What Should Blizzard do about Low Pop/"Dead" Servers?

[Deleted]

Sharing AH would be great.

This would help a lot. There's no low-level mats at all on my server's AH. They all get snapped up immediately for people levelling Monk alts. And that's on a medium-pop server.

[Arganis]

Why do you think admitting reduction in subs is of any importance when it comes down to dealing with low-pop servers?
They are publishing their sub-numbers every quarter, aren't they? It doesn't seem they want to keep that a secret.

By pride I didn't mean sub numbers. They just don't want to admit the game is dying because server mergers isn't just bad sub numbers, it's the beginning of the end.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Why do you think admitting reduction in subs is of any importance when it comes down to dealing with low-pop servers?
They are publishing their sub-numbers every quarter, aren't they? It doesn't seem they want to keep that a secret.

It's the impression and the upheaval they cause for any delays. Gamers know if servers merge the population is not sustainable and too many will bail. The upheaval part is once merged is settling in on a new server. That is not easy, and chat flame wars can exist for months as those transferred continue to act like the new server was like their own, and not acknowledging they are the new guys on an existing server and no rep. It's a hierarchy thing.

[Fela]

The only real fix would be to take CRZ one step further and merge servers to META servers while keeping players' identities.

I.e. instead of Palette on server Dalvengyr my toon would become Palette@Dalvengyr on Meta server X113212. That meta server should then be treated like a normal server nowadays, i.e. full access on everything includeing meta-server wide guilds.

[ringpriest]

Why would admitting loss of subs an issue at all?
I mean they provide the numbers every quarter, don't they? So I assume they are not keeping it a secret.
It doesn't make sense to think that they don't want to admit decline of subs.

<tinfoilhat>

Their quarterly sub numbers haven't distinguished between Asian and European/American/Oceanic servers. The Asian servers do not operate on a subscription basis, and are thus much less profitable. Thus, having to admit that the high-profit, subscription-based servers are the ones dropping in population would look bad.

</tinfoilhat>

[Synstir]

okay, the issue is more complex than I thought.

in that case they have to be more creative.
Now I am thinking like they have battlegroups, so make economy go as big as a battlegroup; meaning share the AH and mailingfunctionality over a whole battlegroup.
CRZ also in the battlegroup and make it worldwide... as if creating 1 world across a whole battlegroup.
physically it still would be several servers but logically they would be 1 realm.

Don't know... just trying to think of something here.

[Deleted]

what you could do is to make a lvl 1 char on a high or medium realm and ask for friends there that willing to have more friends in game and use the zone realm ability to do stuff togheter as team and u can feel more alive with ur realm friends on ur own realm. the new battle tag friends is good to make friends over other realms to use even if ur own realm is dead u can use that to get to a high more active realm in ur battlreground realm wise or what it is called.

[Deleted]

<tinfoilhat>

Their quarterly sub numbers haven't distinguished between Asian and European/American/Oceanic servers. The Asian servers do not operate on a subscription basis, and are thus much less profitable. Thus, having to admit that the high-profit, subscription-based servers are the ones dropping in population would look bad.

</tinfoilhat>

*ding ding* we have a winner, at the moment this is only available to people who look at the actual revenue, anyone who looks at the numbers can see even tho they are saying "back to 10 million subscribers" they're making less and less from those 10 million "players" then they did previously. Actually looking at the numbers and taking out MOP's first week sales shows they they actually coined in less money from 10 million players in Q3 12 then they did 9million players in Q2 12.

"10 million subscribers" seems to be a psychological thing that they like to stick too, hence the offers last year when people left(free cataclysm, free level 80's etc, Annual pass) and all the recent offers (40% off MoP, 50% off mounts) all to try to bump them back up to 10 million for the Q4 reporting period. i'll be suprised if they dont do another Annual pass program, maybe including free Heart of the Swarm or something.

It's just about perception and money, they dont want to be percieved as losing customers and player, and they also dont want to make do without the effort free money they coin in from server transfers.

The only way they'll merge is if it starts to affect players on a large scale :see SWTOR where most servers were medium or light before they did transfers. With in the region of 3.5 million Western subscribers they wont need to do merges yet imo. Whether they do depends on their production of content and how much MoP retains their customers over the next 6 months, if they have another cata with losing people and then theres another 12 month derth of content, only then will they do a server merge and if they do they'll probably wrap it up with the next expansion saying "we have new mega server technology it'll be better for you all" etc

[Arkenaw]

Continue to come up with terrible features like CRZ

[Deleted]

This would help a lot. There's no low-level mats at all on my server's AH. They all get snapped up immediately for people levelling Monk alts. And that's on a medium-pop server.

Yeah i like low pop servers because the guilds are better there but the dead AHs is a huge problem. CRZ sucks.

[Sam the Wiser]

Honestly the bottom 50 servers need to be merged into 10 mega servers.

[Azrile]

Why do you think admitting reduction in subs is of any importance when it comes down to dealing with low-pop servers?
They are publishing their sub-numbers every quarter, aren't they? It doesn't seem they want to keep that a secret.

I was reading this thread thinking this also. Blizzard announces sub numbers every quarter, they never have hid them. Honestly, my head explodes when people use a conspiracy theory as the first option.

My server is fairly low (US Fenris) compared to others, but I never felt like it was empty. I think the biggest problem is with the pvp servers. What they should do is just allow free transfers off of a few servers, then open them up as new pve servers. I imagine there are about a million players who would like to reroll on a completely fresh server. I do not think CRZ is the answer at higher levels because of raiding and the AH.

But really, how bad are those pvp servers? I may make a toon just to check out the AH. Occasionally I check mine and it has about 15-18k items listed. We also have a few guilds on each side raiding every week.

---------- Post added 2012-12-04 at 04:05 PM ----------

Continue to come up with terrible features like CRZ

The only thing terrible is your ability to understand MMOs. In EVERY SINGLE MMO there is always a problem after a few months where the servers get top-heavy. If you start playing Rift, SWTOR or any other MMO right now, you will feel like you are alone in the world for your first few months because the vast majority of players are in the high level zones. CRZ was created to fix that. It was NOT created to fix low population servers.. even servers with very high populations have the problem of empty 1-60 zones which makes new players feel alone. CRZ was a genius idea that fixed a big problem every MMO has had for a very long time.

[Deleted]

They won't merge it for a while because it's indirectly admitting reduction in subscription

This and also they want you to pay to leave.

[Ciddy]

Make server transfers free, or at least drastically reduce the cost on current character services (current costs are beyond retarded for what you're getting, considering we already pay a subscription fee for the game). If it's easier for players to transfer, low pop realms won't be as much of a problem anymore. Low pop realms will still exist, but that's okay, because some people actually like them. Just make it easier for the ones that don't to move elsewhere.

Server merging would have too many technical issues to work out. If you merge two servers where guilds have the same name, players have the same name, etc, it's going to be a mess.

[Gurbz]

Why do you think admitting reduction in subs is of any importance when it comes down to dealing with low-pop servers?
They are publishing their sub-numbers every quarter, aren't they? It doesn't seem they want to keep that a secret.

Merging servers will be the very last thing that Blizzard will do to combat low population servers. They will try everything else that might possibly work first.

Server merges are a very visible sign that sub numbers have dropped, much more so that announcing a subscriber losses in a quarterly report. A surprisingly small percentage of their total subscriber base pays attention to things like forums and fan sites. A commonly accepted number is somewhere between 10-15% of players will read forums dedicated to their game. An even smaller number keep track of the numbers coming from quarterly reports.

But server mergers would be very much in the face of everyone who plays the game. It would have to be. And as someone else pointed out, given that merging servers is commonly seen as a major sign of the demise of a game, people will panic. In the end, that panic would probably cost them a lot more subscribers than what they would lose by people getting fed up with low pop servers and choosing to quit rather than pay for a transfer.

[Fenixdown]

Grow a pair and merge them. But as said, it's an admission of a tail-off in subscriptions. Get their PR department to come up with a positive spin on it, and do it.

Actually, it's not an admission of sub loss. It's an admission of over-expansion.

They made far too many new servers in the launches of BC and Wrath to be able to comfortably accommodate all players, even at the game's peak subscription totals. There was bound to be low population servers. Server stability has, since then, been vastly improved so that larger population realms should be able to stay online even at their highest peaks of activity. That was the biggest reason for the server expansion in the first place, was extreme server stress due to many servers just having too many people. However, the free character transfers only happened when the servers needed to unload some people...and not very many left each individual server. Most have probably since left the server they were moved to.

All it admits is that they expanded too far too soon, and now to continue to make the quality of life more comfortable for the people who moved during those times, they need to give them the ability to move back.

[MoanaLisa]

Cross-realm guilds, more cross-realm raiding and combining auction houses for low population servers is what they should do and eventually very likely will.

[Playintrafic]

I think blizz is missing the bigger picture, its not that subs have dropped. There have always been low pop servers.

[MoanaLisa]

Honestly the bottom 50 servers need to be merged into 10 mega servers.

One of the primary complaints, justified or otherwise, about CRZ's come from people who like their low population server life. I imagine that Blizzard can see that as well which is why they don't have any incentive to further upset people by merging small servers into mega-servers. It will all be done very gradually and be done with cross-realm stuff.

At the very least people who believe that low-population servers would be welcomed by all should be on notice that that isn't true in the slightest.

[lunchbox2042]

They already answered that question with CRZ.