Just lower the Sub fee now (not remove) just lower it a bit from say 8.99 to 4.99 or something. This would claw back a few lost players who have went to the f2p mmo's and found that the f2p mmo's can offer the same experience for less money and often get more updates that WoW (a paid sub mmo that still has micro transaction system).
They really need to make WoW more competitive with the current market if not this downhill spiral of subs they are going through will just continue. A Band-aid fix like joining realms is not enough.
Find Server A that has high Horde population and Low Alliance population.
Find Server B that is the same type as Server A and has low Horde population and high Alliance population.
Join server A and B together.
Imbalance ratios balance out!....for awhile.
Decreased subscriptions is certainly a factor, and not shocking at all with the wait between each patch and the staleness of MoP... if I wasn't still raiding, I'd probably have quit a long time ago. I log in now to raid and then log off immediately after.
But I know on my server, nearly every major progressive raiding guild transferred off to some popular server that everyone else was going to. My guild shot up to number one on the server for a while since all the competition left.
This means If you are playing on Horde side in a low RP or PVP-RP realm, you are pretty much f***ed.
With connected realms in play I really hope they'll get rid of CRZ.
So... Blizzard basicly saying there is 5.5 patch coming and this will be one of the features that will fill the 8 month gap between last raid and next expansion.... Was totally expected they would try to drag some things out to call patch 5.5.
"connected realms"? Blizzard, why dont you say it for what it is, you are merging serves.
This is the best feature ever. Look at games from Cryptic. All there servers basically run in one giant world so their games always seems populated even with their low player counts.
THE major question is though, Will you be able to send your BOA's to other characters on connected realms, or will you have to buy them all over again (or from the cash shop)
I played EQ and EQ2 and really look forward to something from the EQ universe again. EQ was a brilliant game and I find myself wishing each mmo I play had some of the basic concepts they used back then. I've started believing in the FTP platform now more than ever, after leaving wow to play things like Neverwinter, Rift when it went ftp when I think about how fun those games can be and not cost a dime of your money. It just makes me angry knowing I spent so many years in wow, not happy when I could have been trying other things. They've had the corner on the market long enough, I hope they hurt maybe they'll continue to improve the game for the games sake and not for their pocketbook.
I wish I could be impressed by FF14, I have yet to get into it, wildstar was a lot more fun between both betas...
Connect Tichondrius and Blackrock!
Guess this means my quiet hidey hole server is about to be trampled, dang.