This is the only theory that makes any sort of sense.
Arugal-US, it must be a US based server.
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Analyst hate them
Analysts hate them! Check out these 4 tips that Blizzard Data Techs use for deciding layering. You in <<COUNTRY?NAME is an invalid string>> could make thousands, too.
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Blizzard is anti-layering. But Blizzard hasn’t explained why to us players. I hope they explain it.
Had a good Lol.
I would like to request some greater transparency around the decision to shift the Arugal server back to 1 layer on 21 August 2020.
Arugal completed the Ahn’Qiraj war effort on 12 August 2020. This meant that the 10-hour war event to celebrate the opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj commenced at approximately 1918h (server time) on 17 August 2020, and lasted until 0518 (server time) on Tuesday 18 August 2020. This was less than one week ago. During the 10-hour war Arugal had login queues at a time when the server was still operating with TWO layers.
In Kaivax’s post announcing the return to one layer it says that you have “carefully observed and tracked the player populations” and that based on that information you thought it was “safe” to “delayer” the server.
Blizzard, can you please explain to us: How can it be considered “safe” to delayer when less than 1 week prior we had log in queues with TWO layers? What data are you looking at that could justify this decision? As I am sure your population data would attest, the period immediately following new content releases has been a time of heightened player activity. The opening of the gates of Ahn’Qiraj is exactly this type of new content release and historically has been the times when you have previously had to introduce layers to manage server queues. It has come as no surprise to the player base of Arugal that immediately after the removal of layers, there have been 5+ hour queues for players attempting to log in to raid on Saturday and Sunday nights. These are not even peak player number nights - Wednesday immediately after the weekly raid reset is the most popular raid night.
In addition, I would question the decision to remove the restrictions on character transfers, specifically, allowing characters to transfer from other realms to Arugal.
As at the time of my writing this post (24 August 2020), Arugal is the only Oceanic realm to have completed the Ahn’Qiraj war effort. I have heard anecdotal evidence of entire guilds transferring from Yojamba and Felstriker - the other Oceanic PvP realms - on to Arugal in order to be able to access the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj content, which is still locked on their originating servers.
If the decision to maintain a single layer on Arugal is going to be upheld, allowing these transfers is UNFAIR to the existing Arugal player base, who are the population that worked to complete the Ahn’Qiraj war effort, but are then suffering even longer queues than necessary due to BLIZZARD’S policy decision to allow character transfers to the server. If you are going to take people’s money then you have a moral obligation to maintain the player experience. Players who have transferred from other realms are free riding on the efforts of the Arugal Player base to complete the War event and should never have been allowed to occur.
The two decisions are, in my opinion, misguided, and display a fundamental lack of understanding of player behaviour (your paying clients) and your own game’s content. I call on Blizzard to take the following actions, immediately:
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Re-introduce layering on Arugal until the login population at peak times subsides. Following the opening of Ahn’Qiraj I am 100% certain that the population has significantly increased compared to the same days and times from one month ago prior to the opening of Ahn’Qiraj.
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Immediately prevent further transfers from other realms to Arugal. Allowing transfers on to the server only serves to exacerbate the existing overpopulation issue. If Blizzard are genuinely seeking to have the server on a single layer, you cannot allow the population to accept additional players until such time as the server is stable with reasonable queues on one layer.
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Introduce a restriction on character transfers where the originating realm does not yet have the gates of Ahn’Qiraj open and the target realm does. This is a game imbalance issue and is unfair to players who have contributed to completing the Ahn’Qiraj war effort on their own server.
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I think your post right here had more analysis than the plonkers who analysed the data and the decision makers who decided to screw over the community on the biggest OCE server. They’ve done this before, and took 3 weeks to rectify the issue.
If that occurs again this time, that’s 3 weeks of potential missed progression through AQ for many guilds on the server.
I lol at the impatient yoboomer guilds xfereing because they can’t wait till Thursday when the damn thing is open!
I mean is an xfere cost worth 1 lockout?
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Based on their extensive queue times, it is.
Something else i’ve thought of, perceived scarcity when there really wouldn’t be any actual scarcity if people remained calm.
Lets take a moment to consider that despite the queues during the 10 hour war, that Blizzard is right and that the average populations made it applicable to remove the 2nd layer from Arugal. The announcement based on previous experience causes players on Arugal to value their time on WoW much more preciously, because with only 1 layer, and knowledge of previous queues, they better make sure that they get what they want done in the time they’re on.
No longer can someone whom is online safely say ‘nah, I’ll do that tomorrow, I’ve played enough for now’ and log out, because when they try to get on tomorrow, they might not be able to log in for queues.
In essence, removal of layers is actually increasing player activity on the server. This means that more people are online for longer, which means there’s less space, which means bigger queues, which means people value their time online even more, which leads them to stay on for even longer in a self-fueling cycle.
This is a problem with Data; it’s cold, logical and rigid, and doesn’t take into account that while a person can be smart and logical, humanity as a whole are dumb, panicky animals, and fear of missing out tends to override what data might have been saying for months.
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Hey Mard.
I think you are correct but you May be missing something here.
All the new characters that are being created .
Yesterday there were 3 x horde mage multi box teams in Hillsbrad leveling up.
Many farmers are joining our server increasing the population.
In Winterspring where I farm most days I have seen 2 new Horde Multiboxer Hunter teams and 1 Alliance. That’s 30 additional “Accounts” adding to the population and these are just the ones I have seen myself in 2 zones.
I don’t know what was worse dropping Layering or removing new Character creation and transfers.
I can understand that perspective, but there is also other factors in account too.
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AQ has just been released on our server, people that quit in the past have come back to experience new content
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Additional / New COVID 19 Lockdowns in Auckland New Zealand, as well as many places in Australia
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Server Transfers are now available to our realm
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Character Creation is back without any restrictions of pre-existing characters
Then on top we have the people that panic log in to avoid being stuck in a queue for their raid the following night.
We also then have the people manning their Remote Desktop Stations and sitting in Orgrimmar inactive / AFK.
Personally, I’m totally okay with server transfers to Arugal - if we had our second layer again. Can’t remove our layers and re-open the flood gates to our realm at the same time.
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Oh, i’m well aware, these just compound the issue even further.
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We hate layers…We want layers
OMG blizzard whats with the layer you ruining AQ 
the majority of arugal players never had a prblem with layers they had a problem with ques.
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Nobody on Arugal complains about layers…
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pretty sure the only people that dont want layers are the Purgers like Foldem
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ive never seen anyone on arugal complain about layers.
I have seen many people complain about 3 hour ques though.
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Rather than just preventing further transfers… Reverse all existing transfers to Arugal, send them back to where they came from, it makes no sense to allow even more people on an already overcrowded server.
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Well hello, and goodnight Arugal!!
Arugal is Full
Position in queue: 2974
Estimated Time: 283 minutes