Why is the low population server situation not solved?

[Radiobiology]

I have never seen an mmorpg with a bigger need for server MERGES than this one. Its just depressing to look at, all those low pop realms.

[Schizoide]

Faction population balance simply does not matter anymore. The whole world is CRZ'd including current expansion zones, so you'll be phased with other people from your faction regardless of your server's population. It doesn't matter for the auction house either, as that is cross-faction now. Only impact would be on guild recruiting, but that's a matter of total population in your faction, not its balance against the other one.

Blizzard doesn't want to do server merges, because that reeks of failure. They came up with connected realms instead. That's fine. They just need to do that again.

[Marrilaife]

It was mentioned at BlizzCon that they're aware of the problem and it was implied we may see more connected realms.

They need to start "doing" instead of just "talking", because they have a history of hinting stuff only to never follow through with it. For example enhancement shaman improvements at the end of BFA beta. Telling people to wait another 5 years won't cut it, and nope, not everyone who is on a dead realm rolled on it while it was dead, some realms just died out over the years (I remember times when Al'Akir and Frostmane on EU were high pop).

[Relapses]

They need to start "doing" instead of just "talking", because they have a history of hinting stuff only to never follow through with it. For example enhancement shaman improvements at the end of BFA beta. Telling people to wait another 5 years won't cut it, and nope, not everyone who is on a dead realm rolled on it while it was dead, some realms just died out over the years (I remember times when Al'Akir and Frostmane on EU were high pop).

Their last batch of Connected Realms weren't exactly received with rave reviews so I can see why they're not in a fantastic hurry to roll them out. (I played on a Connected realm back in WoD and people were still very much about "realm pride.") Add to that while it is on their radar, they have more pressing issues to address first (namely, the game sucks in its current state) and realm population issues understandably have a tendency to fall off their plate.

Not to diminish the plight of those on dead/dying realms but at some point you either buck up and pay to transfer off or you deal with the hand you're dealt. Tapping your toes impatiently and saying, "Come on Blizzard!" has never been an effective motivation tool for the devs.

[Marrilaife]

they have more pressing issues to address first (namely, the game sucks in its current state) and realm population issues understandably have a tendency to fall off their plate.

I sincerely doubt it's "either or" scenario because people who deal with server tech are probably not the same people who design the new allied race or quest hub. And population issues are core to MMORPG experience, I know it narrowed to guilds / AH / mythic raiding / trading, but it still provides people bad quality of experience.

Personally I transferred several times over the years and it always was to the guild not to the server if you know what I mean. But auction house issues impact me as well, for example high pop servers have completely different market for BOEs / corruptions than low pops.

And it was always like that in the past, for example pool of mats if you want to reroll a profession is tragic on low pop servers.

[Luxeley]

I could have sworn they've made realm clusters several times, I must be mistaken. As for faction imbalance..... where?

They did introduce connected realms in 2013 and rolled them out throughout 2014, but the population continues to shrink and the problem persists. Sharding does help with the problem a little bit which is why we haven't seen more realm consolidation. The issue isn't as dire as the OP makes it out to be, however; it's still evident then again I've seen things much worse towards the end of WOTLK.

As far as the faction imbalance is concerned, you can't possibly be serious in questioning its existence. 90% of the top raiding guilds are horde. And on the pvp side, it's even worse - Blizzard needed to give Alliance a ton of extra conquest to balance out Warmode. The needle for extra rewards for participating in regular pvp on the alliance side has been permanently pinned on the Alliance side since the launch of Legion.

[Djuntas]

That's basically my old server( Auchindoun/Dunemaul/Jaedenar EU). Used to have my guild(world 150-250) and another guild around the 1k mark. Now their best guild is like 3k stuck on 1/12M and there's not even a full page of guilds with boss kills in any difficulty. It's fucking absurd that they won't do anything about it.

Excatctly, and its terrible. Everyone should play on high pop. Only weird people and people who just wanna have no competition plays on low pop. Low pop sucks ass, and moving to Ravencrest is the only real choice if you play ally on EU these days...I think Silvermoon is maybe also good, not sure if Outland is good anymore.

[Pony Soldier]

Honestly I prefer the lower populated servers. Not that it really matters that much anymore these days. Call me stupid for not wanting to play with other players on an MMO game but Blizzard ruined the MMO experience when they phased all the servers into one mass orgy. You never see the same person twice, it's always someone different so you never really get to form any relationships with anyone. It's like playing with a bunch of NPCs on cocaine. Then there's also getting phased out of certain places because of you not being at a certain part in the quest's story so your new friend that you just met disappears. It's just stupid.

Activision Blizzard doesn't give one shit about player communities within servers.