WoW Retail - New Realm Connections for Low-Population Servers

[rrayy]

I believe you. I just don't think it's good for the longevity of the game.

Other MMOs have done precisely that, Tibia comes to mind, where servers and characters carry MUCH more prestige and weight behind them than WoW, it has worked spectacularly well for them.

THe game is 15 years old. It has already achieved longevity and it has been doing fine despite already having done this before. What an invalid argument.

[Kellorion]

Thunderhorn/Blades-Edge US please

[WaltherLeopold]

THe game is 15 years old. It has already achieved longevity and it has been doing fine despite already having done this before. What an invalid argument.

What a narrow POV, there are MMOs out there that are over 20 years old now, longevity isn't a constant, if WoW is cancelled 5 months into SL, then SL did not have any longevity.

[Marrilaife]

Incorrect. Very late in patch 8.1, my realm had a Horde guild get the realm first for mythic Kil'jaeden (and eventually mythic Argus just prior to 8.2's launch).

Hmm, must the the "first to max level" achievements then I remember... A friend of mine got realm first lvl 90 in MOP and I think it was last time these were around.

[Sharnie786]

Just connect everything.

One unified AH (the new much faster AH was the last piece of the puzzle there). Join guilds on any realm. Trade with anyone. Raid with anyone.

Just get rid of this crap artificial barrier, because there's literally no physical reason for it to exist any more.

I would love one server, except names would have to change and it would mean they'd struggle on expansion launch like many High pop realms know too well

[rrayy]

What a narrow POV, there are MMOs out there that are over 20 years old now, longevity isn't a constant, if WoW is cancelled 5 months into SL, then SL did not have any longevity.

Now you are moving hte goalposts. You flat out stated WoW's longevity. That means the entire game, not just the expansion. It is completely ridiculous argument as WoW has already achieved longevity and if it were to be cancelled no way in hell is it going to be because of how the realms are connected and structured.

- - - Updated - - -

This is the proper solution. For some weird reason they refuse to do it. WoW has WAAAAY too many servers. They could probably get rid of 50-75% of them. And actually, truly merge servers. Connected-realms are just a half-assed measure.

Why when the end result is the exact same and nobody has to change their names? Not having to change names alone makes connected realms superior and why deleting realms is stupid.

[rogoth]

Incorrect. Very late in patch 8.1, my realm had a Horde guild get the realm first for mythic Kil'jaeden (and eventually mythic Argus just prior to 8.2's launch).

he's talking about character specific realm firsts, not guild based ones.

[Onikaroshi]

Okay, honest question, what's the technical purpose of actual servers on Retail anymore?

The only thing i can think off right now is the Mythic Raid restriction, but besides that everything should be CRZ, shouldn't it?
Shouldn't people from a lowpop automatically get thrown into a shard alongside people from a whole bunch of servers?

Like, isn't Retail for all intents and purposes operating on a "one mega server" approach (due to CRZ) with just a ton of different shards?

To allow more names basically. If they merged everything that would piss people off because they would lose names unless they started doing last names or hiding numbered names which might get messy with whispers and shit.

That said they could really just connect everything into 3-4 servers but with separate server names, one Normal, one RP, per coast.

[Dragon Claws]

I like playing on a quiet """dead""" server. If folks want activity, just transfer to another server.

[delus]

Wait you think the people who went to classic were people who were playing BFA every day and just quit due to classic? Almost everyone I play with came back for classic only. we got a handful of raid loggers who play retail six days a week and log on classic for raid day only, but they’re not the majority.

If blizzard didn’t add classic, these people wouldn’t be playing BFA lol. Like my current GM hasn’t played the main version of WoW since MoP came out and he’d just be back to inactivity if he wasn’t playing classic.

I agree though factions should go already.

I know a couple that have abandoned live for classic. Anecdotal evidence and all.

[Tharkkun]

I believe you. I just don't think it's good for the longevity of the game.

Other MMOs have done precisely that, Tibia comes to mind, where servers and characters carry MUCH more prestige and weight behind them than WoW, it has worked spectacularly well for them.

Tibia barely broke 30k players online at the same time. With smaller populations of players there's a lot less casualties that happen when you take the shotgun approach. The way Blizzard did the hard work behind the scenes makes it much easier on the player and the game as a whole.

[pinkz]

i'm glad they are merging deader servers with higher pop servers

blizzard needs to look the previous mergings that failed, dead merged with dead, and deader, and even deader does not = a thriving server

years ago blizzard merged dead servers with dead servers. i had 5 players on demonsoul server, it was merged with 3 other dead servers, the merge was rather unnoticeable. i never deleted those 5 or paid to have them moved. but i rarely to never log them on either. another dead server it was merged with 4 dead servers, i deleted that player 6 years ago rather than pay for a move

[OokOok]

Racials still play a huge part, Blizzard keeps saying they want to remove them but never do, they keep saying they want to make it so they don't matter or have an impact on players choices and then they go and make 2 OP racials this expansion. Even after they nerfed the Zandalarian troll racial, that crit is still OP for PVE and PVP. Any movement racial is OP in PVP and M+ like goblins rocket boots jump crap, Blood elf aoe silence is OP in M+.

So naturally the players who want to be the best want to play the best even for an extra 100dps. Alliance don't have that, MAYBE 1 race has a decent racial but do you seriously expect 25 players to all play the same race if they feel forced to do so and have fun?
That's why classic is so 1 sided, alliance always considered to have the stronger PVE racials, but the raid's are so easy that it doesn't matter, which means now a days it's PVP horde racials > alliance pve racials.

[Kallor]

Isn't it possible to merge them into single servers, instead of having different servers play together?

[Jasper Kazai]

They really need to scrap the idea of servers altogether. With how quickly cross-realm invites phase you into new servers and whatnot, it's obvious the technology is there to just have everyone on the same server. The only reason servers exist now is so they can force you to pay for transfers so you can trade with people and raid mythic before 200 guilds kill the last boss. It's dumb and antiquated.
ESO has "megaservers." Do that.

[kamuimac]

10 years to late.

[Nnyco]

Racials still play a huge part, Blizzard keeps saying they want to remove them but never do, they keep saying they want to make it so they don't matter or have an impact on players choices and then they go and make 2 OP racials this expansion. Even after they nerfed the Zandalarian troll racial, that crit is still OP for PVE and PVP. Any movement racial is OP in PVP and M+ like goblins rocket boots jump crap, Blood elf aoe silence is OP in M+.

So naturally the players who want to be the best want to play the best even for an extra 100dps. Alliance don't have that, MAYBE 1 race has a decent racial but do you seriously expect 25 players to all play the same race if they feel forced to do so and have fun?
That's why classic is so 1 sided, alliance always considered to have the stronger PVE racials, but the raid's are so easy that it doesn't matter, which means now a days it's PVP horde racials > alliance pve racials.

Just fun to see people pull bullshit out of their ass, blizz never said they want to remove racials not to mention that zandalari racial is hardly op nor that bloodelf silences anymore, since thats gone since bfa started.

[Azerate]

Isn't it possible to merge them into single servers, instead of having different servers play together?

I imagine there's plenty of technical limitations. The easiest one being...people having the same names on 2 servers. What happens then? Just force name change them? Many might not like it very much.

[Drusin]

Many might not like it very much.

I'd riot!!

[Cavox]

I wonder how many people stopped playing the game and how many guilds disbanded after a migration from low to a higher population server. Most of the time some people refuse to pay such an absurd price (for a fully automated feature that costs Acti-Blizz $0 and takes few minutes) and it ends up with some people migrating and some people staying. You're losing a customer who pays a sub and quits the game, because he lost his main reason to continue playing (people he likes to play with), but hey - you get a quick buck from suckers who migrate just for the opportunity to escape a dead server. What a great deal.

Migration should be free (on a cooldown if you must protect the server's economy) to whatever server you want, not chosen by Activision-Blizzard "free migration" to low pops nobody wants to play on.