Low populated/ unbalanced servers suggestion, poll included

[Dezminion]

So, just as a short brief, before Mists of Pandaria we, the playerbase had a chance to "sell our souls" to Blizzard for one year and by doing that we got a guaranteed (nearly 100%....) invitation to Beta test.

At the moment there are quite a number of realms at EU and I bet at US too that are either Ghost Towns or just dominated by either A or H faction.
I would like to hear your opinions from this kind of suggestion.

You would sign up for a new "Annual Pass" and by doing this you would continue subbing WoW for one year. By doing this you could choose one realm where at the moment you have toons on. This realm could not be changed afterwards.
And after the first month of the Annual Pass you would get one charter migration per month to the end of your Pass.

You could not transfer your toons anywhere you would like, but Blizz would have chosen few realms (medium populated and unbalanced ones) from the list you would choose a realm where you would want to move your toons. Again this destination realm could not be changed after it has been chosen.

By doing something like this they would get players tied to the game for one year.

I personaly would like to see realm merges, since there are way too many realms at the moment, but for some reason I do not see it to be done.

[killidan]

So, just as a short brief, before Mists of Pandaria we, the playerbase had a chance to "sell our souls" to Blizzard for one year and by doing that we got a guaranteed (nearly 100%....) invitation to Beta test.

At the moment there are quite a number of realms at EU and I bet at US too that are either Ghost Towns or just dominated by either A or H faction.
I would like to hear your opinions from this kind of suggestion.

You would sign up for a new "Annual Pass" and by doing this you would continue subbing WoW for one year. By doing this you could choose one realm where at the moment you have toons on. This realm could not be changed afterwards.
And after the first month of the Annual Pass you would get one charter migration per month to the end of your Pass.

You could not transfer your toons anywhere you would like, but Blizz would have chosen few realms (medium populated and unbalanced ones) from the list you would choose a realm where you would want to move your toons. Again this destination realm could not be changed after it has been chosen.

By doing something like this they would get players tied to the game for one year.

I personaly would like to see realm merges, since there are way too many realms at the moment, but for some reason I do not see it to be done.

I would like to be in a high pop/full realm. Why would I transfer my toons to a low/medium pop realm? Pay for annual pass, expecting that target realm will fill up by the end of the year? No. That's too uncertain. I want a high pop realm and transfer all my toons right away and I will accept to pay for an annual pass for that, nothing less.

[Deleted]

I just want them to lower the cost of transfers, and have the option of bulk transferring all characters from one realm to another.

But I still think only mergers and physically shutting down realms will solve the issue long term.

[Axxy]

Tbh, I really cba to level another character again, even on a diferent server. If they offered an account-wide move, maybe. To be tied into the game for a year, have Blizz tell me what server to go to, no thanks....

Personally, I don't see what the problem is if they merge some servers. What would they prefer to see, busy vibrant servers or empty servers with just a handful a stalwarts playing on them? No brainer to me....

[judgementofantonidas]

I prefer my low pop server please trying to bring all the negatives of a high pop server down on our heads.

[Gurbz]

It's not a terrible idea, but not enough would do it. They have seen this with free character transfers in the past (which is basically what you are describing). No matter which way they would try it, either high pop -> low pop or low pop -> high pop, there are too many people who simply refuse to move because they are perfectly happy where they are at.

---------- Post added 2013-02-20 at 09:04 AM ----------

But I still think only mergers and physically shutting down realms will solve the issue long term.

I think they would sooner make server transfers free than merge realms. Too many short term drawbacks to realm mergers.

[Dezminion]

I think they would sooner make server transfers free than merge realms. Too many short term drawbacks to realm mergers.

True, they are sorta avoiding the bad press it would bring, sad in my opinion.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't think the idea of a once-a-year free transfer for all of your toons on one server is a bad idea. Or for that matter something where you get a couple of free realm transfers every six months or something like that. The business about choosing a realm where you currently have toons would be gamed to death by people just creating a couple of toons on whatever server they would want to move to so isn't really that necessary.

The problem is more one that they already do this with free realm transfers and for the most part people don't seem interested. This always comes up at the start of a new expansion when queues to log in are more likely than in normal times and people in this situation say they would rather put up with the queues than move.

There's a lot of perks they could drop into an Annual Pass mechanism: realm transfers, race or faction transfers, toon renames, a free 80, etc. You're right that Blizzard won't close down realms or seems unlikely to. I don't believe that they're interested in the idea of forced migration with all of the headaches that would come from that. And a lot of people like being on a lower-population server. There's some sort of implied assumption in these threads that everyone wants to be on a high population realm. I don't believe that to be true.

Some people like to live in the big city, some people like to live in a smaller town. There's nothing wrong with either of those things.

[Dezminion]

There's a lot of perks they could drop into an Annual Pass mechanism: realm transfers, race or faction transfers, toon renames, a free 80, etc. You're right that Blizzard won't close down realms or seems unlikely to. I don't believe that they're interested in the idea of forced migration with all of the headaches that would come from that. And a lot of people like being on a lower-population server. There's some sort of implied assumption in these threads that everyone wants to be on a high population realm. I don't believe that to be true.
Some people like to live in the big city, some people like to live in a smaller town. There's nothing wrong with either of those things.

You are correct there. When they would "force" the realm merge the ppl who would wanna stay at a quiet realm would suffer, that is the down side at that solution, that is why I would see something like this Annual Pass-thingy as one option, the ppl who would wanna move, would have the chance.

On the other hand one possible solution would be BoA-heirlooms, so that they could be used on all toons at one Battle.net account once purchased, they do make leveling stupidly quick.

Someone made a petition on this subject, just posting the link here if someone want to go and sign:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/b...ver/signatures