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

[xanzul]

CRZ does not fix so many issues which are the reason I stopped playing wow back in january, came back for MOP and lasted two weeks.

Lack of realm economy
Lack of goods on auction house to buy including raw materials/crafted items.
Lack of player pool to enable a functioning guild when you lose members.
Inability to form a Pug because the 15 people in ogrimmar already did it that week.

Dead realms like Trollbane - EU are one of the primary reasons wow has steadily hemorrhaged subs until MOP, once the gleam wears off I expect the numbers to continue. There are too many servers that simply lack the multiplayer of an MMO anymore. Having people rename chars/guilds is a small issue compared to ensuring consumers are able to enjoy all aspects of the game.

With how devoid many dead realms are at the moment you pretty much only have access to certain aspects of the game.

This is the reason I continue to say the actual words cross realm zones instead of CRZ because people need to be reminded of what the feature is actually intended to do. It address ZONES not realms. Population of realms has nothing to do with anything and blaming cross realm zones for issues it didn't cause nor was it intended to fix accomplishes absolutely exactly nothing.

[Moradim]

CRZ is a band-aid. they could fix the problem, but that would mean less server transfer profits.

[Revox]

Merge servers.

Let the players on certain servers know that their serer is going to be merged with another. Then, give them an opportunity to server transfer for free, or stay on the merged server.

[ringpriest]

Because announcing a 3 million player subscription loss over 4 quarters to their shareholders is so sneaky right? If Activision-Blizzard weren't a publicly traded company this conspiracy theory might hold water but Blizzard has been very frank and explicit with their shareholders and potential investors about the problems they have had and continue to have. There won't be mergers because it is a band aid fix. Want proof? Check out how many times EQ2 servers have merged. I lost count after 5. How is disrupting server communities repeatedly a good solution? Do you people even understand the implications of mergers? There will be guild name conflicts and character name conflicts and how does Blizzard decide who keeps what name? How can they do it in a way that won't piss off players just as much as they are already pissed about server population issues? Blizzard would just be trading one set of problems for another and that is NOT a feasible solution.

---------- Post added 2012-12-04 at 02:59 PM ----------



Again Blizzard already announced losing 3 million players. I don't quite get how merging realms could possibly be worse than that.

The argument that server merges are untenable because they would anger players is ridiculous. When was the last time Blizzard decided not to do something because it would anger large portions of the playerbase? (And no, please don't bring up them dropping Real ID. That was dropped for legal reasons.)

As was discussed earlier in the thread, merging servers would be worse (for Activision-Blizzard) because it would reveal the geographic location of subscription shifts and losses, something which they have been avoiding doing for years. Where sub losses/gains have occurred is relevant because not all regions are created equal when it comes to how much profit they provide Blizzard. (I don't expect you will personally to admit to understanding or even acknowledging this distinction, because you regularly demonstrate a truly impressive degree of blindness when it comes to anything that might reflect negatively on Blizzard, but other readers should have a chance to form their own opinions about the point you've managed to ignore in your responses.)

[Kevyne-Shandris]

The argument that server merges are untenable because they would anger players is ridiculous. When was the last time Blizzard decided not to do something because it would anger large portions of the playerbase? (And no, please don't bring up them dropping Real ID. That was dropped for legal reasons.)

Legal reasons? When did that come up?

[Alvito]

The only problem I can think of with merging servers would be what happens if there's conflicting guild names, player names, etc? Granted no one will shed any tears for the xsephirothx's of the world losing their name, but that could create A LOT of problems.

There would be tons of QQ if they did this. Player and guild names for one, which servers ppl were forced to join or leave. There are also players out there that are on lower population servers on purpose. Many things are going to have to happen before Blizzard is willing to do something like this it will cause a ton of work and pissed of ppl to do this when they make money off of not doing it now. Would it be nice if they did this, I think so, but many don't and it matters little since the chances of it happening are next to nothing.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

This is the reason I continue to say the actual words cross realm zones instead of CRZ because people need to be reminded of what the feature is actually intended to do. It address ZONES not realms. Population of realms has nothing to do with anything and blaming cross realm zones for issues it didn't cause nor was it intended to fix accomplishes absolutely exactly nothing.

There's plenty to blame CRZ for, as it's a cheesy way to make the world look more populated -- without the benefits -- and if it crashes clients due to the zone server lags, more so.

Making Goldshire also look like a refugee camp was also wrong. Used to be a spot on Shandris folks went to chit chat and hang out, now about as abandoned as Zangarmarsh and as soulless.

Adds little to the community as it snuffs it out.

[Alvito]

CRZ is a band-aid. they could fix the problem, but that would mean less server transfer profits.

CRZ isn't even a band-aid. It is the same as punching somebody in the arm after they stepped on glass hoping if even only for a second they shut up about the glass.

---------- Post added 2012-12-04 at 04:09 PM ----------

They already answered that question with CRZ.

Clinton answered questions about Lewinsky more clearly then they did then.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Allow players to choose whichever realm they want but do raids with any guild on any server.

I doubt they'll ever do that though.

Would be grand. Normal/heroic raids and not having to deal with the typical Shandris "raider", or paying through the nose to transfer.

[Deleted]

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

There are further problems such as character name collisions. Some are very fond of their character names and wouldn't like having to change it all that much.

I actually kind of enjoy playing on a low populated server, it has its ups and downs, whilst it sucks that the auction house is completely empty and it's impossible to find people for a RBG team, it's at the same time awesome that you kind of know everyone on the server, even on the opposing faction side.

You get these rivals that you fight with again and again, I even chatted a bit with a Human Death Knight I've been fighting with for weeks a couple of minutes ago. (No it wasn't raging QQ, it was more of, "yo what's up?", a friendly conversation that lead to many laughs.)

I would prefer more systems added that more or less merges all servers together, so it becomes one big server pool. I think creating some form of cross-realm auction house would be a great step in that direction. It would of course have to be limited in the amount of servers accessing the same auction house, or else it would be chaos with constant undercutting etc, but a check on all servers with low activity and cross server link between those, thus helping everyone.

[Kickbuttmario]

Even if subs aren't decreasing, server merges have often been the first sign of a dying MMO, and would be perceived as the death throes of WoW, even if it wasn't because of a decreasing number of players. I remember the server merges of Warhammer Online, it wasn't a good time.

That honestly makes little sense to me. To avoid such stupid pride like this, the best thing to do is for Blizzard to grow a pair and actually tell its players that they will be merging servers to help players with poor economies, communities, etc.

Like I mean, why can't they. I don't play wow anymore but I came from Dalvengyr US and it kills me a little inside seeing how terrible that server is in now.

[ablib]

Let everyone know that in 6 months "X" server(s) are merging into "Y". Also, give the proper warnings of what will happen when the servers merge, i.e. name changes, guild name changes, etc. Then continue the PR campaign for the next 6 months, keeping the server transfer fresh in everyone's mind.

Then for the next 6 months, players on "X" servers are allowed 1 free transfer per month, for the next 6 months (to find a suitable home).

Players on unbalanced or overpopulated realms are allowed a free transfer. For example a Horde player on Illidan can transfer for free off the realm, or to Illidan-Alliance, but not Alliance to Horde.

Stop being cheap and open up a datacenter just for Illidan (and overpopulated realms of the like). Or whatever it takes to not have a log in queue.

Merging servers will be a PR nightmare and the backlash from the customers will be like you have never seen if not handled properly. If they give ample notice, and free transfers, it will greatly minimize the damage.


However merging servers will NEVER happen in the near future. It's too much of a PR hit. I suspect they will merge them after the release of Titan. They can say it's a necessary move since the WoW ship has passed, since a large portion of the base moved on to Titan.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I actually kind of enjoy playing on a low populated server, it has its ups and downs, whilst it sucks that the auction house is completely empty and it's impossible to find people for a RBG team, it's at the same time awesome that you kind of know everyone on the server, even on the opposing faction side.

What I found by transferring to a low population server back in WotLK the reason why it was low population: It harbored sociopaths.

It gave them free realm to grief and cause so many problems, and trade chat looked more what you'd expect at a Hannibal Lecter fan club meeting. I'm not exaggerating one bit -- dripping in sarcasm, nastiness and just plain evil. One of their past times was picking on a dude so bad, that you'd expect to see such behavior from a prison yard. The epitome of little bullies.

Shandris has a terrible raiding community, but community wise it's 100x better than that. I would never transfer to a low population realm again, it's low population due to shared sociopathy.

[Lomppa]

make servers like "classic" and "tbc" ect so ppl ca experience the other xpacs like some did years ago.
with the same balance and talenttrees that was at that time.

[Mormolyce]

LOL@ these people who think Blizzard doesn't merge servers because they're "afraid to admit sub drops".

Also, just want to point out that the problem of low pop/dead servers is caused by players, not Blizzard. People don't roll on low pop servers because they're low pop! It's circular. Blizzard could solve the problem with mass forced migrations, because players would love that...

---------- Post added 2012-12-05 at 12:52 AM ----------

make servers like "classic" and "tbc" ect so ppl ca experience the other xpacs like some did years ago.
with the same balance and talenttrees that was at that time.

They don't want to have to constantly support that.

[ringpriest]

Legal reasons? When did that come up?

It came up as soon as Blizzard said they were going to mandate the use of real names in the forums. The legal problems with RealID were kind of buried in the general outrage but would definitely have been a very big problem for them had they chosen to move forward with the proposal. Here is a post on the subject I found via a quick google. There were a number of problematical legal points, if I'm remembering correctly, but the big one was underage players. Warcraft has a good number of those. Publishing the real names of players under 13 without specifically obtaining parental permission is a violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. And the FTC really likes to go after COPPA violators. It's also been mentioned on MMO Champ several times.

[stomination]

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.

Yes and no. It could be a lost of subscriptions or that the servers that are new never really got a large group to go to them. Than and realm xfers.

[ringpriest]

LOL@ these people who think Blizzard doesn't merge servers because they're "afraid to admit sub drops".

Out of curiosity, why do you think Blizzard stopped reporting separate subscription totals back in 2010?

[Landin55]

People don't understand the negative side of server merging do they?

[Kevyne-Shandris]

People don't understand the negative side of server merging do they?

I've seen it in other MMOs, but within 3 months things settle down.

The biggest conflict is the transfers fitting in with another established community. They lost their longevity status, and now the new guys.