It’s getting harder to fill for raids and recruit for raids. Can we just have one mega server?
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Will you give up your name(s)?
That is the low hanging fruit for join ideas.
Lots of people like their names. Guild or player.
I still say in the redo they should have #somechanged in last names.
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A good way blizzard avoided forcing people to switch names was with their connected realm’s strategy.
They joined many realms together to where you could join the same party/raids and guild and would share the same game world, and everyone would have a subname for their realm.
Chucknorris - Whitemane
Chucknorris - Faerlina
Both these names could exist simultaneously.
This was much better than their “sharding” crap where you couldn’t trade items you found with the random guy you are questing with.
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No connected realms or cross realm zones
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In a situation where we choose between a merger or connecting the realms, connected realms is the best choice.
Cross realm zones are bad though, at least with connected realms you are basically all one big realm, only difference is you get to keep your names.
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I suppose the question could be rephrased as:
Is there anything preventing the players from consolidating themselves on a single server?
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Transfer fees for one. The name competition thing for another.
Although I’m on the side of all of classic being on one mega server. I highly doubt we have the overall population of one of the big retail servers and we run on the same technology.
Pretty sure my server is dying and it used to be high pop.
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Yeah, I get it. There are always excuses though. I just don’t think that forcing everyone to play the way some people who are complaining claim to want to play, though they aren’t doing anything for themselves, is a reasonable solution. Especially so if no problem actually exists.
Catering to complainers ruins the game for those who solve problems for themselves, and it creates an environment full of complaining.
I’m having fun playing on the lower side faction of a majorly single faction server. And so are quite a few of us. Indeed anyone who genuinely likes World PVP has zero legitimate excuses not to be partaking in it regularly, if that is something anyone actually cares about.
They are excuses, but also valid ones. However, who is to say whether a problem exists or not? In your case, it’s no issue. In the OP’s case it is.
I think I’m headed to where the OP is as well. The problem for me is that when recruitment dries up, the fun of playing the game is vastly overshadowed by the struggle on the roster boss actually making the game unfun. This leads to more and more people quitting. It’s how servers die so quickly.
Sure, there is a smaller percentage of folks who enjoy playing on empty servers and from time to time I enjoy late night questing/exploring/farming for just that reason, but the bulk of what I want out of the game is to get together at a set time every week and raid… and preferably progress.
It’s a tale as old as time, and I know that I don’t want to be in charge anymore, but I still want to play with who is left. It’s a quandry what to do and while a mega server might not solve all the issues and could bring about something bad unforseen, Cata Classic doesn’t have that high of a popuplation for all the servers we have left still. I do think it’s an issue and less servers could be the solution.
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It’s possible. They gave Horde vs Horde battlegrounds for TBC which invalidated rerolling Alliance in advance preparation.
If they merge servers, then those of us who have rolled, rerolled, or decided to pay to transfer specifically to the server style we want will also have our choices invalidated to cater to lazy complainers.
I am, because I am able to find and introduce solutions, so I can confidently say whether it is or isn’t. If it’s a problem for you, you aren’t creating a solution or finding those who are and sticking to them.
Retail has solved all these problems though also, and that’s equally true for most of the “problems” we might discuss, whereas Classic has traditionally required community driven initiatives.
Jarl’s efforts to keep Grobbulus on era active, people who rallied to get fresh on Devite Delight, the HC addon and its advocates that lead to HC servers, and even Cezar and his: “Back to the Vanilla” comments are all driving forces keeping the community alive, active and engaged.
Haha, well, if you are, so is everyone else 
But seriously, you aren’t wrong that people can transfer servers if they are unhappy. Not all can afford it though… or worse, maybe don’t think the game is worth spending more money than $15/month or 5k gold whatever the case may be.
Not nearly enough of those people. I know I’m not one. I never was.
They may have solved them. I think so? Only time will tell. I haven’t touched retail since 2019 until a couple weeks ago. It’s confusing to not have server identities when playing with others, but beyond that, the only issue I’m hearing about that hasn’t been solved is the ability to find crafters on dying or dead servers. Not 100% sure how that all works yet, and I don’t know truly about the economy either. I think that’s server based too still?
True, but I’m not sure the classic community - even the Cata Classic - is ready for the suggestion of retail solutions.
Cata’s in an interesting place! There are people on my friend’s list who I met in Cata that have been on Retail pretty much 24/7 since prepatch, and people who say things like Cata is Classic and they would never touch Retail!
I tend to be able to find things I like in all versions, and at the end of the day, we’re all just advocating for our own opinions.
I have been spending the vast majority of my gametime lately playing Cata Classic, and mostly on Faerlina Alliance, as dailies and anything in the world is just that much more fun with some WPVP (for me, at least).
Oh yeah, for sure this can be difficult. I would be very hesitant to call this sort of thing an issue though, since it’s also the exact same sort of thing that pushes people towards forming tightly knit communities that work together, and for those who want that small server feel (I didn’t at all, until I did, and now I think it’s great). And for those who don’t, literally just reroll or transfer.
Then they can reroll. If you’re both lazy and broke, well that’s on you, imo.
I paid for a server transfer off Skyfury to Whitemane for 2 characters a month or 2 before they offered them for free, and that was because I felt invested in those characters and wanted to continue raiding those tiers with them.
But yeah, actively harming the experience for those who do think the game is worth it, while catering towards those who don’t is a pretty poor decision to make, in my opinion.
I do understand this. It’s a fine line what they should do. The only reason I am leaning towards advocating a non-personal solution is that for those who don’t care as much and then quit because lazy and broke, or no time and broke, it affects the people they left behind, often lessening their experience and sometimes causing them to quit because it’s the game itself plus the people that make the experience fun and enjoyable enough to work through the difficulties.
Ultimately, it’s up to Blizzard to do whatever they decide to do.
There are a ton of LinkedIn advice posts, books, self-proclaimed experts, etc. who would claim that treating customers this way or that way is better or best practices, etc. but at the end of the day, it’s up to leaders to lead their company and own their decisions.
Personally, I’m going to be very pissed off if after rerolling from scratch more than a couple of months into Cata Classic on the very small faction population side of a large server, and finding an excellent community where I greatly enjoy the game, rivaling my enjoyment of Classic 2019, they go ahead and force a server merge, completely changing the culture and community that I’ve found to then be exactly like everywhere else.
It was bad enough that I rerolled Alliance months in advance, grinded characters, profs, mats, and gold and got ready for TBC, completely aware of the BG queue time disparity that would happen, and they 100% invalidated that decision, which “coincidentally” led to the server becoming almost completely Horde dominant (Whitemane).
I don’t know if I’d have it in me to keep going after something like that. Yet again…
Yeah. I know I wiat on service sale for some consolidation for a few reasons.
either the regular scheduled ones, 20th anniversary, x-mas deals or they need a final cash injection to make a quarterly report look better may be possible. They will come in time.
I am hoping 20th anniversary since they really aren’t giving us crap for the event. I’d take a nice sale as a consolation prize.
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names mean nothing if you’re not going to play because server is dead.
There was some info on X regarding Cata servers that I posted about on another thread, I’ll repost it here:
"Blizzard has been talking about doing “something” with Cata servers, I won’t comment on my opinions but I haven’t seen it discussed here. They are talking on X of course, because that’s what they do now.
The SoD “mega server” thing was between this."
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Add in warband surnames
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I have no interest in playing with most of the playerbase. I’m on a small RP server for a reason.
You already have multiple servers that qualify as megaservers, with vastly more population than was possible in Classic Cata. Play on one of them.
Oh I’d aggree.
They hve options they won’t implement is the issue.
Retail shows that even better. MG and WRA you install trp for your actual name you will RP. Even with 3 alt codes…a proper (tolkien sindarin) elf name is probably taken.
Why I never joined the MG or WRA name police force. I’ve been the elf RP’er who gave up 30 names later. I only do 1 alt code max. Not 3…And the one alt code? Name Taken.
And no it wasn’t legolas lol.
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