Server population imbalances

[Thermaplugg yer butt]

When I quit WoW I remember Illidan-US being a total ghost town on the Alliance side. A friend of mine (that stills plays WoW and used to roll with me) transferred to Darkspear because he told me that at one point he was the only person in Stormwind City. I didn't ask at what time he checked, but that seems excessively desolated. I remember reading somewhere that Blizzard doesn't disclose their server population statistics, which is sad because I feel that kind of information would be very useful. There is WoWCensus, but how accurate it is? I'd like to know.

What's your server like in terms of population balance? And overall, in all servers, which side do you think is usually more represented? I have the impression that Horde outnumbers Alliance overall.

[Divinewrath]

On Farstriders US Horde is horribly out numbered. I have alliance alts I don't play often but when i do go on i bet they out number Horde 7 -1 easy. Alliance is very alive there compared to Horde but the server is pretty fail over all.

[Ticj]

Actually Alliance outnumber the horde just slightly according to realm-pop.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I thought the whole point of cross realm/virtual realm was to make Azeroth feel populated and factions balanced (sorry if I do not understand entirely how the system works).

[Drusin]

There is WoWCensus, but how accurate it is? I'd like to know.

What's your server like in terms of population balance? And overall, in all servers, which side do you think is usually more represented? I have the impression that Horde outnumbers Alliance overall.

I believe WoWCensus relies on players to upload data via an addon (censusplus) if that's their only way of getting server data then I would suggest http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html instead.

My server isn't too bad balance wise (0.601 A to H) according to RealmPop. Also according to that site Alliance has a slight lead in numbers over horde (for level 90's). I can't really say which side I feel is more represented but most of the kill videos/guides I see are made by Horde players.

[KCguy]

Hopefully virtual servers helps all of this, assuming Blizzard is actually able to get it to work correctly and it makes it live.

[Gimlix]

Virtual servers will solve this problem, Thermaplugg.
Low pop realms will probably be merged togheter with this new feature.

[Deleted]

I remember reading somewhere that Blizzard doesn't disclose their server population statistics, which is sad because I feel that kind of information would be very useful. There is WoWCensus, but how accurate it is? I'd like to know.

The may be not enough scans to cover the entire day, but the information that is there is usually perfectly accurate, as a single entry perfectly reflects the entire population of a faction for a realm at a given time. You don't need more than that to answer your question. In theory a single add-on user can produce 99,999.. % correct results. But they are only correct for the time they have been made. Claims the add-on would be working improperly on the long run have never been support by any evidence and are mainly made by whiteknights denying the results, usually not even willing to name a server with the allegedly false statistics, because a single user could proof them wrong.

Your server has two scans of both sides made during two different peak hour times in the last 30 days. Both of them with a 1 against +40 rate of Alliance against Horde. The Alliance activity is frightening low with peaks of less than 100 player.

It is kind of misguiding when server like these are branded as high populated.
It also proofs realmpop.com is very outdated and includes long inactive user and their character.


Veknilash. Little over 100 player at prime time on horde. Alliance has not much more left either. Branded as medium populated.

[Coldhearth]

On my main's server:

Very very low horde pop. 1 raiding guild.
No alliance pop. 0 raiding guilds.

I think Blizz needs to start listing population by faction on the server select screen. Too many realms are sitting almost completely dead right now.

I think Virtual realms will definitely help. They sound promising in theory. Time will tell.

(I should also mention I do really enjoy low pop on my main. The world feels like it belongs to me. Rares always up, etc. On my alts though, I only choose high pop because being able to actually do shit like world bosses or pug raids or pug rbgs from time to time is nice.).

[ComputerNerd]

Announcing a significant imbalance would only speed the process up.

A faction imbalance is not going to be fixed by simply shoving lots of people into the other half.
Why did it happen in the first place ?
What is to stop it happening again.

[Perudo]

Just checked out the servers I usually play on, Draenor (alliance) EU and Sunstrider (horde) EU.

            Alliance      Horde       A/H ratio     Total amount of players
Draenor:     39 031	 111 307	 0,351	          151 106
Sunstrider:  10 494	  42 089	 0,249	           52 686

I did know that the alliance was outnumbered on Draenor but not by that much.
I also knew that Sunstrider was rather dead on both sides.

But then again I should not complain, there are servers with 12k players on them... (must be like ghost towns all day long.)

[MrSerious]

I believe WoWCensus relies on players to upload data via an addon (censusplus) if that's their only way of getting server data then I would suggest http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html instead.

My server isn't too bad balance wise (0.601 A to H) according to RealmPop. Also according to that site Alliance has a slight lead in numbers over horde (for level 90's). I can't really say which side I feel is more represented but most of the kill videos/guides I see are made by Horde players.

That site looks less accurate than WoWCensus. It lists 32 million characters on the EU/NA servers. It doesn't show whether those players are active or not, how many accounts. It make no sense.

for example you could have 10 players with one toon on their account on horde and 1 player on alliance with 10 toons. That site would read it as 1:1 which instead it would be 10:1

not accurate at all.

[Drusin]

for example you could have 10 players with one toon on their account on horde and 1 player on alliance with 10 toons. That site would read it as 1:1 which instead it would be 10:1

Sites like this do the best that they can. I'm sure no sites reads my(or others) multiple accounts accurately.