If you ask me, for future reference, any realm that drops to low pop, should be connected in 1 or 2 weeks tops, almost like a “auto mechanism”.
No low population realm should be allowed, its detrimental to the game.
Anyway, some medium pop realms are almost as low, so…
Yup, while my server isn’t dead… you can already feel all the downsides about a lesser populated server. So they better have medium servers in mind as well.
Also, it doesn’t help that for some reason most of my shards are filled with players from the Italian server (Poz one). Wish they spread them out a bit more.
sadly, i agree. i wont say any more on the issue now, but i will wait and see what actually happens. its part of my industry and my outlook on life in general to be overly cautious more often than not. if its true, then well done blizz, though as many have said, you were far too slow (in the process possibly losing 10’s or even 100’s of thousands of players) and the communication was non existent.
thank yous 
and thank all of you for keeping this thread going too!
i would suggest keeping the thread open though if possible, cause if the fixes are not what we were looking for, when the start in 2-3 months, this thread would have been auto closed. 
maybe any updates, and links for which servers have been connected etc.
and selfishly, blizz missed a chance to post here with that news
I just wanted to say that as soon as they announced server connections Stormrage/Azuremyst got marked from Low to Medium. Coincidence?
Does that mean dead Stormrage/Azure no longed classify for connection? heh.
I wish they announced a full list of realm they want to connect so we can transfer off dead servers for Shadowlands.
Medium shouldn’t be the standard for merges don’t worry.
Dunno about the overall EU situation but I’m fairly sure there are high pop FR servers linked with other servers which made me believe that the goal was to reach something similar to a full pop server.
If you end up transfering from a dead realm after they finally do something about dead realms then they failed their stated goals pretty hard
Let’s hope it never reach that point.
@Deed: The size listings are not completely static as part of them is activity related and they are also relative to other realms, so there are some realms that change size fairly often, a few even several times a day.
Pretty much all servers WM on I guess.
has there been any info on how the merges have gone since their “rocky” start…
No clue, can’t say I have kept up with it.
Edit: went to check the last connection that should have happened: Kilrogg/Hellfire seems even that one failed and they haven’t got a connection yet. Source
i’ve not heard anything, what have you heard? xD
but seriously, any news? im classic now, not retail so not sure how things are like currently.
Well, if you’re lucky you won’t be merged with polish or portuguese realms.
so, like 2 months on, where do we stand…?
@Vintoleth: Some things done, some things gone… and still lots of things to do. Blizzard has managed to connect somewhat more US than EU realms and has done quite a bit in other regions, too. Even so, there are still many realms that need to get connected. Ghostlands / Dragonblight has not come up yet, but Blizzard has been only making announcements on weekly basis so we do not see very far ahead even though we know more will be done.
Some connections have been received with joy, others with rage. 
Perhaps the most noteworthy thing is that Blizzard has used larger realms more during program 2 than they did during connection program 1.
Looks like this week it happens for you 
It is finally happening!
Ghostlands / Dragonblight is getting merged to Deathwing / Karazhan / Lightning’s Blade / The Maelstrom.
Don’t know much about these realms but they are currently listed as Medium. But their forum activity is low and they are complaining about population to.
Curious to see if this is going to help us.
@Neyla: Blizzard is creating some quite complex combinations, so there is (in my opinion) a fairly high chance this is just “Stage 1” as there has already been at least one connection that (due to other connections already done and couple of megasized singles) went from “Low” + “Low” to “Low” total and will also be expanded upon.
Deathwing was high like a month or two ago so merged I’m 90% sure the result will be high population.
Still no Lightbringer 
I understand your disappointment but consider how many low population realms there are still in the game:
So not counting this week’s connections there are roughly 11 low clusters left (basing this on the ingame realm status which isn’t the most accurate but it’s good for a rough estimate).
Consider each week we’re likely to see 3-4 low English realms connected you’ll likely get connected in the next few weeks.
@ Tifa, I’m keeping everything crossed we get a Lightbringer connection soon!