Edit 2: I am against mega servers, not on one and AGREE they are a problem. I’m not saying the people being stubborn and refusing to leave mega servers are correct, but if you read you’ll see why I understand the reluctance, and why I think the same approach blizzard keeps using is ultimately failing. Please do not assume a stance I have and take my content for what it is, as you might agree with some of what I’m saying but not all of it, or maybe none of it, who knows.
Edit: This is meant to be a discussion. I know it’s a long post, but if you are going to respond to it, please read it. I promise if you take the time to read and address my points, I will actually read and consider your view. If you actually, fully believe it’s a player problem and just transferring is the solution, or whatever thoughts you might have, articulate that in a reasonable way or please do not respond at all. If you actually fully understand something and have a full, valid opinion on something then you can absolutely take the time to read and discount ANY of my views. If not, then you have a feeling, not a valid opinion or anything of substance.
Why is this the most common response? I see this a LOT, is it bots or do people honestly lack this much comprehension? If you actually feel this way, please feel free to offer an actual explaination, after actually thoroughly reading my post.
So the whole transferring thing to mitigate queues makes sense on the surface. Long queue? Go to server with no queue, then you have no queue, you play game. Wonderful!
As others have mentioned, this is an MMORPG. It is highly dependent on building a community of friends, getting people on the same server. You can, literally, not play the game as intended (IE, with your friends) if you are not on the same server. Ok, so get EVERYONE to take the free transfer? Not bad with a group of 2-5 friends maybe. More than that? It gets complicated, friends of friends playing as well. So a little built up community is going to be divided as not everyone will want to transfer. So now the community is divided. Great fun for a social game, split up communities.
Why not transfer though? It’s free! Surely they are just being entitled, selfish, lazy, right? Well, no. Some of us HAVE taken the free transfers in the past. At first it worked out alright, no queue, though for me personally my friend group was divided and it kind of ruined the experience. I played with just my brother and made the best of it (personal experience, not the best but seems consistent with others). When I inevitably quit playing for a while, I came back and the free server I transferred to was dead. Not like, low population, or “low now but would have been high back in vanilla”, but literally, (not the exaggerated version, but the literal definition of literally) 0 items on the auction house dead. While still technically a playable game, why would I play an MMO on a server that you can’t socialize on? It had a healthy population when I went there. When I came back it was just gone, everyone.
So what are the options after that? Half my friends quit, some transferred else where with free transfers off dead servers, not everyone picking the same server.
Another argument I see as a “counter” to this is it’s a player made issue. While it may seem that way, considering players made choices to go places, however they were being forced to make rushed decisions that will have long-term as well as financial consequences. The “free” isn’t free for ever, and it has stipulations that make it hard or impossible to get a group of people to work with, let alone everyone’s alts.
“You knew this was coming / you should have prepared”. Uh, yeah. If I know I’m going to be hit by a bus but I’m strapped to the road, not sure how much I can do. You know who else knew this was coming / should have prepared? THE BUS DRIVER. This is not a surprise. This happened in classic launch originally and derailed the experience completely. Clearly SOMETHING isn’t working, and while the elitist / community might have partial blame, it ultimately lies on Blizzard. They can’t make people do something but they are ultimately controlling the flow of traffic. If a city is getting jams constantly or people are getting ran over at intersections, it might be to an extent careless drivers but ultimately the city is going to be responsible for poor planning, structure, etc.
Am I going to just complain? Kind of, but I do have some ideas. In my opinion, a major part of the issue isnt the free transfers, those are a great idea. The “just transfer” ideology would hold a lot more merit if, when the server is screwed, we didn’t have to pay 25$ to leave. Per character. 25$ for less than a fart of data to move. Do they sometimes offer ways off the servers for free? Kind of, with stipulation and radio silence. We need a back up plan for when blizz inevitably ghosts us. If transfers at a baseline, to any server for any reason where significantly cheaper, or free (always) with some stipulations, ie week or two, or month lock to prevent server hopping, character downtime for a few hours, something to keep things stable. Just an idea. The argument might be there won’t be a “community” if people can just leave easier, but there already isn’t one. It’s being destroyed constantly. Just let people move around easier, reasonably in a way that will reduce community / economy. I can tell you for a 100% fact though, 25$ / char transfer is NOT it and needs to be trashed.
People need some control or a reasonable fall back, not “well if the server does die then blizzard might let you leave for free, eventually. We’ll let you know soon, possibly.” I think giving a little control to the players could go a long way.
Anyways, that’s my two cents. This is a discussion so I’m open to ideas, criticisms, etc. Just actually read the post and make criticisms based on that, not your ideas or what you think I’m saying, or just posting the same bot posts.
Make an effort or don’t post is all I ask.
Tldr: make transfers to any server cheaper or free with stipulation, all the time. People can’t plan on future stuff that might happen.
with next. Let alone whether or not a server is going to die in a month, 6 months, a year or ever.