Possible solution to server issues

[Bombillus-14775 (Bombillus)]

What if we used “sharding” to our advantage, but in a different way?..

Currently the server setup is “closely” as follows.

Kurinnaxx
Smolderweb
Fairbanks
Faerlina
Netherwind
Herod

6 Servers, all separate from each other, with this setup (I am simplifying below) we basically can have people with the same name on each server and guild name as well on each server…IE

Kurinnaxx - Guild A - Character A
Fairbanks - Guild A - Character A
Netherwind - Guild A - Character A
Herod - Guild A - Character A

What happens with a setup like this, is as people quit, and the servers die, there isn’t a way to easily merge those servers…but what if the server setup was as follows…?

Faerlina(a) - Guild A - Character A
Faerlina(b) - Guild B - Character B
Faerlina(c) - Guild C - Character C
Faerlina(d) - Guild D - Character D

with this setup, technically your only running 1 server instead of 4, now on the choose a server list, you will see 4 servers of the same name, with some sort of identifier on the end to still allow you to find your friends and play with them, these all act as their own server, but instead of in example A where you can have the same name across multiple servers, here you can only have that 1 name across all the servers with that same name.

What happens now, is as the servers die, instead of us having 70 servers and 50 of them being dead, we would technically have 10 servers, but with their identifier at the end, it would still look as 70 servers, but then once the server die, they then merge those servers together, so once you get to the point like where classic is now, instead of all the dead servers with 20 people on each one, you could have merged all those servers

which wouldn’t be an issue since there is no naming problem with the setup since everyone has a different name under their respective “Server shard” that in the end, if someone does decide to play classic, they only see…5-10 medium servers instead of all dead ones

EDIT: So in the end, say once all servers die, you would be left with 1 server name (in this example) Faerlina and then having all 4 guilds and characters merged together, where using the current situation if they tried to merge, someone would unfortunately have to name change.

hopefully how I described this makes sense, if not, let me know, I can try and draw a diagram out on paint and try to post a link here to it that may allow me to explain what I mean more clearly.

[Barthleum-kromcrush]

Honestly I don’t see anyone quitting over not getting their name in a server merge. Plenty have transferred to mega servers where they lose it anyway. Seems like blizzard is just adverse to the admittance of defeat. But cool idea for keeping it separated in the background

[Drain-windseeker]

Also if they simply give priority to whichever character has the most hours played; most people will not lose a name. Your 70 with thousands of hours is not going to lose its name to someone’s alt at 30 that they played for a few days then never logged into again. Many names are also taken by L1s made to bank the name but never use it. I’ll admit I bank at least 1 name for each class so if I ever want to play the class, I have it ready. Having been screwed countless times in the past by people that waste names I want; I don’t feel bad about it. Until name usage is properly regulated, I’m going to do what’s best for myself like everyone else does.