Hi. I am actually a returning player located in Dallas, TX. I was wondering what the best server for a Central Timezone Horde player would be? I would like to be on a server with a good community and auction house so that I can avoid the whole potentially “dead” server thing that I have read about.
Thanks!
There is no “best” server, just some with more population than others and that affects the AH.
The same community plays on all servers. All the wonderful people don’t just migrate to a couple of realms and all the horrible people to other realms.
Best was the wrong word. Populated with active auction house and community is more precise.
Then you can pretty much make a choice based upon the population indicated on the realm selection screen.
Higher pop means more AH activity and more players active in game. Note that a player community will be more active at some level ranges than at others. At this stage in the expansion, it will tend to be most active in the 110-120 level range.
Both the Chicago and the West Coast data centers have realms for all three main NA time zones. Which data center provides the best response time for you may depend upon your location and time of day/day of week.
wow.gamepedia.com can be searched for “realm list” to see timezone and data center info, including data center IP’s for running a traceroute.
Sorry if this question was dumb.
Mal’Ganis appears to be in my timezone and looks to be pretty heavily populated according to the wow realm population website.
The only drawbacks to high pop realms are:
When new xpacs are released, there can be lengthy login queues.
For some recent content zones, that are not subject to crz, there can be competition for mobs from other questers and farmers.
Illidan and Area 52 are the highest pop Horde servers. I’m on Illidan and love it.
Competition for mobs is not an issue in a new expansion once you get out of the early part of the first zone. Up to 5 people can tag a mob and all get kill credit. So it’s good practice to just hit each mob once when it’s crowded. After the initial first day first zone rush, the result is faster leveling and world questing for the rest of your life on high pop servers with more people helping to kill mobs. I am assuming CRZ doesn’t completely balance all servers at all times.
In a new retail expansion, Log in times on the highest pop servers are not an issue after the first 12-24 hours. I don’t think I ever waited more than 1-2 hours to get in at the start of BFA, and there was no wait after the first 12-24 hours.
Classic had the super long log in times for over a week.
There is more city trade chat on high pop servers.
Are either of these PvE servers? Also, is PvP toggleable on PvP servers?
Retail wow no longer has PvP servers. They replaced it with “Warmode” something you can toggle off and on in Stormwind/Orgrimmar on any server. When Warmode is on, you will be phased in with other people who have it on, and it works like the old PvP servers. (Stormwind/Orgrimmar are mixed phases with people with both settings on.) When it’s off, things work just like PvE servers always have. You’re not normally flagged, buy you can manually flag, and going into an enemy city flags you. Manually flagging with Warmode off won’t put you in Warmode, and you won’t get the Warmode benefits. (Like extra XP or use of PvP talents.)
Warmode is a good deal even if you don’t care for pvp especially if your horde. 10% exp, gold, AP bonus and your stronger in PVE with the extra PvP talents. It’s pretty rare to get attacked by the opposite faction. Happens occasionally mostly if there is a group and your alone.