Should Blizzard implement a realm merge for Low populated realms, poll.

[ro9ue]

If I'm Blizzard this is what I'm thinking about:

How much money am I losing by essentially giving free transfers?
How many players am I losing to dead realms?
How many players will I lose/piss off by forcing them to change their name if there are duplicates?

[Raelbo]

If I'm Blizzard this is what I'm thinking about:

How much money am I losing by essentially giving free transfers?

This is pure conjecture and I really wish people would stop stating this (bad) assumption as fact. And if you actually stop and think logically about it, it makes very little sense.

Blizzard's revenue model is primarily based on subs. Name/Race change services are about making revenue. Pets and mounts bought in the Blizzard Store are about making revenue. Paid character transfers are, however, not about revenue (even if they do make some revenue out of it).

The fact is that character transfers are generally bad for the game. They generally result in skewed realm populations becoming more skewed. Blizzard obviously know this. They also know that a skewed horde:alliance ratio on a realm, or a low population on a realm is bad for the game. So why on earth would they possibly jeopardise things like balanced realm populations to generate a bit of revenue? That would be idiotic, because it threatens their far bigger revenue streams from subs, vanity pets, mounts and name/race change.

I am pretty certain that Blizzard regard paid character transfers as a "grudge" service. They allow players to change realms or faction because they recognise that for some players it's a deal breaker. They charge a premium for it because it serves as a deterrent to doing it. It's not about the revenue they gain at all, it's about stopping the thing from running rampant.

The fact is that Blizzard doesn't want people transferring between factions or servers. But they would rather allow it than have people quitting because of it.

How many players am I losing to dead realms?

yes

How many players will I lose/piss off by forcing them to change their name if there are duplicates?

yes

[Dezminion]

If I'm Blizzard this is what I'm thinking about:

How much money am I losing by essentially giving free transfers?
How many players am I losing to dead realms?
How many players will I lose/piss off by forcing them to change their name if there are duplicates?

I think you are quite right there and at the moment I believe, that they have calculated the income of cash being bigger, when they just ignore the whole dead realm issues.

[Bloodrein]

Maybe the answer isn't merging dead realms...

Why don't Blizzard do the opposite to what they have been doing for many years, instead of free transfers from high pop realms to lower pop realms they should go the other way. Offer free transfers from dead realms to high/medium pop realms. This way if people want to go they can, people will not be forced to change their character names etc. Also those who like playing on a dead server can continue to play on a dead server.

So lets say its from low to medium servers... then those medium servers have the potential to become high pop servers.

[Xavaran]

There is people who love playing in low pop realms, but the majority dont want to waste their money on server transfer. So yea I beleive blizzard do some server merges. Its really sad seeing servers with 1 or 2 raiding guilds, just.. depressing.

[Dezminion]

There is people who love playing in low pop realms, but the majority dont want to waste their money on server transfer. So yea I beleive blizzard do some server merges. Its really sad seeing servers with 1 or 2 raiding guilds, just.. depressing.

Yep, I think, that majority of ppl would be pleased to have a good, fairly big community around them.
There is little sense in paying monthly fee from a single player game, when the game is supposed to be a MMO.

[Radoznali]

For all those ppl think that name change is preventing blizzard of doing realm change i ask:Why is is possible to merger servers in Tw but not in Eu?I would gladly change name if i could move from Xavius Eu for free.Now Xavius is dead server and there arent a lot of ppl there.Only reason isnt doing this is because they are milking too much money from players with PCT

[Halicia]

Servers are outdated and only detract from the game experience. If you want to play by yourself, then you shouldn't be playing an MMO.

Blizzard's taken great strides towards unifying the community, but they still need to take that final step towards regionwide AH and crossrealm guilds & current content.

Once thats been done, the realm will only be a suffix, and you'll only be punishing yourself with queue times for rolling on an overpop server.

[Deleted]

My realm had 3 people in Orgrimmar at 4pm yesterday, I can't really say the 10 day trial convinced me to come back...

I would resubscribe in an instant if I could get back to playing on a server that is actually active, it's sad to see my current one so dead.

[Deleted]

I still support the free transfers modell instead of merging realms. But it shouldn't be only transfer to low pop realms, but OFF of them. Only the idea of merging realms already pisses off so many people and causes so much fighting over it.
People should be able to decide where they want to play(without paying ridiculous amounts of money). Forcing anyone to play in a way they don't enjoy isn't going to keep them playing. That goes for low pop lovers as much as for high pop.

I myself are playing on a medium population server (at least my Alliance is, Horde is quite dead i think) and i would hate to put up with the spamming, even more jerks and fighting over spawns etc. Tried Blackrock-EU Horde, can't stand that "crowdiness" and the behaviour, that seems to come with it, really.
And if i was forced to put up with that, i would quit for sure.

[Deleted]

It's a hard one, sometimes it's nice to be playing alone but it can get quite boring alone. Probably for the best if they did.

[Deleted]

Or, you could do what the rest of the folks that left the server and didn't quit did... pay for the xfer... easy peasy.

Let me use a tone that will make it easier for you to comprehend:
One very important fact you've either ignored, or fail to grasp. We decide what we won't do with our money and what we won't spend it extra for, because we decide what we think is Blizzards job to handle and not ours at our expenses. We decide if the situation and lack of action justifies our reasoned complaints as customer. YOU DONT!

Trolling and bugging people here with nonsensical comments, attacking their complaints, is not going to change the decision anyone here has made.

[celinamuna]

I think it's a bad idea, for what it's worth everyone is bitching and moaning about "community" and how lfr/lfd is destroying it, while server merge will have the same exact effect.

[Neetz]

Yes

Most definitely yes.
When you see people talk about the lack of community, it isn't just about 'oh there's nobody talking in general', it's also about the whole feel of the realm you're on and lets not forget the economy. A while back Blizzard were asked "Will you ever implement guild housing?" They're reply was something along the lines of ' No because we don't want everyone going into their houses leaving the cities and the world dead'

The only community on my server is in the Brawler's Guild. Please wipe your feet on the way in [Welcome]

I've just tranferred onto horde on my server as my guild wanted a change of scenery, we plan to perhaps change realm if Blizzard can make it easier (and cheaper) to move our alts over, that is ofcourse another option if merging servers is something they really don't want to do.

[Keoren]

I am in favour of the merges, but it might be a good idea to include an alternative for those who are not happy with the solution. One possibility might be to let the people choose between remaining on the now-merged realm and receiving a limited free migration to another one.

That said, the cross-realm technology will likely be improved in the future and such changes might become unnecessary.

[LeginNoslen]

If they allowed cross realm raiding for current raids and they made something like cross realm auction houses and cross realm guilds, they wouldnt need realm mergers. IMO the only reason they would merge realms is to cut costs.

[Garehn Vi-Brittania]

They should, but they wont. Merging servers shows weakness in an mmo and blizzard has a big epeen for being the mmo titan at the moment. Swtor hesitated to do it and it was terrible. eventually they just manned up and the game started being enjoyable again.

[jazen]

no amount of mergers will recreate realm communities. LFR/LFD effectively destroyed almost all but guild interactions.

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 07:30 PM ----------

Let me use a tone that will make it easier for you to comprehend:
One very important fact you've either ignored, or fail to grasp. We decide what we won't do with our money and what we won't spend it extra for, because we decide what we think is Blizzards job to handle and not ours at our expenses. We decide if the situation and lack of action justifies our reasoned complaints as customer. YOU DONT!

Trolling and bugging people here with nonsensical comments, attacking their complaints, is not going to change the decision anyone here has made.

So your saying since you don't feel it is your responsibility to pay to transfer, Seranthor can't comment on what many others have already did? Seems like the 'nonsensical comments' you refer to are your own.

[klaps_05]

like others pointed out, the reason realm merges arent happening is because people are WILLING to pay for transfer. and even if they dont and stay on their dead realm they will still actually play and a very small fraction will actually quit.

[Defengar]

As least when small realms were just small you could still have at least the skeleton of an AH economy. With cross realm zones, its 10 times as hard to farm mats, and the AH economies on small realms have been even more destroyed. If there is going to be 100 people farming a zone, at least make it so they are on the same realm so the economy doesn't get fucked.