So as we are all trying to decide which server we might switch to. I’m stuck in this situation where Blizzard hasn’t made it clear what size a server a low population or any other size actually means. I’m worried that “low” means low by classic/vanila standards which means a server with enough people to make two solid full guilds.
Wtf does low, medium, high, and full mean blizzard. If you tell me low actually means 10,000 people and full means 70,000 people then hell yeah I’ll play on a low server. But if low is 3000 and full means 30,000 then I’m more inclined to play on a high pop server.
Someone asked that question in the reddit AmA and blizz said they won’t answer it with actual numbers. All they said was that medium now is higher than high was then.
From what I’ve read and interpreted regarding Blizzard’s intention:
Low = Pop more than vanilla sever, but too low to survive initial leavers
Medium = Pop between Low and high, could go either way
High = Pop at Blizzard ideal range for long term playerbase post leavers, probably some queues initially
Full = Pop too high for players to log in without lengthy queues, server may be overpopulated by phase 2
But that is if server pops behave as Blizzard expects, like expansion releases, which they might not.
I’ve seen 2500 and 3500 given in various places as server capacity but I’d imagine those numbers are meant to be concurrent logins, not total accounts/characters created on the server. I found this post https://i.imgur.com/yNWkujT.png from Mark Kern (Grummz) on the Elysium Project Discord says that the server capacity was 3500 to 4000 and I’m guessing he means concurrent logins. Additionally Blizzard ran the vanilla servers intentionally below capacity https://youtu.be/izCBaGfGJCg?t=2373 also per Mark Kern.
At some point during vanilla I believe they raised the cap to 3500 per realm. So if low means 3000 people then the low servers would end up being the only servers with an authentic vanilla experience which is why I’ll probably be rolling on one of the new servers Monday.
P.S. I created this account during the freaking 2004 open beta, for the love of God let me post a stupid link already Blizzard
Low pop means lots of resources and mobs available to you. Great for leveling and farming (get all your rare hunter pets!). Limited end game raiding opportunities unless you’re in that one guild which is hopefully the same faction as you are. And if you’re playing a weird spec, you probably won’t have to be the guild master’s SO to guarantee you a raid spot.
Medium pop means a little more competition for resources and a little more options for end game available to you.
High pop means all the options for what WoW contains is available to anyone with the skill and time. Lots of competition. And if you’re in the minority faction on a PvP realm, you are going to die a lot while leveling.
TBH, I believe them when they say a Full WoW Classic server has more people than High population server, but how much of that is to show off to the video games media and their stock holders? These are subjective terms so I guess we’ll find out!
it means freaking nothing because the MOMENT the new servers went online, i tried getting onto kromkrus and was hit with a 3 hour queue. all of this is a ponyshow