We’re now well into raiding on MOP (currently in the 6th MSV lockout, 3rd HOF, 1st TOES), and I think it’s time Blizz addresses the low population servers. I play on Grobb and it’s becoming exceedingly difficult to find raids in general and even harder to find raids that are running heroics. I have alts that I would like to raid on but cannot because the raids are just not available.
Grobb’s raiding population according to Ironforge pro (2068 (H), 2287 (A)) is abysmal compared to the high pop servers (Faerlina: 18444, Mankrik: 14658, Benediction: 15272, Pagle: 12207). If we look at the WCL numbers, the Grobb prog numbers are downright depressing compared to the highest populated server Faerlina. Even looking at only clearing 1 heroic boss, with at least a few of the heroic bosses in each raid arguably being very doable, are much lower.
Grobb
10m MSV: 6/6H - 13 | At least 1/6H - 71
25m MSV: 6/6H - 8 | At least 1/6H - 27
10m HOF: 6/6H - 2 | At least 1/6H - 25
25m HOF: 6/6H - 1 | At least 1/6H - 14
Faerlina
10m MSV: 6/6H - 119 | At least 1/6H - 377
25m MSV: 6/6H - 105 | At least 1/6H - 193
10m HOF: 6/6H - 35 | At least 1/6H - 181
25m HOF: 6/6H - 49 | At least 1/6H - 148
These numbers are not sustainable. More and more guilds are transferring off Grobb every week making the situation even worse.
Blizz needs to implement either free transfers to the high pop servers, change the wow token in classic to be able to use it on game services such as transfers, implement cross-realm raiding, or merge the servers (although that last one may not be popular due to the community choosing to have one faction servers over the course of classic).
TLDR - Blizz needs to address the low pop servers and free us from this prison
You seem to be suggesting that Heroic raiding is the norm. And maybe it is. Personally, from about the launch week of Cata, I have been busy on prime raid nights (Tue/Wed/Thu) so unable to raid those evenings.
As a result, trying to find any guild group that treats a non-prime-time raiding group like a main group has been a challenge, you might say. From this perspective (my current perspective) it appears that most raid groups aren’t doing full heroic clears, so I’m not sure how good of a measure that would be.
Of course, maybe I’m wrong.
Also, is raiding even fun? Especially if you’re not doing heroic clears?
Maybe I’m just bad though, I’m only 3/6 H MSV, 1/6 H HoF, and a low gray parser at the moment…
It is kind of sad that fewer and fewer people are playing Classic progression… I’m not sure how much longer I have in me for it either though, to be sure. I’m thinking I might either go to Retail, or put more time into Era (or both!) in the not-too-distant future.
The lack of server migration by either merging or offering transfers probably has been one of the most damaging things to the classic progression servers. It was done before. They said they were going to do it again. Now you have a couple good servers and a handful of grave yards.
It shows they knew in the past it was already a problem. So all you can conclude is incompetence or greed. Its probably not hard to see so greed is the more likely deal. Since like you said whole guilds are transferring odds are money is good enough to just let the masses rot.
A good quarter to slay a game is the way these days.
Blizzard is speed running MoP on cruise control. They don’t care about server populations. Even when Classic was popular they opted to wreck server populations for short-term gains in the cash shop. They have ZERO interest in managing server populations now. They can’t even be bothered to fix basic bugs or offer patchnotes(an industry standard for updates).
Grob is really healthy, tho trying to pug every week is sorta RNG. Best bet is to join a guild; you will have 10X better experience and make some friends.
I tend to agree. Although I can at least “reason” with the decisions to expand at the time. Agree with… not so much… but at least reason. Refising to contract is just insanity.
Grobb is not healthy. I’m in a guild. One of the last competitive guilds still playing on Grobb. I used to raid on a ton of alts but there are barely any competitive raids pushing heroics on Grobb. They’ve all transferred off the server (mostly to Faerlina, some to Mankrik). Banging my head against a wall bc some genius cannot figure out how to do normal mechanics is miserable in imo. That’s fine if you’re into that type of raiding but I’ve been in guilds pushing heroics since I started playing WOW and enjoy the competitive aspect of it.
trying to raid on alts has become difficult simply because classic if you can even call it that now has largely become an alternative version of retail since its not “vanilla” anymore. I hate to say it, but if you are looking for competitive PvE you are almost better off playing retail at this point since near all the PVE gamers left classic. Near all that are left are fairly casual and that is ok, just you are looking for a crowd on classic progression that has largely left the game for greener pastures IE Anniversary.
Logic and reason left Blizzard in 2008 / 2009 ish. We get what is left over that wants to be logical and sensible but does not know yet how. 2019 was the best example of Blizz trying to recover its roots… Sadly this is being washed away like water eroding the beach sand.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. MOP has more raiders than Anniversary so there is definitely a lot of interest in raiding in MOP. It’s just that the player base has concentrated on a couple of servers and the dead/dying servers need to be able to easily transfer to the higher pop realms. Not an unreasonable ask.
Grobb has stood all this time despite the mass appeal of Bene/Faerlina (which ended most of the other realms) because it ALONE exists as a relatively balanced RP-PvP server. It doesn’t mean so much as it used to, but it is still WORTH KEEPING. Many of us DO NOT want to play on 99% one sided “pvp” realms. If you can’t see the value in this, you are always welcome to quietly leave. Don’t want to pay? Then reroll.
Cata/MoP as a whole has just lost a lot of the population in the first place. Grobb was bustling during Wrath. Either way, there’s more to the game than chasing parses, for a lot of us. But if that’s your thing, you belong on Faerlina. Just good luck getting noticed.
Exactly, but dont expect all the casuals to be great raiders either; they will make mistakes. Not gonna be setting the logs on fire with the remaining crop of raiders. The sooner people accept that, the happier they will be.
