point that all servers were dead, I said that Tarren Mill was dead compared to before, when it was one of the busiest servers (it still was extremely busy at the end of MOP). You need to stop using your imagination to reply to people, Mr no location.

[MoanaLisa]

This is a poor argument, when all the merges were done in MoP when "an expansion was about to drop".

Yes. And look how that worked out at Warlords launch.

I don't think connecting realms went well for them. There were numerous delays and reschedules while they were smoothing out data issues and after a while, if you were just observing the scheduling and rescheduling, it became clear that whatever they had to do to connect a realm was not so simple. Never mind after each connection there were problems with characters with missing stuff.

So I don't think they are doing any more of that. I tend to think that they will approach it differently. As I've said before, making guilds cross-realm fixes a whole slew of issues and likely removes the restriction on cross-realm mythic raiding. Really at that point you've got a realm that you're on and you can cross-realm to any other realm in your group to do just about anything and group with anyone.

[Deleted]

20% of realms last I checked were at medium or higher population. Clearly they don't need to be merged. The other 80% have 2 levels of fill before they hit high and risks of queues when people come back to Legion. Do you honestly believe Legion will be such an overnight success that it will be a problem for those?

Every single expansion wow has ever released have been an overnight succes

[Unholyground]

Because the population is so low right now, that even if they connected every realm together it would make little difference. They're going to wait until after the expansion to see what the population is before doing anything.

5 million isn't that low, it is just that everyone is too spread out.

[FelPlague]

if legion comes out and subs dont sky rocket again, im sure they will, but the thing is with possible buff of players in legion, will mean they wont need to, also with cross realm capabilities we dont need to merge servers anymore, and thats ok, yes combined servers are better then not, as it means better economy and population in the major cities but... not by much

[Jessicka]

Every single expansion wow has ever released have been an overnight succes

To a degree that all of the servers suddenly have queues? That's not been an issue for my realm, and I've seen every launch from midnight since Wrath.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the realms which are already Medium+, or even every Low realm. But there are realms in that Low bracket that are low enough that I simply can't see it posing any issues like this. Of course, only Blizzard have hard data on that.

[Deleted]

To a degree that all of the servers suddenly have queues? That's not been an issue for my realm, and I've seen every launch from midnight since Wrath.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the realms which are already Medium+, or even every Low realm. But there are realms in that Low bracket that are low enough that I simply can't see it posing any issues like this. Of course, only Blizzard have hard data on that.

i'm not saying there will be problems. I do however think its going to continue the usual and be an overnight succes.

I think the new larger servers will be able to handle it

[Lery]

Or am i missing something?
Back at Mists of Pandaria they actively tried to solve the dead realm issue and they were working hard on it, almost weekly an announcement of servers mergconnecting and now in Warlords of Draenor they just dropped the ball and stopped connecting even 1 realm togheter.

What is their excuse?

Their subscriptions dropped drastically and they could not justify using the resources it takes to merge the realms any longer. Now they just let the players fall where they may and the dead realms just sit there.

[sabe]

5 million isn't that low, it is just that everyone is too spread out.

Is it still 5 million? I remember they stopped announcing numbers, do you have any source?

[Blur4stuff]

in a month there will probably be an extra 2+ mil players logging in

in a few months that's gonna be 5+ mil

so let's wait and see

[KaPe]

So I don't think they are doing any more of that. I tend to think that they will approach it differently. As I've said before, making guilds cross-realm fixes a whole slew of issues and likely removes the restriction on cross-realm mythic raiding. Really at that point you've got a realm that you're on and you can cross-realm to any other realm in your group to do just about anything and group with anyone.

So far, they aren't really doing anything. Across the entire lifespan of WoD, they didn't make a single connection - or if they did, it was insignificant. They didn't introduce any new mechanics to help with population issues. Making cross realm mythic raids six months in doesn't really count, as they did that before - plus it only happens to obsolete raids or during content lulls.

It's even more amazing that nothing happened despite subscriber count continually decreasing. Not only that, but this decrease isn't equal across servers - people are more likely to abandon "dead" realms that lively ones. I know we did - after 10 years of playtime, our guild simply couldn't sustain itself on a backwater realm and had to transfer to larger server to continue mythic raids. So the big realms get bigger, small ones die off and give no reason for players to go there.

Yeah, sure, if they introduce cross realm guilds, baseline cross realm mythic raiding, or maybe even cross faction raids, it would help a lot. But these are massive changes and would likely be announced already if they were planned at some point. I don't know, maybe Blizzard does expect massive surge of players, which will magically fix all population issues, but I doubt they're that naive. Even WoD launch spike was only around 40% (~7mln->10mln), and I highly doubt that Legion will double that.

Sidenote - it always annoyed me that EU connections seemed to be going at snail's pace compared to US ones. I think my realm was one of the last ones, it felt like ages and didn't really do much. I suppose it was harder to deal with national servers, but still. Either way, I'd love for there to be a solution which would allow me to return to my old realm - and preferably to Alliance. So far though, doesn't seem like Blizzard has any plan of action.

[Tharkkun]

I imagine it's related to the queues at WoD launch. The larger question there is, why the hell can't they handle larger server pops in 2016?


My realm was a very small one and it still had a queue. They only fixed it by adding phasing which now means you REALLY never see anyone out in the world.

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Wow still has probably 8X the revenue of any mmo out there. These "we don't have the resources" arguments are thin - the only logical reason they don't have them is if they're taking too much profit (or using them inefficiently).

The reaction to connected servers was horrible. Even though it completely solved server mergers without doing it the traditional way, the merged servers just fought among themselves the entire time and still do.

I'm happy they're done and it opened up more players for my guild but the politics outside of guilds is ridiculous.

If Blizzard is working on connecting battlegroups/data centers instead that would be the next logical step. But they won't announce that unless the software/hardware solution is invented.

[Bellabel]

Why would they actively merge servers when they can have you pay for it? Only the dead servers get merged, the low pop ones are not dead enough. They hope people will pay before its free.

[Chrno]

Yes. And look how that worked out at Warlords launch.

I don't think connecting realms went well for them. There were numerous delays and reschedules while they were smoothing out data issues and after a while, if you were just observing the scheduling and rescheduling, it became clear that whatever they had to do to connect a realm was not so simple. Never mind after each connection there were problems with characters with missing stuff.

So I don't think they are doing any more of that. I tend to think that they will approach it differently. As I've said before, making guilds cross-realm fixes a whole slew of issues and likely removes the restriction on cross-realm mythic raiding. Really at that point you've got a realm that you're on and you can cross-realm to any other realm in your group to do just about anything and group with anyone.

Start of Warlords was the only time my realm was even a little bit stable in terms in amount of players.
Which is pretty much the point .... they don't need to merge every realm .. but many realms are just gohsttowns where it is nearly impossible to run a normal raiding guild ... we have less then 5 mythic guilds left with 1 guild being 13/13 and the others wiping on the first few bosses ... In WoD alone i remember 3 guilds alone (pathfinders, Reincarnation, Entropy) that called it quits and transfered ... and all of these guilds were on bronzebeard since TBC/classic

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/eu/connected-aerie-peak/

[Lilija]

Start of Warlords was the only time my realm was even a little bit stable in terms in amount of players.
Which is pretty much the point .... they don't need to merge every realm .. but many realms are just gohsttowns where it is nearly impossible to run a normal raiding guild ... we have less then 5 mythic guilds left with 1 guild being 13/13 and the others wiping on the first few bosses ... In WoD alone i remember 3 guilds alone (pathfinders, Reincarnation, Entropy) that called it quits and transfered ... and all of these guilds were on bronzebeard since TBC/classic

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/eu/connected-aerie-peak/

Bronzebeard had issues since the begining of MoP. There were some ups and downs but the general trend was a downfall. I miss the server cause it was a nice place. We actually hopes the merge with Aearie Peak will make things better but it didn't No idea if there is any way to bring it back to life.

[glowpipe]

Might want to reread the 6.2.3 notes ...

Cross-Realm Mythic Raiding

Cross-Realm raiding has been enabled for Hellfire Citadel on Mythic difficulty. You’ll now be able to join with friends or fill that last raid spot to take on the most difficult encounters in Warlords of Draenor.


As for guilds, they aren't really needed since Group Finder and RealID features means you can do all content from any realm.

Actualy. Cross realm guilds would be something i would love. All my friends are gonna play on a pvp realm. I hate pvp. I hate pvp realms and im ive been going forth and back considering quiting the game since i have to choose between my friends and enjoying the game.
If i could be on pve server in the same guild as they on pvp server. No problems what so ever. I could enjoy the stuff i want to focus on. Out in the world without shitheads ganking all over like in the firelands daily zone. And i could raid with them and also be in the guild chat.

Now i need to stay in the guild to be allowed to raid with them. Meaning i have to make a second account. Level a char up on pve server and use that to invite my main so i get away from the pvp server.

[Aeula]

Forget connecting realms, realms need to be merged.

[Relapses]

Actualy. Cross realm guilds would be something i would love. All my friends are gonna play on a pvp realm. I hate pvp. I hate pvp realms and im ive been going forth and back considering quiting the game since i have to choose between my friends and enjoying the game.
If i could be on pve server in the same guild as they on pvp server. No problems what so ever. I could enjoy the stuff i want to focus on. Out in the world without shitheads ganking all over like in the firelands daily zone. And i could raid with them and also be in the guild chat.

Now i need to stay in the guild to be allowed to raid with them. Meaning i have to make a second account. Level a char up on pve server and use that to invite my main so i get away from the pvp server.

Ganking on PvP servers usually isn't that bad since nearly every PvP server is 10:1 in favor of whichever faction dominates it.

[Puri]

Forget connecting realms, realms need to be merged.

What's the difference?

[glowpipe]

Ganking on PvP servers usually isn't that bad since nearly every PvP server is 10:1 in favor of whichever faction dominates it.

I hope not. Just have some pretty bad memories from the firelands daily zone. One time i was trying to do the dailies before i had to go work. It was the only time i was able to do them because i was doing stuff after work and wouldnt be home and able to play more that daily reset. What happened was me figthing mobs alone. A group of 4 players came. They left me alone. So i thought. They observed me and then when i was low on health they attacked. All 4 of them. I was thinking they saw the opportunity for a easy kill. Then i ressed and managed to heal up and they came towards me. Did nothing. Left me alone. Then when i was fighthing a few mobs again. They attacked me when i was low. Under 50 % hp. That happened a few more times and only thing i could do was log off and curse in a corner.

This is why i hate pvp realms with a passion.