When do you plan on doing something about all of the dead servers? Enough is enough, stop counting the transfer money and start fixing the problem. There are several servers that are ‘dead’ for one faction and a small group of players are stuck there. The raidloggers on IF tell a pitiful story, and now that I am on a dead realm, I can accurately say that it is much worse. 400 raid loggers is less than 200 active players.
This is not a ‘player made issues’. Removing queues, adding layering, adding HVH - removing the natural checks and balances that the previous developers (who actually knew what they were doing) placed caused this issue - not desperate players who want to play the game.
Yes, blizzard can fix it. We know they have the ability to do so. At the very least, they need to make a post saying that they know that they have ruined some servers and plan to fix it.
Yes, the ship has sailed for most methods of fixing these lower pop. realms. Yes, it will cost blizzard money and their interns will have to work. Merge low pop servers, enable cross realm for low pop servers, free faction change to low pop factions, reenable queues with free transfers, allow pve → pvp, etc. Also, no we don’t care about cross realm - there is no sense of community on a realm of 100 active players. Chats don’t move, guilds transfer and die, and every zone is empty. Literally any action is better than servers rotting. Just try a method above, if the population doesn’t shift, try something else. Every pvp server is shifting to pve status and becoming one sided anyways. They are basically pve servers at this point - combine them with another pve server and allow free transfers to other (smaller) pvp servers.
“Reroll or transfer”. No, I will just quit as many others have. At the rate people are leaving, Blizzard will lose their transfer money many times over in the coming months from lost subs. As a player, it is easy to scream this for daddy blizzard, but at the end of the day, you are the one getting your wallet back out to transfer again or playing on a barren server. You should care about low pop realms and low pop factions as much as your own, as it will impact the long term health of this game.
No realm is safe and your realm might be next - my realm, Fairbanks, was ‘full’ in classic with a large alliance population. We now have less than 40 level 70 players online at peak time. There are only 400 people raid logging, and many more are transferring off. There are several other servers like this that are unplayable. This is a ‘massive multiplayer’ game - most content is literally impossible to do without other players and blizzard is holding us hostage for $25 for a service we already pay for. Even basic things like mounts are almost impossible to get on a dead server unless you farm the raw gold yourself - there is no economy, no enchanters, no JC, etc. I may as well get my sub discounted as I am only allowed to access a small portion of content due to Blizzard’s incompetence.
Mega servers are not good. Every alliance will transfer to grob or Bene in fear of their next realm dying. The lag, the layers, the gold selling and botting that will occur with such a huge market of players, the sold accounts (not boosts, sorry Blizzard), the lack of resources, the looming faction imbalance, the lack of community, the horde that will be crushed…the list goes on.
Fixing this issue will not be easy. If we do not stop realms dying then we will end up with 3-5 alliance mega servers and the rest of the realms dead. You may not think that is a bad outcome, but your experience will suffer. This will also lead to a long term attrition of players to other MMOs, further limiting your experience.
GMs always say to post on the forums about dying servers whenever someone asks. If you are unfortunate enough to also be on a dying realm, make a post so blizzard knows they aren’t getting your $25.
Lastly, for those of you who still do not think that this is an issue: if nothing else, this sets a tone from blizzard that they do not care about what happens to this game and want to cash out before letting this game die - and probably a lot faster than you think. Every Friday night you log in to raid, just remember that you may have nothing to show for it a lot sooner than you think. There are other methods to increase profit that do not make players suffer and kill the game (character recustomization, name change, etc.).
Its sadly an experience I think the majority of players (Atleast most Ally have experienced).
I already gave Blizzard my money to transfer as I’m sure many others have had also.
Server balance is one of the worst issues in the game atm. TBC will continue to suffer greatly if server imbalances persist.
It’s more likely that we’ll get a smarmy “SEE? WE SAID ‘YOU THINK YOU DO BUT YOU DON’T’ AND WE WERE RIGHT!” statement and then the ‘WoW Classic’ project is indefinitely cancelled.
Blizzard will, however, continue to C&D private servers, though.
Of all the arguments to make, you went with a dollar general ‘no changes’ one? How about HVH, layering, or boosts? For some reason I don’t remember fighting my own faction in BGs…must be my rose tinted glasses right? By your logic blizzard should have done none of this either. Once again, they have no reason - principle or ability - against fixing this issue other than to rake in more money and kill the game.
They also combined servers into server-clusters for Classic Era, as well as having stated they are going with a “some changes” approach with TBC Classic.
They care, they just don’t know it yet. Their quarterly report will be low and then they will be panicking trying to sell some other micro transaction.
I 100% agree. Take out HVH bgs, take out the boosts, remove layers, and readd queue times. If those things weren’t CHANGED to begin with then I wouldn’t be here posting :).
It is unreal the mental gymnastics you blizzard fan boys will do to justify all of their stupid, out of touch decisions but vehemently oppose even the slightest logical change.
No – those changes were necessary. They fall under the category of “some changes.”
What mental gymnastics? I think you are failing to see that there’s nuance to this discussion. It’s not as binary as “no changes” vs. “all changes.”
There exists a middle ground where there are “some changes.” Using “some changes” to justify “all changes” is operating under a slippery slope fallacy.
Your definition of necessary is what then? Changes that improve your game play alone? I am glad you have enjoyed reduced bg times whilst people on dead servers are charged at least $25 extra to play through no fault of their own. Speaking of nuanced, how about any one of the many suggestions listed - from most extreme to least extreme. There has been 0 action in regards to the current server state.
For me (and unfortunately for you, many other people) doing something about dead servers is 100% a necessary change. Just as HVH bgs we’re necessary to any horde pvper. Imagine instead of waiting 2 hours for a BG queue waiting two hours to do literally any dungeon. Or not having access to 25 man raids. The fact that you are unable to grasp this shows that you are out of touch. You’re playing cards on the top floor of the titanic while the ship sinks, but you’re not bothered because you’re still above water.
My friend, I am not going to make 24 friends. There are less than 40 max level players online during peak hours. That is 1.5 25 man raids assuming everyone can get attuned, show up at the same time on the same day, and get geared (they can’t because there is no one running any other dungeon).
Your ‘solution’ would leave dead servers several phases behind. There is nothing I can do to fix the fact that there are less than two 25 man raids worth of people online at peak time other than transfer or reroll. I hope I don’t need to remind you that horde also has the option of rerolling, but for some reason a systematic change in HVH is ok with you in this scenario, but fixing dead servers is one change too many. Again, out of touch.
Also, there are solutions other than cross realm servers - there is no need to go straight to the top shelf. At this point there has been 0 action for dead servers.
That’s why people plan things in advance. For instance, my guild schedules our raids multiple days in advance so that people can be on at the time we need them to be on.
That’s how traditional MMORPGs work. You have to work with the community and can’t really expect people to be om all the time to help you.
How is it a player made issue? Was the unavailability of black lotuses also a player made issue, despite blizzard creating servers much larger than they were in Vanilla? Was getting rid of queues a good decision, even though they incentivize people to transfer to smaller servers? Both of these reasons have contributed to what we have now: Benediction at 17k raiders, and Arcanite Reaper at 25.
I’m not giving Blizz any money they don’t deserve. And I am not leaving. I love my server way too much.