Can we please acknowledge that there are many servers that are almost completely dead? Can we start linking some of them together or allowing free xfers to/from them?
The game experience is significantly different on a high pop server versus dead server.
Heaven help any new player that chooses a dead server, levels, then realizes what they trapped themselves into.
I understand realm xfers can be bought, but let’s be realistic. A new player who realizes the mistake too late will just quit.
Long time players who have multiple alts and long time friends on said servers don’t want to leave them.
An MMO relies on other folks to group and play with.
Server populations need to be addressed and changes need to be made.
One of the worst things blizz ever did to prospective new players is labeling servers “New players”. These servers are low pop dead servers. Any new player who gets suckered into following blizz’s suggestion is screwing themselves big time.
You could allow free transfers to dead servers as much as possible, but absolutely no sane person would ever willingly transfer to a dead server. The overwhelming majority of the time, those “New Players” servers are where scrubs go to die because the game mistakenly leads them to believe that they’ll get a good MMO experience playing on servers with dead economies and no raiding scenes.
And if you allow free transfers from dead servers, those servers are going to die overnight because absolutely no sane person would ever willingly stay on a dead server unless they’re one of three people trying to BMAH snipe. And at that point it’ll become painfully obvious that like 90% of this game’s servers don’t need to exist anymore because 95% of the playerbase is concentrated into about a dozen megaservers that have extremely high, thriving populations.
And here’s the other crazy thing: you could probably merge the vast majority of dead servers overnight and that one gigantic Franken-server would probably have a small fraction of Illidan’s, Stormrage’s, or Area 52’s population.
I think we can blame character names for at least one of the reasons this hasn’t already happened, considering if we linked dead pop servers to larger more populated ones, some of the names will already be “ taken” . Of course with some of the decisions blizzard has made in the past though that has upset players, I don’t think it will hold forever and they’ll eventually start merging them.
The funny thing is, my main is on a dead server, especially ally side. I originally transferred with a guild from Stormrage (high pop, obv) that thought it would be a great change back when “server is full” queue times were a thing and it was messing with folks trying to log in for raid night.
I have been on the dead server since, which completely died it’s death during Shadowlands, when about 90% of the higher end guilds either died from folks quitting the game or they xferred off to high pop realms to find recruits.
I suggested server xferring to my guild once and was met with a resounding chorus of “no one is paying to move their 15 toons, they’ll quit first”.
I wonder if cross-server trading will help a little bit. Because then you can go farm ore/herbs on a low-pop server and then send them to your main. Or farm that rare. I remember that when the battlepet was first released that only spawned in the snowglobe during Winter’s Veil, I made a toon on a low-pop server just so I could get one.
Uh…probably not a good argument though, because I haven’t logged back into her since then…
Hey. If you don’t like low pop servers go join a high pop/full server.
Yes my Druid might be on A52 but I have characters on low pop server specifically for farming. Not to mention I kind of enjoy not having to deal with a ton of people all the time.
I agree, but if Blizz wants to bring in new blood and keep their game alive - they should be directing new players in the right direction, not the wrong direction.
I have no interest in anyone’s responses that are from high pop servers. You use low pop servers for your own advantage. That’s fine. Doesn’t mean some folks wouldn’t like off the low pop train. Especially newer players who were directed to it. Get over yourself. This post isn’t about your personal WoW experience only.
