We’re already seeing a major problem with faction balance, and the servers haven’t even launched yet.
The name reservation system is already preventing players from creating Horde characters because the faction is overpopulated. If this is happening during name reservations, what’s going to happen when the servers actually go live?
The entire point of a mega server is to create a large, active, long-term community. But if faction imbalance is already this severe, we’re setting ourselves up for serious problems with world PvP, faction competition, and the overall server experience.
I understand the need for faction restrictions to maintain balance, but locking people out of their preferred faction before launch isn’t a great solution either, especially when groups of friends and guilds are trying to coordinate where they’ll play.
What is the long-term plan to address this? Simply restricting character creation isn’t going to solve the underlying population problem.
I’d rather see this addressed now than watch another server become heavily dominated by one faction a few months after launch.
The same thing that has happend in the last two releases with this system. You wait for players to make alliance, you create your character, and then you never think about it again.
Yeah because telling people to wait at release is going to go over swimmingly. Considering that 50% of the players wont be able to play as we all know the servers will crash.
PvP realms are stupidly overrated anyway, and after one side, likely the ally side, starts to lose more often than not, they will stop playing/leave for PvE.
And after people stop playing/joining ally, no one new will ever be able to make a horde. So horde will be stuck with never getting new blood, while more and more allies leave, making it even harder for the sides to balance out.
And then you eventually have what is effectively one ally server, and one horde server.
After which, they’ll probably be merged and war mode added to appease world PvPers. Which also solves lowbie ganking as lowbies simply won’t be questing with war mode on.
It does. If you want to play on that faction you will wait. There will be people who don’t want to wait and go alliance. Trust me you will see them in here talking about it.
If you can’t make a character on Horde that means the Alliance is Underpopulated, Bots aren’t going out of there way to reserve names. I understand the frustration around name reservation and the faction balance systems. But if you care at all for the health of the server and its longevity you can’t have 90% horde and 10% alliance.
Also. Side note to people not understanding the naming system. Make a character on a different ruleset to lock the name does not matter what faction. Focus on making a Horde character on the primary one you want, name doesn’t matter. Once the Horde character is made your are locked on horde faction until you have no horde characters on that ruleset.. Delete said other ruleset character to open a slot and the name and then try to catch the name on your primary ruleset with another Horde Character, there should be no issue making the second horde character on whatever Ruleset you chose.
Names are cross ruleset. there can only be one John Doe.
My experience was a bit strange earlier… I got disconnected about 15 times. Then spent about 10 mins trying to create a horde toon… unable due to faction imbalance. Then I got the message about not being able to create this character type or whatever it is…
I logged off… logged back in… made a gnome… waited 5 mins… deleted gnome… made my horde toon.
shrug
I wasn’t even in the hunt for some generic unoriginal name… I just wanted to get the faction I wanted… which I did.
Yeah my experience was disconnected a bunch, got through, chose PvP (I couldn’t even see RP-PvP until I reselected Ruleset) made a Dwarf Shaman on PvP named Tremor Totem, then went to RP-PvP and made two Dwarf Shamans with potential RP names I would use. My group chose RP-PvP this time so while I haven’t RPed since WoTLK Emerald Dream I look forward to it.
On the RP PvP server I found out that I could only make Horde OR Alliance, not both on that server. I could make three Horde or three Alliance but not two Horde and one Alliance on that server.
Just make your characters on the normal server for now and keep trying. You have 8 days to keep checking before launch. Log in during off hours. The system is there for a reason, it’s really not that serious. You already have a week-long head start to get the faction you want before the masses come swarming in for launch night.
Yes, they are. As evidenced by numerous threads/posts here on the blizz forums, as well as external subs. Just because you didn’t experience the rejection message doesn’t equal it not occurring to others. Again, it’s likely not intended, but it is occuring.