About Realm Merging

[Depakote]

Who really thinks this fixes anything? My guess is this is the reason there's been so many problems with realms going off line unexpectedly. Doing this totally destroys any sense of community. Just seems like Blizzards easy answer for low population realms instead of closing said realms and giving people free transfers off of them. Not to mention the realms that have been merged, lets say mine for example Spirestone-US, the horde to alliance population is something like 86% horde to 24% alliance.. Doesn't exactly help in world pvp...

[Caerule]

I really think it fixes things.

I'm on a roleplay server, where more people will really help. We've already got some CRZ with two other realms, but while this leads to friendships, it can't lead to a good community or help guilds grow. Once Blizzard starts finally connecting the EU RP-PvE realms, I have high hopes things will get even better on my realm.

Also looking forward to more stuff available on the AH.

[freighttrain]

I really think it fixes things.

I'm on a roleplay server, where more people will really help. We've already got some CRZ with two other realms, but while this leads to friendships, it can't lead to a good community or help guilds grow. Once Blizzard starts finally connecting the EU RP-PvE realms, I have high hopes things will get even better on my realm.

Also looking forward to more stuff available on the AH.

On my Alliance server it really has helped. I see tons of people all over now and trade chat is filled with people looking for PuGs and whatnot. On my horde server we will not be merged since we are a full server.

[Deleted]

Im split about it, recently they connected Grim Batol EU with Aggra Portuguese. And now its like 90% of the realm is portuguese-talking instead of english which makes for some problems in communication. The smart thing to do there would've been to connect Aggra with another portuguese-speaking realm instead.

[Deleted]

True, i totally agree with you.

[Depakote]

Just seemed the pulled realms out of a hat and decided to merge them.

[Ayla]

I'm not impressed myself, and I know others from other realms arent either. Shutting down realms would have been a better choice. Well maybe not, but, I hope they have a huge rabbit to pull out at the end of all this.

[Selah]

I'm glad they're doing this instead of shutting down their servers. People can still be on the realm they've played on since vanilla and actually see an explosion in population. There is no real loss here

[Ayla]

I'm glad they're doing this instead of shutting down their servers. People can still be on the realm they've played on since vanilla and actually see an explosion in population. There is no real loss here

except when the other side gets a population increase and you dont

[Caerule]

It's why I don't really get why they seem to be starting with mostly PvP-based realms. Surely PvE realms would be easier, with faction balance mattering less.

[lokithor]

Who really thinks this fixes anything? My guess is this is the reason there's been so many problems with realms going off line unexpectedly. Doing this totally destroys any sense of community. Just seems like Blizzards easy answer for low population realms instead of closing said realms and giving people free transfers off of them. Not to mention the realms that have been merged, lets say mine for example Spirestone-US, the horde to alliance population is something like 86% horde to 24% alliance.. Doesn't exactly help in world pvp...

it wasn't meant to balance servers. It was meant to up the total pop.

Us Alliance are outnumbered by quite a bit, but our guild has been able to recruit quite a few people to raid from other servers. So actually the merges saved our guild.

[Tenjen]

i dont see how closing realms was the better option. Thats a HORRIBLE direction to go and would have resulted in unsubing. People relate themselves to their realms and evicting them would have resulted in mass unsubs rather than free transfers. Especially with people who are temporarily off wow and come back to find their realms gone.

Easy option?! MERGING realms was the EASY option? How do you even think that?! Closing down the realms was the easy and available casual option. Instead they worked to find a way to MERGE servers and still have people retain their personal identity and the integrity of their characters/names/resources etc.

merging is no where CLOSE to the "easy" option.

except when the other side gets a population increase and you dont

It's an ongoing process. Merged servers that still arent populated enough get more than just two blended. Starting out with by merging realms in this manner, small and big as well as small and small, is the smarter way to start out before eventually reaching more populated servers.

It's why I don't really get why they seem to be starting with mostly PvP-based realms. Surely PvE realms would be easier, with faction balance mattering less.

Because it matters less. You target the realms where it Matters more, not the other way around. You serve them first. You go where the need is higher. A doctor heals the stab wound first, not attend to the guy with the sniffles.

[Roamingstorm]

Who really thinks this fixes anything? My guess is this is the reason there's been so many problems with realms going off line unexpectedly. Doing this totally destroys any sense of community. Just seems like Blizzards easy answer for low population realms instead of closing said realms and giving people free transfers off of them. Not to mention the realms that have been merged, lets say mine for example Spirestone-US, the horde to alliance population is something like 86% horde to 24% alliance.. Doesn't exactly help in world pvp...

It's a really tough thing to tamper with truly.

On one end people tend to flock to higher population servers mainly because you came to play an MMO, which means you're wanting there to be people. High population continues to gain people mainly because of its high population.

In my experience when I first played WoW it was on a low population server. This was back in vanilla so finding a dungeon or anything was a pain in the arse, let alone most guilds tended to keep to themselves if they were already built. Eventually went to a medium server, and it was a decent experience. Eventually though when the transfers opened up, can change faction, etc the server I was on started losing population, and there really wasn't much going on. I eventually transferred to a high population server, and besides the queue times it's great to see an active server.

I've tried looking at other servers to transfer to, looked on Medium realms, and they just aren't as active, which I think is the big underlying issue of why people flock to the high population realms, and will continue to.

To fix it I truly think Blizzard just needs to open up free transfers more often for the high population realms to a variety of realms, and not just a select few low population ones. I play on Illidan now and transfered there when DS opened up, but when MoP came out and I was hitting nearly 2 hour+ queue times I only dread seeing WoD...

I do believe connected realms will help make low population servers feel populated, especially how raiding will allow cross realms all the way up to heroic raiding and if I recall arenas and BGs will be able to cross realm. (I may be wrong on the PvP side of things.)

In the end though the only way they can truly address the problem in my opinion is to open up more free transfers to high population servers.

[Raugnaut]

The big difference between Realm Merging and just shutting down low-pop realms is that guilds get to stay together, and you can keep your own name. I greatly prefer Realm Merging to all of the alternatives. I do hope that they remove CRZ, though.

[Deleted]

The way realms have been merged is not really convincing that they bother about faction balance at all and blaming it on overall faction imbalance is just a bad excuse.

[Baracuda]

How does closing realms down not destroy communities then? There is barely any community left on many dead realms so it's better to create a new better one with many.

[Depakote]

My solution? Don't open up anymore new realms till it's really needed. Don't let realms reach High population, rather have multiple medium population realms.

[Stonecloak]

I am on a realm that just got connected, and it's been nothing short of great. The market stabilized. There is a healthy friendship, and competitive nature between the realms, and a lot more people obviously.

[Shampro]

It fixes the Action House, so yes, it does fix something.

[Depakote]

It fixes the Action House, so yes, it does fix something.

Temporary fix at best.