I haven’t heard any information about this in a long time, but will we see any realm merging in Shadowlands? Executus-EU with connected realms are still really low population, and switching to a bigger realm is not really an option since alot of the guildies has like 5+ alts.
I read in an interview awhile back that this was under consideration, would like to hear any new information on this topic.
Are low-pop servers just going to keep dying or is there a plan to fix this problem? I guess there’s a alot more people playing on realms that are low pop that would love an update on this as well.
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You can refer to this thread for an ongoing, if slow, discussion on the subject.
TLDR, Blizz acknowledged the problem once, over a year ago, and have done nothing since. We expect them to continue to do nothing. It is possible they think sharding has fixed the problem.
Sad, but there it is 
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I hope they’ll change their priority on this issue soon.
Because it’s so many things that gets affected by playing on a low-pop server.
AH-prices, people leaving due to lack of inactivity and so much more.
If nothing else, they should at the very least offer free transfers to medium pop-servers under a limited time, so that active players will get a better experience when playing.
yes draenor alliance is very low population. so is silvermoon horde. where most of my chars are. where is the fix? they are waiting for YOU/ME to pay to transfer. roflmao. rather unsub for a few months till the next campaign 6month sub mount comes up ;p
Given how quickly Blizzard seem to move, I do believe that this is their solution to the problem. We’ll probably see cross-realm guilds and an auction house in Shadowlands or the following expansion.
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iirc they said there’ll be more realm merges to come.
If we do, then it’s disgraceful that it hasn’t been done yet. There just isn’t a good reason to hold such a feature back. Communities have paved the way for x-realm as far as the tech is concerned, the only thing now is to let go of the idea of realm achievements or leader boards. We need to admit that in the absence of fresh realms being opened, nobody cares about whether they’re 4th, 40th, or 400th on just their server.
Realm merges would not help you on Draenor or Silvermoon as you well know. They are both highly populated busy realms.
Sadly since Blizzcon we have had no update about more realm connections. Last we heard Ion was going to talk to the relevant department. If they have any news they will share it, sadly that means there is currently o news for those stuck on low population realms.
Why would they merge 2 full realms ?
I am just guessing here.
But having low pop realms atm is also a concequence of less subscribers.
Yes they could/should merge realms, but than what happens when a expansion like BFA comes ?
Publicised as the fastest selling expansion ever, results: people complained for days maybe weeks they couldn’t log in Draenor or Silvermoon, without waiting ridiculous amounts of times.
Irony here: I had just decided to move from Draenor back to Kul-Tyras with my UK account. I was playing while others were complaining.
Conclusion: Is it viable to merge realms when there’s low population, for them to have problems when they get fill up again in a new expansion, which by the way, may come in October this year ?
Cheers.
not realy, you se even when legion launched some realms where good as dead already, and they did not fill up at all, instead people moved to high populated servers in a steady stream, and this has been going on ever since.
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that is one of the reasons, but most dead realms/factions have been that way for years. its highly unlikely that they would ever get enough players returning to cause queues. also, many are perma gone, either server transfering, starting afresh elsewhere, or perma quit.
what? contender for worst expansion EVER? lets hope an expansion like BFA NEVER comes again 
which is actually skewed because it includes all presales, which may have taken place over several months. in that scenario im not bashing blizzard, i’ve been told such ways of reporting are common place in the gaming industry. but even still, it may have been the “fastest selling”, but its been one of the least successful, so… turtle > hare.
i cant remember if this was the case or not, and how long said queues lasted, but you’re talking about the 2 single largest servers in the game, which is also where a lot of people move to to escape dead servers. being the largest alliance server was SPECIFICALLY why i made all my cata+ alliance toons on Silvermoon.
the other 240~ servers would not have had such an issue. and besides, was it all due to excess players? blizzard have been known in the past for creating lag by the way they funnel players all to a certain area or the tech they use being flawed.
with the exception of a couple of servers like Taren Mill or Argent Dawn, EVERY other server will NEVER have this population problem, no matter HOW good the expansion is.
so, MY conclusion, dead servers and factions IS an issue that still needs to be addressed, or which managed/focused merging could help.
I do think as i said before, they could merg 10 to 15 servers togheter whit almost no issues at all, and those servers would still not be overpopulated, though they would be come a viable to transfer to then.
but merging servers that are horde dominated whit alliance dominated would not work, it would have to be alliance dominated servers whit eachother, and horde dominated ones whit eachother also, and give free server transfer to those who are the minority, this would make it that you have servers made for alliance or horde, what would not matter at all, considering world pvp is shared whit every server out there anyways, but it would be extreamly positive for the factions to do so.
I don’t think so.
It’s been an issue since WoD.
Unless they think that it will generate bad PR or something. Who really knows the thinking that goes on behind the curtain?
We’ve had realm connections before so I don’t think it’s a PR issue. If anything it’s a positive boost for those realms that are connected.
I mean… maybe if they don’t acknowledge it, then the player base isn’t shrinking? Maybe if they recommend dead servers enough they will fill up?
And maybe, if they do a big round of merges… some tech journalists will write articles about it, and everyone will know WoW is ‘contracting’ or some such.
Which is short-sighted thinking at best, but… I wonder. If we were cynical enough to suggest that the player base will only shrink from here on, that there were no chance of reeling in new folks in any meaningful way anyway… perhaps it’s better PR to pretend that all is well. Maybe 50% of people know existing players, join medium/high/full realms, and maybe they stay. Maybe the others join ‘recommended’ realms, and quit a few weeks after hitting 120.
If you didn’t think there were enough sum total people, then the 50% either way is irrelevant. You just don’t want those articles about server merges to be published, because then the new players really stop coming - and the old players lose confidence and look for other places to invest time.
Just a thought.
Everyone knows the playerbase is not the same size as it was in it’s height at the end of Wrath of hte Lich King. They have changed the way they measure subscribers. Everything is done in MAUs now.
There was no bad PR from connecting realms before there is no reason for it to cause bad PR this time round. If anything it’s bad PR to ignore the concerns of those stuck on lower populated realms.
Ion acknowledged that more connections are needed. We just haven’t had any update since. Blizzard don’t tend to make statements when there is no news to share. So we just have to wait to hear and hope they’ve not given it a low priority while they are working on Shadowlands.
It’s… been a while now though.
I waited for so long that in the end I stumped up the cash and moved, I think 6 characters off low pop servers. Two of them needed a faction transfer. That was the only issue I should really have been paying for - but here we are.
So it doesn’t actually affect me - but it’s really quite a strong point of frustration. This just should not be an issue. We should not be stuck with N% of players being trapped on dead realms, with no routes off other than hard cash or re-rolls. That is appalling customer service.
Blizz have had plenty of time to act. They have ignored the problem for literal years, and even if they said “sorry, it’s on a back burner until after SL” - we have no reason to believe it will come to the fore after SL launches. It is a severe breach of player trust. We trust that Blizz will try to look after us and make our experience good, and there is no evidence that they are doing so.
May I ask you why you need to move six chars at once, though?
Wouldnt realistically speaking one or two all 2-3 months be good enough aswell?
Unless youre a big altoholic, but even then that should work in your favor too.
Reason why Blizzard doesnt act unfortunately is because players like you sadly have to transfer.