I’m returning to play WOTLK and have discovered my server is extremely dead on my factions side. I’m talking 95-5 horde/ally split. The auction house is dead, almost nobody is progressing through endgame content, and it feels impossible to get even a heroic dungeon group going. I made a ticket because I wanted to get a transfer off, as when I last played my server was completely fine. After a response, I got absolutely nothing. It’s a little understandable, MMO server lifecycles can have this happen, it sucks that they don’t do anything to help, but again as the game progresses servers change. So I go to a website to check server pops/faction splits and see the only Alliance favored PvP server is Benediction. I shell out 25 dollars to transfer only for them to say they aren’t accepting transfers to the server. So let me get this straight. After not playing for awhile I come back to a dead server, I try to transfer off to the only PvP server that’s alliance favored and I’m not able to do so. What are my options here besides just cancelling my sub? I don’t want to play on a PvE server and I want to play Alliance. Why is there only 1 server where this is the case? I’ve seen many others have this issue, and the remaining alliance on my server constantly complain about feeling stranded. I really wanted to get back into the game and play WOTLK, but this has made me want to quit. I have a max level char and I don’t want to start over completely from scratch.
Which server is it? When Wrath first launched Skyfury (and other servers) were so populated, they locked them down, and offered free transfers to other servers.
Sulfuras filled up and they locked it. Eranikus was a new server that was destination only, and it filled! Then I think they offered free transfers to Earthfury, iirc. And maybe allowed Alliance from Benediction to transfer for free to Eranikus for quite a while.
Anyway, Skyfury and its overflow realm Angerforge died out in the following months. Sufruas and Eranikus have almost completely lost all Alliance and the only paid transfers that are available are to Whitemane, which is Horde only pretty much or 
Not very good, apparently! If you’re on Skyfury you could free transfer to Whitemane and then pay to faction change (which is what it seems like a lot of people did). Otherwise, reroll?
Server health is and has been an issue since Classic launch in 2019… and probably since the original launch of the game in like 2004, but we just didn’t have access to much of any data to know what was going on.
In my personal opinion, this is the biggest issue in the WoW Classic series, but it’s not one that has been given much attention on the forums or elsewhere.
Best of luck with your decisions, and just know that you’re not alone in facing them. By this point in Classic history, I suspect that most people playing have paid to transfer a couple of times due to population shifts.
My current server is Sulfurus, and all I want to do is play on an alliance favored PvP server. My problem is how only one of these exist. If you go and look at server populations and faction splits, Benediction is the only one and you can’t even transfer to there. Sulfurus doesn’t even have free xfers available. Everything about this seems so backwards to me, it’s like they want to create these big mega servers, but also limiting who goes there.
In my opinion this is completely unacceptable. So many people have complained about this issue and begged for help, but Blizzard ofc does nothing and claims they can’t do anything about it.
Son,
Go on and take a seat. O’l pappy is going to tell you a story about phase 2 classic vanilla pvp ranking…
Pvp rewards had best gear in the game
No bgs to farm honor
World turned into a never ending manhunt for honor.
players were upset they were losing world buffs to help clear molten core.
Serious pve guilds transfer to a server where their faction is dominate.
Previous server is now lopsided, problem gets worse.
Everyone retreats to faction dominate server to help recruit and fill raids in a dying game while avoiding getting farmed at summoning stones.
Classic players like the idea of pvp servers until pvp happens at an inconvenient time. But vanilla pvp system also brought out the most degenerate and disruptive player behavior ive ever seen in this game.
Good times, im glad i experienced it.
Benediction is not an Alliance-favored PvP Realm. It is an Alliance PvE realm.
There are currently no alliances favored PvP Realms. Blizzard can’t even merge realms together to create one at a reasonable size.
They never tried to balance pvp servers and it’s not new to wotlk that factions become dead on certain pvp servers as the less favored faction seek transfers out.
Your best options is to transfer on a pve server like Atiesh or Westfall.
What made you want to return to play wotlk?
All my problems will be solved if I pay 70 dollars for a character boost, 50 for wow tokens, another 25 for a server transfer, on top of my 15 dollar sub. it was so simple!
It’s a complete disaster, Blizz mishandled the situation totally. Like it couldn’t be any worse if they tried
The worst part are bootlickers on here blaming the players for using the options Blizz handed to us.
Also clappedquick had a great summary
Whenever people complain or ask for help, I see people say “s**t happens” or “it is what it is” totally ignoring the fact blizz is not doing anything to help the situation
Blizzard thanks you for your $15 monthly to post on the forums.
We’ll I’ve already unsubbed just waiting for it to expire, maybe I should request a refund.
because others - just like you - stopped playing.
you killed the servers. you should have to deal with it.
The server isn’t dead because people stopped playing, what don’t you understand?
i don’t understand why you’re saying things like “The server isn’t dead because people stopped playing”. Can you elaborate?
The servers are in such a horrible state because of blizzards damage control. Since classic they’ve opened transfers and merged servers. People will run away from their server when it has an unfavorable faction split or whatever else. Some people get stranded on their dead server when everybody else leaves (when free transfers close or they lock huge servers.) Essentially blizzard creates these mega servers, and a lot of the other servers slowly die out,
If you want to PvP transfer your character to grobbulus. You’ll have a great PvP experience in that server and probably (haven’t checked) PvE too.
You’ll have to create a new character there and boost or level it.
There are many reasons why it’s locked. Those 12h queues at launch were the biggest reason.
Grobb is alliance favored. And yes there is a slight horde bias in the statistics, but trust me we farm these horde dogs daily, at summoning stones, in front of ulduar and in sholazar.
Being better doesn’t mean you are favored D: That is just underdog stuff.