Dead servers MEGATHREAD - Ghostlands/Dragonblights plea to Blizzard

Community General Discussion
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2022-04-21 EDIT UPDATE: This thread is now nearly 3 years old, has over 1000 comments (26th highest, 9th unlocked), 31.6k views (47th highest, 5th unlocked) and who knows how many likes!

i have not have a sub in about a year which is why i have not contributed further, but i have tried to keep this thread going behind the scenes.

I would like to thank everyone who has kept this thread going over the last year. dead servers/faction imbalance NEEDS to be looked at. playing with other people is at the CORE of an MMO and blizzard don’t seem to care. they need to be constantly reminded, if not here, then with your wallets.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR VIEWS. EVEN IF ITS JUST “I AGREE”. THANK YOU. x

I know some people here might disagree with me personally on some posts I’ve made here, but this is a post from several guilds on Ghostlands/Dragonblight EU, not just me. If you have any grievances with me personally, please put them aside for this thread.

Also, Ghostlands/Dragonblight is not unique. Quite possible every low and even medium pop server faces similar issues. Please, if you can relate to this situation, add your voice to this thread, to try get it out to as many people as possible, and to the people that matter. If you are a “creator”, we also would love you to nudge this towards your contacts in Blizzard.

Dragonblight EU has been around since the launch of vanilla, and Ghostlands EU went live on January 15th 2007 at 23:00 GMT, just one hour before The Burning Crusade was launched. They are both established servers with a long history.

However, over the years, the Horde population has diminished, especially since the introduction of Faction Change in WotLK. The current state of Ghostlands/Dragonblight Server is dire for Horde (and not much better for Alliance I presume!) Just finding players to keep guilds going is getting harder every week, with people constantly leaving the server for whatever reason. Clockwork Orange alone has lost 10 players to server transfers, and 8 people to boredom/leaving the game from our raid roster in the last 7 months. 18 people in barely 1 Tier! That’s almost an entire mythic raid team.

Guilds raiding here have dropped, with 79 in AtBT of which 20 were Horde, 64 in Uldir of which 19 were Horde, 43 in BoD of which 10 were Horde, and only 21 in CoC of which 6 are Horde. It is clear that numbers able to field raiding teams are dropping to an all time low when compared to earlier expansions. Even just comparing to HM and BRF in WoD, there were 143 guilds, of which 43 were Horde. Imagine what it was like in WotLK?

Getting accurate figures is hard, but YOU Blizzard have access to any metrics needed so you will know the TRUE state of the servers. We have done a survey recently though, and discovered 1,009 Horde guilds found through 3 sources: wowprogress…com, wowrealmpopulation…com, and primarily, the games own guild finder.
Only 167 have more than 30 characters in them. These 167 guilds comprise of 26,184 members, however we believe that 6,226 characters are what YOU consider inactive, ie, not logged on in between 2.5 and 3 years. That is about 1/4 of the population who are inactive!!! However, we can see from guild rosters that many more are ACTUALLY inactive. Only 4,375 characters are 111 - 120 ie. playing BfA content, with 1,339 not yet 120. This means that the number of characters in a position to assist guilds with raiding, pvp and Mythic+ is only about 1/10 of the servers population.

We found out of 1,009 Horde guilds there are:

  • 29,801 characters,
  • 7,698 inactive (or under level 10),
  • 140 GM’s inactive,
  • 3,169 level 120,
  • 1,448 level 111-119,
  • 5,835 level 101-110,
  • 4,606 level 91-100,
  • 2,559 level 86-90,
  • 1,449 level 81-85,
  • 1,270 level 71-80,
  • 1,539 level 61-70,
  • 7,967 level 1-60.

Also, there seems to be a disconnect between what you call “inactive” (not played in 2.5-3 years) and players who actually ARE inactive. All those 110 players who have not come back to BfA are inactive, weather they are counted as such or not. So while 7,698 characters are inactive by your definition, ACTUAL inactive players may be two, or even three times that. Also, 14% (at least) of GM’s being inactive does not help things either.

When I took the raw numbers from the games guild finder in January 2019, there were 31,242 characters in guilds on our servers. Now I have finished in April 2019, there are only 29,801. That means that since I started this research, 1,441 characters have left the server or gone guild-less, most likely the former.

You can see by these numbers that guilds don’t have a pool of active players to choose from, and if you look at the other 843 guilds armories you can:

  1. Actually see WHEN they “died”. If a guild has the majority of its characters at 100, or 85, you know that it was at THIS moment (WoD or Cata respectively etc) that the players of those guilds quit the game, and they have not been replaced here.
  2. You can look at the guild finder description for guilds. When people created them, they were hoping for it to become an active guild. It wasn’t created to be a 1 toon bank guild.
  3. Another indicator that a guild has died, is that it is fairly hard to get more than about 150 guild achievement points on your own. There are guilds which now only have 1 toon which have several hundred or even thousand achievements points. This WAS an active guild at some point, but is now dead.

Ghostlands/Dragonblight IS dying. There are only 6 guilds left raiding in this tier (CoC).

We need a fresh source of players to bolster the guilds that we have, and to hopefully renew others.
And remember, even though we theoretically have access to 3,147 level 120’s, there will be many characters who belong to the one player! I myself have 10. While battlenet and lfg gives us access to all players across the EU, it does NOT help keep the health of guilds in check. If things remain unchanged, we will keep losing players who leave the server or quit the game fully, and it is highly possible that there will be only 1 or 2 Horde raiding guilds on our server by the end of BfA, but they wont be doing mythic.

Ghostlands/Dragonblight are NOT the only servers in this position. Many of the low population servers will be able to relate to these issues, and even most of the medium population servers.

2017-10-05, quote from Ion Hazzikostas:

The good news is that work is largely done. We actually recently connected a couple of Brazilian servers, solving some problems there, but also helping test this tech, ran into some issues, fixed those issues, and the next step for us is to seriously discuss which realms are the best candidates for connection and begin actually formulating a plan to do it. So, we hear you, we’re very sorry it has taken this long, but work is under way.

​This was nearly 20 months ago. As far as we know, not a single connection has been made, but either way, Ghostlands/Dragonblight is still in a dire state.

Blizzard, we understand there may be certain things that mean this isn’t a flick of the switch issue, such as what Ion mentioned before that quote about the massive changes to servers with the release of Legion, but please review the situation, AND rectify it here, as you are killing the guilds on Ghostlands and Dragonblight.

We have made a site to shine a direct light on the problem on our server. Also, some guilds are trying to work together to help each other complete content. If you are on Ghostlands/Dragonblight, and are interested, feel free to check out the site.
https:// clockworkorangegui.wixsite…com/gl-db

Signed:
Clockwork Orange,
Frogs of Doom,
Another Guild Name,
Vintage,
Anatidaephobia,
Disciples of the Horde,
Avalanche,
The Undertakers,

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Ghostlands horde has been dead for years but it used to be fantastic I recall (during the wotlk/Cata years anyway). I’ve still got three toons on there which i’ve endured the loneliness of levelling…while there were always alliance players around.

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It has been high time for new connections. And with that a better use of the CRZ mechanic… aka not putting Horde with a bunch of Alliance and vice versa. Getting it more evened out.

Because plenty of times they put me with Alliance and even more: put me together with a majority of players from an Italian server… Like, what is that about?

I fully support your plea, coming from a medium server it already feels unbalanced (AH, faction grouping,…) a lot of times. So I can imagine how worse the experience can be on low populated ones.

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I’m not sure you need so many statistics and wordy words to state the obvious.

“Many realms are dead and need combining”.

The sad truth is that Blizz would rather have transfer fees than provide customer service though.

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As an ex-Dragonblight member and current Ghostlandian, it bugs my happy to see what used to be a bright and varied community stagnate and to see so many guilds I had good connections with just fade away.

Something needs to be done very soon. The situation is dire on GL as I’m sure it is on multiple other low pop servers. Vint’s plea to Blizz has the full backing of AGN.

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Ghostlands/Dragonblight:

All realms average:

Figures from censuses taken in prime time hours “between the hours of 6PM and 11PM GAME TIME”

On average, realms running around 300 Ally + 300 Horde = 600

Ghostlands/Dragonblight running around 100 Ally + 50 Horde = 150.

Where’s the difference? Realms like Draenor and Silvermoon running at 4000.

Source: http://warcraftrealms.com/weeklyfactionactivity.php?serverid=-1

Trelw knows much more about this than I do.

If any of you care about our understanding of activity, please install the CensusPlus addon
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/census-plus
and let it run and upload occasionally so we get better coverage!

And here’s a clickable link to the Ghostlands/Dragonblight site:

https://clockworkorangegui.wixsite.com/gl-db

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ty GrĂĄinne, leaving out the dots or spaces does catch people sometimes :slight_smile: and yeah, massive difference between 150 and 4,000. or even 300 and 4,000.

ish. many posts in the past have claimed such things with subjective data “ah is empty”, “trade/general is quiet”, “no one has logged on in my guild”, “my friends have all quit”, etc. while all these can and may be true, its hard to quantify it into hard data.
Believe me, i quite possibly have spent all this time for naught, as blizz wont listen, and i suspect you have hit the nail on the head with transfer fees, but at least we tried. The worst that comes out of this is any player on Ghostlands/Dragonblight has a discord they can join to try do stuff, and already its been nice talking to others here.
While the statistics are obvious, i am not aware of any data so accurate that has been posted about the health of a server. while census polls like Gráinne’s show a general ballpark, the data i have collected narrows things down in a way that then cant be dismissed as exaggerating or lying. ALSO, it brings up a worrying issue of how many people are actually inactive, compared to what blizz deems as inactive. NONE of the people who left after Legion will show up as inactive for about another 2 years by blizz’s model.

It is a long read, and i am sorry to all for that, but not just for Ghostlands/Dragonblight, but all servers, we need life breathed back into guilds and communities.

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As a long-time member of Ghostlands and then the connected Ghostlands-Dragonblight, it has been sad to watch this realm decline.

We have had many guilds over the last year particularly just vanish or transfer completely to other servers rather than stay on a “dead” server and as such more and more individuals are transferring away making the player pool smaller and the guilds that remain are all struggling as a result.

Vintoleth’s efforts have taken months but he has been thorough in his research and aside from that many players both current and previous can confirm what he is saying, as well as the helpful statisics posted by Gráinne

We in Ghostlands-Dragonblight need some help from Blizzard to keep our Guilds and realm alive.

Vintoleth’s Petition has the full support of my guild: Frogs of Doom

-Denhuin - GM: Frogs of Doom

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I really hope they pay attention but I don’t think they will. I left a “dead” realm a while back, kinda watched it crumble around me, its sad but it happens and Blizz aren’t interested in fixing it imo.

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Started gaming in TBC in Ghostlands. Transferred out in Cata.

Having empty servers is so easy to solve it boggles the mind it ain’t done.

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Request a merge from Lightbringer also!

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Give a three month warning.
Give free transfers to mid pop servers.
Close servers after three months.
Any and all remaining chars are migrated to a server.
Problem solved.

You are probably bleeding players way in excess of the money you make from transfers anyway

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At this point they should just connect all realms(maybe except RP) and call it a day.

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I not only disagree. I also want to tell you that, since they didn’t help me out, you shouldn’t be helped out either, that’s mainly the mentality of most people on world of Warcraft, and I am slowly adapting to such flawed, and inhumane logic.

So there you go.

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If blizzard is going to connect servers again, i hope they do it better than last time, because that was a disaster !

It might have helped a little, but much too little so instead of making good servers after connections they were totally unbalanced and as good as halfdead as when the problem started, so if Blizzard wants to fix the problem, either let players move away from dead servers for free, or really make good connections this time, but i doubt blizzard knows what they are doing anymore

I have said the same for the last 6 or 7 years, seems obvious, but blizzard only see instant gratification $$ not long term, therefor paid transfers instead of some good customer service to let players play where they want

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@Burton: Having seen small parts of the process fairly closely, while trying to help Takralus (a former blue)… In many cases the “like-type” requirement prevented changes… PvE realms were mostly alliance dominated, while PvP ones were usually horde biased. Some, like Silvermoon and Draenor were simply too big to be connected to even tiny ones… There were a few small (and hard fought) victories, like getting Defias Brotherhood linked to the four tiny RP-PvP realms as one of the last connections to happen… and problems that were not avoidable at the time… Like the RP realms going to the AD + 2-way + 3-way format, because AD + 5-way was not viable at the time (slightly too large).

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I followed the thread about connected realms back when blizzard connected them, the blue poster in the thread said, that Blizzard had no intentions of trying to balance the servers, as in , they did not even TRY !!

there were a few servers they could have connected to make more balanced, but they were actively connecting horde heavy with horde heavy and alliance heavy with alliance heavy.

Besides that, blizzard could have fixed the imbalance back then if they wanted, let players xfer for free to another server until that server have ‘many’ aliances and then connect it to a horde heavy making the server really good, but blizzard xfer$$$ is my guess they didnt care, they got it on their resume i made $$$ dosnt matter if the decisons made, made the company lose subs long term.

So imo blizzard could easily have fixed the problem had they not been blinded by xfer $$ , dont say they are so bad they dont know how to transfer players for free, i have no doubt players would have moved and happily changed names to get a better playing experience, maybe not all would xfer, but then they obviously are where they want to be.

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Nagrand needs something too.

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The game penalises any new player that levels. All you have to do is start a new character and see what you have to deal with. One shotting motorbiking heirloomed players that have such an advantage over new players it kinda makes you realise just how few actual real new players join Warcraft. Everyone is being driven around in motorbikes. Worse is when as a new player you go to get anything off the AH, there is very very very little for you to buy and what is on offer is thousands and thousands of gold.

The game has for some good years now been narrowing its rewards to existing players and giving any new players serious problems when trying to compete. Game gone bonkers if you ask me.

And now we have scaling that slows new players down to a standstill and yet allows loomers to progress unhindered. Further, the journey from 1 to 120 for a new player is massive and the attitude from loomers to those without heirlooms in dungeons is often very negative.

I have ten characters on Ghostlands with my main char active their, but unable to post on these forums along with most of my recent characters. Nothing has been done to resolve the forum failings and it kinda reflects an attitude in this game by the developers that neglects some of the basics needed to foster good relations.

Anyway the good news is that in two days time my sub lapses so that will be ten more characters you can take off your list. And seriously, unless there is some change to AH prices, looms, scaling and failure to give reasonable reward to ordinary players that work their way up through this game without looms, I can’t see me coming back. The game developers have done NOTHING to encourage new players into the game. They have made Warcraft into an endgame elitest platform. All the promotions, all the cinematics, all the direction and reward from the game favours existing players.

Sadly unless it changes you will never fill the ranks. I have a feeling they don’t actually care. Maybe they are content with the numbers and type of player they have. They only ever talk about their raiding elite and experienced players. Its like everyone else just doesn’t matter.

Anyway I’m playing something else and I have to say I do feel special again for the first time in ages. Its nice to have a game with real progression/real zonal progression that rewards players as they level. Sadly something Warcraft has long neglected.

Sorry for that. I’m not planning on returning to Ghostlands. Shame really it did use to be my home every day.

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About transfers … people around me are mostly stopping/canceling instead of transferring away.

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