DRASTIC MEASURES ARE CALLED FOR: Server merges.

[Zantos]

Balance can't be forced because in truth, most people don't want to be on a balanced server.

Exactly.

I called it happening before classic even launched. I told people that it will just get worse and worse. People want to be on the side that will just dominate the others. They don't care about fair. They care about winning and getting the loot they want.

[TOM_RUS]

LOL Classic... Why even play this crap?
No new content, garbage graphics, imbalance classes, absence of QoL features (shared mob tagging, flying, LFG, ...) and so on...

[Relapses]

You speak in very definite terms as if you were a Blizzard representative. Things are always subject to change. Even blizzard policies. To quote Marcus Antonius: "Life isnt stone. life is water". If the destruction of a realm, your character name and history is the price to pay, I think alot of players would do it in a heart beat if they are on a 80/20 realm.

I speak in definite terms because you're treating this like server merges are some new miraculous genius idea that you and solely you have devised to cure all of WoW's ailments. Yet, in reality, your idea is hardly new and Blizzard has gone on record a number of times saying they were against realm mergers because they dislike forcing players to name change and erasing server heritage. I simply do not see Blizzard erasing 15 years of precedent because you, Angry Internet Guy #356-B, made a fucking blog post on here complaining about it.

[Corroc]

Why would faction specific queues "change the experience to more retail wow".? I'm not being sarcastic but genuinly asking. I dont see the connection in this argument, nor do I see how server merges would have this effect.

There is no connection to that argument because I never made it.

[fupr]

Where can we see the current server populations with somewhat correct numbers? I assume they are not going to be official.

I play alliance on Firemaw EU and it does feel like there is much more horde players than alliance out in the world.

So far its not been a problem, but I dont play very often (lvl 46 only)

[valky94]

Balance can be easily forced lol, what nonsense is this? A faction specific queue forces a 50/50 population.

that wont cause balance, it would only swing the scale in the other direction

[Mysterymask]

Forced faction queues....

Gee cant wait to play with my friends on this classic server....they all made horde...oh i cant play horde? Guess I wont play then

[MoanaLisa]

Balance can be easily forced lol, what nonsense is this? A faction specific queue forces a 50/50 population.

Yes it can be forced with faction locks.

So, what you're saying is that on a realm that's 75% Horde and 25% Alliance that 50% of the Horde players will sit in queue on new phase day if everyone on the Alliance side is logged on and you'll find that acceptable? Or players won't be allowed to create characters of the faction they like on the realm they like because 20% of the server is the other faction? Go on. That's crazy and never going to happen.

That's completely unacceptable and despite your plans for perfect balance is another reason you simply can't force that. You'd kill the game.

[Zantos]

Balance can be easily forced lol, what nonsense is this? A faction specific queue forces a 50/50 population.

Retail says hi. Its not able to be forced. If one side dominates a server, others will go there to find guilds to raid / pvp with. If one side has stronger racials for PvE or PvP, they will be flocked to for those racials, on the servers that that side dominates.

Its not something you can force. Clearly since they have Never managed to do so. A faction specific queue will get people to quit Long before they consider rerolling or server transferring. Why lose all progress Just so you can actually play? Why server transfer to a realm that you may or may not find a guild to raid / pvp with?

If it was as easy as you think, retail would have done it long ago when it was first a problem there.

- - - Updated - - -

Why would faction specific queues "change the experience to more retail wow".? I'm not being sarcastic but genuinly asking. I dont see the connection in this argument, nor do I see how server merges would have this effect.

It honestly wouldn't change it more to retail. It would just get people to quit all together.

[Storfan]

I speak in definite terms because you're treating this like server merges are some new miraculous genius idea that you and solely you have devised to cure all of WoW's ailments. Yet, in reality, your idea is hardly new and Blizzard has gone on record a number of times saying they were against realm mergers because they dislike forcing players to name change and erasing server heritage. I simply do not see Blizzard erasing 15 years of precedent because you, Angry Internet Guy #356-B, made a fucking blog post on here complaining about it.

You read way too much into my motives. I never claimed to be the one and only genious to device this plan. I have seen this being discussed and ideas being tossed around by my peers and fellow players. I just figured I'd compromise a post on the topic and see how it gets recieved by the broader audience. Also I dont see the point of calling me an "Angry internet Guy". Why do you have to resort to insults? I'm just airing ideas here.

Where can we see the current server populations with somewhat correct numbers? I assume they are not going to be official.

I play alliance on Firemaw EU and it does feel like there is much more horde players than alliance out in the world.

So far its not been a problem, but I dont play very often (lvl 46 only)

The numbers are taken from https://ironforge.pro/servers and derived from raid logs by the active lvl60 raiding population. Given that it's not 100% accurate but it gives a good broad view. Alliance on Firemaw is currently at 44.6% which is pretty high compared to some other servers.

that wont cause balance, it would only swing the scale in the other direction

And then it will swing back if alliance becomes larger. I dont see the problem here? I dont see people rerolling for a 30min login queue. I do see people rerolling (or even quitting) because of massive faction imbalance.

So, what you're saying is that on a realm that's 75% Horde and 25% Alliance that 50% of the Horde players will sit in queue on new phase day if everyone on the Alliance side is logged on and you'll find that acceptable? Or players won't be allowed to create characters of the faction they like on the realm they like because 20% of the server is the other faction? Go on. That's crazy and never going to happen.

That's completely unacceptable and despite your plans for perfect balance is another reason you simply can't force that. You'd kill the game.

The suggestion didnt imply a forced 50/50 balance to be kept by faction queues. The numbers can be tweaked. The aim is to not have "too much" of a concurrent logged in imbalance. And ofcourse, it wouldnt work on servers that are past the tipping point at 10/90 or 20/80 or maybe even 30/70.

[Ange]

If it was as easy as you think, retail would have done it long ago when it was first a problem there.

CrossRealmZones = to merge lowPop server
CRZ warmode/non-warmode = to merge PVE/PVP population as evenly as possible

Thats all they can do, everything else is player/community driven. Streamer with their influence on the small classic community could have helped to propagate this key message, but content vultures don't care about the game.

[huth]

Yes it can be forced with faction locks.

That would just be a softcap on the server population. It won't balance them.

The only way they can force it is by removing your ability to choose a server and faction. Good luck with that.

[Nixiuz]

10 genocides later...

"Oh, the humanity!"

[Relapses]

You read way too much into my motives. I never claimed to be the one and only genious to device this plan. I have seen this being discussed and ideas being tossed around by my peers and fellow players. I just figured I'd compromise a post on the topic and see how it gets recieved by the broader audience. Also I dont see the point of calling me an "Angry internet Guy". Why do you have to resort to insults? I'm just airing ideas here.

I apologize that your fragile ego cannot withstand the brutal, soul crushing depths which "Angry Internet Guy" must've cut. If it makes you feel better just DM me and I'll pay for the first three therapy sessions myself.

That said, there isn't much to discuss here. Mergers won't happen and the other shit I've seen proposed in this thread somehow makes server mergers seem like a good idea in comparison so all that nonsense is out the window too. This problem doesn't have a solution and I doubt Blizzard will ever acknowledge or bother doing a damned thing about it, just as they have in retail for the better part of fifteen years.

[Storfan]

I apologize that your fragile ego cannot withstand the brutal, soul crushing depths which "Angry Internet Guy" must've cut. If it makes you feel better just DM me and I'll pay for the first three therapy sessions myself.

That said, there isn't much to discuss here. Mergers won't happen and the other shit I've seen proposed in this thread somehow makes server mergers seem like a good idea in comparison so all that nonsense is out the window too. This problem doesn't have a solution and I doubt Blizzard will ever acknowledge or bother doing a damned thing about it, just as they have in retail for the better part of fifteen years.

I suppose this is the internet 2019. Where serious suggestions to the betterment of a game must be shut down with slanderous insults instead of constructive counter points. So I guess instead of discussing the game that we love and how to improve it we should instead just shut up and in silence accept our fate.

[horbindr]

trying to combat faction imbalance in a two faction system is a losing battle.

(ironically a better than retail implementation of CRZ would be the best fix though.)

[Doffen]

Merging requires you to lose your name and destroys the history of the merged realm. It is definitely not the same thing.

Cough, someone did a joke on me, cough.

[horbindr]

I am playing on a connected server and I can't use a name on the server I am on if it's taken on the server we are connected to. I was away for a while on the server, before the connection, but when I came back after I had to change name on a character, a name that someone else had on the other server.

While connecting is not exactly the same way as a merge, it follows the rules of a single one. Though with the connection my server got more Alliance guilds than we already had so it got more unbalanced

i have nymame-serverA, myname-serverB, myname-serverC on my connected realm. probably some lvl 1 alt stole your name :P

[Storfan]

Yes, there is one server with reasonable ratio. So what do merges have to do with it? Do you want to merge it with other server, ruining ratio? It won't fix anything, it would only create another server with bad ratio.

Servers with high alliance population are PvE servers. Can't merge different types of servers because players on those servers made a choice to avoid PvP.

I hadn't actually looked up which of the servers where PvP or PvE but now that you mention it, that is a major blow to my suggestion I'll admit. I just looked at the ratio overall of the servers and saw some had alliance superiority, I suppose all of them are PvE realms then?

trying to combat faction imbalance in a two faction system is a losing battle.

(ironically a better than retail implementation of CRZ would be the best fix though.)

Whats CRZ? Sharding?

[MoanaLisa]

So I guess instead of discussing the game that we love and how to improve it we should instead just shut up and in silence accept our fate.

It helps to accept some realities though:

Reality #1: Said before, there's tons of evidence that PVP players don't want balanced realms. They want easy wins.
Reality #2: Blizzard's prime directive on this is to let people play where they wish to play.
Reality #3: They have strongly committed to realm integrity with Classic. I think server merges/CRZ/anything of that nature are out.
Reality #4: This is WoW Classic and major changes to how stuff works aren't on the table.

I'm not sure where you go from there.

I won't deny that it's possible to keep people in queue to force balance or not allow people to create characters on an already unbalanced realm but to suggest that Blizzard will seriously consider this on Classic WoW of all things is a non-starter. korijenkins and puupi can handwave solutions through but there's zero evidence that Blizzard will do anything at all like this. They've given up on it completely in BfA with WarMode. Some problems cannot be solved. WarMode in theory is a clever idea but put it into Classic and it's not Classic any longer. So there are major constraints laid down that must be respected when constructing a solution to a problem. Often enough those constraints run into #4 above which is that Classic WoW is supposed to mimic the 2005 game as much as possible. These things didn't exist then and won't exist in Classic WoW in 2019-2020.