Connected realms - will people come back?

[Maniac2]

Im really interested if people will start to come back when connected realms go live.
There must be a LOT of dead servers and players with characters there might wanna come back if there actually will be people in the world.

Would do you think, will they come back or is it too late? Some realms are dead for years....

[MoanaLisa]

Not right away but word will get around after a while. I don't think connected realms by themselves are much of a selling point. The things they *may* enable, because of more people being around, might be. It's a means to an end. It won't make the game grow again if that's what you're asking.

[Gimlix]

It won't make the grow the game, but it can stabilize the game for a while.

[LeperHerring]

Would do you think, will they come back or is it too late? Some realms are dead for years....

I think it will help, but the problem is that Blizzard killed off most long established guilds in the medium-low pop realms with Cata. With that they lost a lot of players and goodwill, so I don't think we'll see many players coming back. It will certainly help retain players that are on the dead realms, but fundamentally it's just treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.

[Velthy]

I dont think so lol. They could alwasy transfer, so this is not a revolution.

[LeperHerring]

I dont think so lol. They could alwasy transfer, so this is not a revolution.

Actually it's one of the reasons why I quit. If I had wanted to keep on playing, I would've had to pay like $100 to transfer my characters off a dead realm (or start again from scratch). It's downright criminal that Blizzard charges such ridiculous amounts for transfers, which are required because they screwed up their game and realms.

[Tokas]

Velthy, from Poland... wrong sentence all over the place.

[Velthy]

Actually it's one of the reasons why I quit. If I had wanted to keep on playing, I would've had to pay like $100 to transfer my characters off a dead realm (or start again from scratch). It's downright criminal that Blizzard charges such ridiculous amounts for transfers, which are required because they screwed up their game and realms.

Right, i missed out the fact that some people got more than one character. Im not much of an alt person, mainly played my druid, but i transfered twice and probably i wouldnt be able to afford it without my best friend helping. Still got like 10 (85-90) characters spread out on 3-4 realms.

Velthy, from Poland... wrong sentence all over the place.

?

[Deleted]

Not right away but word will get around after a while. I don't think connected realms by themselves are much of a selling point.

Strange but true and I agree. Connected realms SHOULD be a massive change to the game. Dunno about the rest of you but I played on a pretty dead server 'listed as medium' and if you actually go and try high pop, meu deus it's a whole other game and how it's meant to be played. I think it's pretty disgusting how long Blizzard have neglected these players under the banner of 'well there's always realm transfer?' when in the first place they advertise their game as action packed and whatnot and nothing happens at all if you are on a dead realm.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually it's one of the reasons why I quit. If I had wanted to keep on playing, I would've had to pay like $100 to transfer my characters off a dead realm (or start again from scratch). It's downright criminal that Blizzard charges such ridiculous amounts for transfers, which are required because they screwed up their game and realms.

Well said. Falls on deaf ears but it really shouldn't. I also quit for the same reason. I am considering coming back for 5.4 but I would rather see what Blizzard have lined up for next expansion as I am just about a whisker away from never going back in.

[Deleted]

My guess is that it will make the people on less populated realms less likely to quit due to the fact of population problems

[enchanted]

Right now frostwhisper EU is so dead even on weekend nights you can't barely pug oondasta with only 60 90's online alliance side. My fear however, is when blizz decides to "connect" our realm with another high pop horde realm and low alliance as then it will be hell. Too many hordes ganking allies which might make many allies move or so thus I hope blizz is clever by connecting the realms. As for the real question, I think people will come back like me but I hope atleast you can find a pug or 2 on my dead server then.

[Halicia]

I think it will help more with retention then advertising. Crossrealm was kinda the same way... did anyone actually COME BACK to WoW because they could now do dungeons and old raids with buddies on another server ? Some probably... but most of the interest was probably from people that came back to check out the new patch/expansion, and then discovered they could play with more people then before.

[Robert3620]

Had it come out day one of 5.4 and with more details on what realms were being connected. I would of come back but with the little amount of details they have given, not a chance. There was no way to plan for 5.4 due to not knowing when it comes out and the realms that would be connected. That made it impossible to plan for and for people that want to raid, made it pretty pointless to at least come back now.

The real question during this whole thing has been tho, why does Blizzard charge for server transfers? People are being punished for choices made years ago and Blizzard has exploited this as much as they can in a cash grab move. I really doubt I will have come back to World of Warcraft or buy a Activision/Blizzard game again after the poor treatment they gave people with allowing servers to die and not do anything about it.

[Maximus345]

Connected realms are an interesting concept, at least to me, but they're not something I would get all excited about and reactivate my account for.

WoW doesn't really reward social interactivity too much. Quests and most outdoor content can be easily soloed. Plus, when I used to come across members of my own faction while questing, they were unfortunately often prone to 1) killing mobs I needed, 2) taking nodes I wanted, 3) NOT helping me fight the opposing faction, or 4) spamming obnoxious things on chat channels.

[Servos]

Once Blizz allowed World Bosses to drop loot xrealm I had no 'need' to ever find folks on my server to do something.

However it will be interesting to see how Flex mode and Connected realms dynamic plays itself out. I don't see it bringing back old players but do see potential for holding wavering subs as others have mentioned.

And maybe it can help totally new players who don't realize they're rolling on a dead ("medium!") realm to not become disinterested as the crowds will increase likelihood of them staying longer.

For me OpenRaid > Realm but again I'll be interested to see if Flex can bring me back 'home'

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Connected realms is a way to make dead realms feel less dead, not to attract new players.

To do that Blizz has to make new players want to come back, as in they have to make WoW feel like a game worth re-investing time and $$$ in. So far they have done nothing to do that.

[hrugner]

If the only thing keeping people away from the game was a low population server, they would have server transfered. This change will keep some people from leaving, but I doubt people will sign up for the change itself.

It is a huge boon to those with a full roster of characters on a dead server; while I'm one of those people I'm not sure how common the situation really is.

[Deleted]

A lot of people bet bummed out on low pop servers and quit, this will prevent further sub leakage.

[IAmBizMarkie]

This is the first time I've heard about this. Just crawled out from under my rock today... I am very excite!!

To be honest, I wish realm xfer/faction change/recustomization never existed. Don't blame Blizzard for wanting money, but it sucked for community.

[majesta]

Too little too late. Sadly the connected realms won't do anything for all the players who had their guilds transfer to one of the FEW high population servers. Blizzard waiting a few years to do something that feels like a half ass token gesture towards saying "we do care about realm populations and how it affects player experiences" is just sad at this point. There are so many answers and this isn't one of them.

People claim server mergers are a bad thing. I say they are a good thing. Less hardware to support, more people together, which in turn should lead to a better overall gaming experience.

They could have easily pulled it off. Here is an idea that would have worked within Blizzards own framework:

1. Merge all servers in the old Battlegroup system into a new servers. For example all servers in the old Reckoning Battlegroup would get merged into Reckoning PvE, Reckoning PvP and Reckoning RP.
2. Names, guilds, and old server identities are handled as such: <PlayerName> of <OldServerName> <BattleNetID> similar to how Diablo 3 has handled things. So people can still have their old server connection, name and guilds. The framework is there to support this. The Old Server Name would be part of the characters Legacy.
3. Moving to a system like this makes no one server better than any other. Servers are now much more populated.
4. This new system would be able to allow character names of your choice. No more oh damn, someone has that name already.
5. Profit

This is one of a hundred ideas. Instead we get Virtual Realms. Meh w/e. Character models at 25% when this talk about new models happened in WotLK BETA how many years ago. Blizzard is out of tune and out of step. See Diablo 3, RMAH, and so forth. I'd rather see company resources spent on adding promised content rather than what they think they need such as a possible in game pay store for in game items, battlepet system, or modernizing classic dungeons.