After some browsing I realize there’s more posts like the one I’m about to write but I feel I need to address this myself as I’m having difficulty letting go of a few things and enjoy the game without any regret.
I’m playing as Horde on Nethergarde Keep (PvE). Horde population is way less than Alliance. I knew that going in but I figured I would at least have pretty much instant battleground queues if I ever decided to participate in PvP. Well after becoming level 60 I got excited to participate in battlegrounds. 100% my mistake; but I didn’t realize battlegrounds were cross-realm with PvP realms; resulting in very long queues. (1.5-2.5 hour for Alterac Valley). Whereas I had hoped that fast queues would be the major benefit over dungeon tanks being scarce on a low population realm.
It’s important to know that I don’t mean to be negative about the game and/or realm. I do love the game as much as 15 years ago and in no way do I feel classic is dead. On the other hand I do understand people claiming this on low population realms.
The thing is ever since I got an interest in doing some PvP I can’t shake this feeling of regret that I didn’t choose Alliance. I can’t get around to do battlegrounds as the long queues just don’t fit in my daily schedule to really make an impact PvP-wise.
I’m weighing the Horde/Alliance decision on several grounds. For example I’m guessing over at Alliance there’s many more bots; which already are a big nuisance at the Horde side.
I’m sure there’s other people who share these feelings and I’m wondering how others deal with this and/or if there’s any talk from Blizzard to make this experience any different?
This issue will impact my choice of what and where to play in TBC. Assuming Classic characters will get to continue their story through the dark portal I would want to do that with a character that ‘completed’ Classic. (Mainly has to do with reputations and completionist reasons). Is there any way of knowing what the realms status/activity/population will be at the point of TBC. The feeling of being on a realm with huge downsides such as low activity or long queues would be horrendous thinking about all the time that goes in to a character from scratch.
Am I being too paranoid about things yet to come? Should this be addressed better by Blizzard? What options do we have if a realm becomes unplayable in any way? Thoughts?
it doesn’t matter if your faction is a minority on your server, because bg’s are crossrealm.
consider yourself lucky though, since you can’t get dispelled since you play on a pussy server.
and by pussy server i obviously mean a kitty server. where everyone is cuddly and friendly.
To the above poster: There is no reason to play on a PvP server in classic outside of opening yourself up to getting trolled, any incarnation of “fun” wPvP died the day it became trivial for honor gains. It’s a sad reality, but one nonetheless.
The only time we had anything close to a decent wPvP experience was launch before BGs, now, there is just no reason.
As for the OP, you still have time. Classic TBC is likely over a year away. Make a new character, make new friends, enjoy faster queues. The horde/alliance population gap will only grow in TBC when arenas make their debut and raids become more difficult.
Alliance in Classic have been a massive disappointment. EU Classic’s population is close to 50:50 judging by the consesus sites (and actually more Alliance guilds have raided Naxx than Horde ones), yet Horde get 20 minute WSG/AB queue times and 1 hour+ AV queues.
In Retail, where there is a legitimate non-exaggerated faction balance issue, the queues are only 3-5 mins.
It was clear from the beginning that horde will have longer queue times than alliance. I still played horde at the beginning of classic wow because of friends and i thought even if there are more horde, it can’t be that bad. Then when bg’s came out and queue times were even longer than i expected i rolled alliance.
I play on a PvE server with a higher Horde pop than Nethergarde Keep, but we’re still a minority compared to the Alliance. And, contrary to what that idiot Zmug claims, there’re still significant downsides to being the minority faction in a PvE server - for example in terms of guild selection (less guilds means it’s less likely you’ll find one that suits your needs), resources (ofc it’s harder to find a rare recipe on the minority faction, for example), quest grouping/competition and so on.
Unfortunately, unlike the US, EU never managed to form a Horde-majority PvE server like Mankrik. Though if they do allow transfers between servers before TBC (instead of just progressing current ones and calling it a day), I do hope we can maybe coordinate a mass transfer to concentrate all/most horde players on the same realm to try and create, finally, a Horde-majority PvE server. But that, obviously, largely depends on what policy Blizzard will follow for TBC servers.
The only other hope is that a significant number of Alliance players reroll Horde for TBC, but I don’t see it happening on PvE servers due to less competitive pressure to do so. And whatever reroll may happen will likely be offset by all the pussycat refugees from PvP servers who know no better than to screw faction balance on PvE servers even more.
Your average Joe player is not even aware of mercenary mode’s existence. It’s not well advertised. You have to talk to a specific NPC and most players just queue up anywhere in the world.
I don’t know anyone who uses it, besides myself on ocassion for epic BGs.
