@Jånek: Ok, thank you. I do not understand Korean so I was just wondering, if their forum had some extra insight regarding the speed change.
Those realms are already paired - when you level and quest, then most likely the opposite faction people you see come from one of those realms. But I do not see they’d ever hard-connect those puppies.
Me Neither
But the relevant threads are here, you can put them through google translate as well:
https://kr.forums.blizzard.com/ko/wow/t/3526, https://kr.forums.blizzard.com/ko/wow/t/3543, https://kr.forums.blizzard.com/ko/wow/t/3548
Hey, sorry about the late answer, I hadn’t seen this thread got updated the other day, trelw already told you about the in game classification being relative, I would like to add that I find the EU population indicator quite reliable, example I would’ve sworn thrall, a german high pop realm, was bigger than uldum, a spanish realm that is high pop now but was marked full few weeks ago, but I went in, checked the numbers and uldum, the full realm, was indeed bigger, this checks out well.
In US on the other hand, there are several discrepancies and alterac mountains is indeed one of the biggest offenders, it was marked as full even before the recent connection, and it had 10 guilds with mythic progress, 13 full heroic and 12 full normal, without a single full mythic guild and only 30k on raider io (before connection), normally a full realm is over 100k.
Aggramar obviously has the same problem from what you said, I think this could be due to the fact america has more servers under the same language, they have many more american realms than we do english realms, they have an insane amount of medium realms, so maybe their indicators are more generous, saying some realms are full when they really aren’t, aside from this I wouldn’t know, I remember complaints for years about alterac being full when it isn’t.
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And Ravencrest has dropped down to high pop status, so I would say a connection is likely at this point.
The realm list seems to recalculate every time connections go through, it doesn’t really mean what since the algorithm seems to at least loosly rank realms relative to the regional population average. realms that aren’t connected therefore can go down a level but that doesn’t mean that the server itself is losing people.
@Jånek: While the exact details are not public, your description is close to the truth. The overall (passive) population functions as a sort of base level and then the values are slightly modified, if a realm is currently particularly active… and while extremely rare, there have been cases where “Low” realm has gone all the way into “Locked” status, because it got temporarily massively overcrowded.
Due to all that, there are sometimes realms that hover on an “edge” and can show “Low” in the morning, “Medium” during prime time and then drop down only to repeat the same pattern the following day. Same can apply to “Medium” realms. It probably could happen, but I do not personally recall cases of “High” edging to “Full” and then rapidly dropping back from day to day. This is a pure assumption, but I think receiving “Full” status requires a massive passive population and fairly few realms have that AND a high prime time activity level.
It is possible that I am wrong, but the end result might not have a much larger number of “Full” realms, just far more “High” and significantly stronger than before “Medium” ones. Since we do know all the details, I am not 100% certain about this, but I think it is theorhetically possible that EU at the end of the connection program could have only one “Low” realm and in a way it might not be that “Low” in activity, just “Low” in the sense of having a smaller passive population than others. There is even a possibility of none, if the Italian realms are connected, marked as “New players” and actually possess the lowest passive numbers.
Whatever happens, it will be extremely interesting to see how the realm lists look after all planned connections have been successfully executed.
I Think you can observe this best in the TW region or to a lesser extent KR because of the limited number of realms in those regions the population shifts are really apparent as they do connections.
In TW, the sundown marsh cluster is the new player server, so useless cause it has that tag, but it was the main horde server of the region, the shadowmoon cluster was high population, all the rest was medium, there were no servers marked as low population at least not initially.
Population wise most servers other than the main alliance/horde server (Shadowmoon/Sundown) were more or less the same before connections and obviously these 2 had more with shadow moon easily being the most populated in the region. (From Rio stats, shadowmoon had 60k, sundown 45k, rest between 20-30k)
Once the first connection happened (20k pop server added to shadowmoon), it instantly went to full population, the rest was unchanged (other than the cluster that got connected to shadowmoon).
Following that they did 2 connections that consists of 20-25k populations that made 2 more approx 45k clusters, these stayed medium and the 2 clusters that were left unconnected dropped to low, shadowmoon also had its population reverted by these connections and went back to high reflecting the server had a much closer population to the others, all this supports the theory that it is based on the average population of the region and if there is no real outliers your not going to end up with low/full pop servers.
Korea is more of a region of extremes cause it has one of the biggest servers in all of wow (KR-Azshara) as well as until recently the smallest in all of wow (KR-Durotan), and Durotan was half the size of any other comparable realm in any other region. Before connections, Durotan was low obviously, Azshara full, hyjal high, rest was medium, the Zul’jin cluster is the new player realm in the region (second lowest population server too though). not as much has happened there but as soon as Durotan was connected to Deathwing, it allowed the Dalaran cluster to fall to low, having Azshara in the region clearly skews the statistics however.
Sylvanas, Auchindoun, Jaedenar and Dunemaul were sucessfully connected last night.
It feels awsome to see players at any time of the night and day, running around, doing their stuff.
This connection is total sucess!
Just out of curiosity, Janek and Trelw, how does it look, population wise, after this connection went on?
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@Zyipp: I just ran a scan on a temporary alt on the horde side. My preliminary view is that horde side is still extremely weak, in fact weaker than on some “Low” classified realms I scanned today. Judging by your own reaction alliance side is doing significantly better. The situation on the horde side might, however, be improving, because during my brief visit I saw multiple new, level 1 tauren start their journeys. 
I do not have any power to impact things, but given my current impression, the connection would benefit from an additional connection with more horde.
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I do wonder if some of the connections already made, may well have other connections made to them. Looking at those made already, there are a few that now seem to have gotten to a reasonable level (or at least, a fairly average level overall, not including those excessively occupied realms), but there are also some that, even after connection, looking at the wowprogress stats at least, are still around half that number.
Regardless, again looking at those connected so far, I’m fairly confidence the Lightbringer/Mazrigos connection I’m on should be connected with another realm or group of realms, unless there’s something pretty major I’m missing.
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As you might have noticed now that it’s been a day since the connection, the ally side is pretty well populated on sylvanas, not an insane amount but definitely a good balance I would say from my past who checks, nothing compared to argent dawn but definitely healthy.
Horde side is obviously a bit of a problem cause sylvanas was what you call an unbalanced realm, the main goal of the connections is fixing the overall population, so once that is fine they won’t continue balancing the faction, it’s the same problem, to a lesser extent, that you had if you were playing horde on silvermoon, unlikely to get connected to a decently populated horde realm.
@Willtron: indeed, ravencrest dipped from full to high and it’s not the only one, it’s definitely related to the recent connections: antonidas also full to high, magtheridon high to medium, aggramar, aszune, darkspear, alonsus medium to low, and that’s only a few I’ve seen!
As for connections, since I see you haven’t had updates here in the english forums, aside from sylvanas which worked and has made auchindoun high pop as well, blackhand finally worked and made mal’ganis full, it took 15 hours for that connection, incredibly slow!
The french connections worked, eitrigg-drek’thar are now medium (were low), les sentinelles-kirin tor are now high (were medium), the russian connection failed before even starting and the spanish (c’thun-dun modr) failed early overnight, so 4 out of 6 successful for EU.
I wish they would do with 7 realms being connected to each other and make it more like 1 major realm. I understand names become an issue but if they allowed first and last names that can solve that problem, it just seems messy right now especially when you don’t know what realms are connected to what.
Ravencrest should be merged with Alonsus, Kul Tiras and Anachronos.
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Imagine being connected with so many realms YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO IS on “YOUR REALM/CONNECTED” at all.
Literally should rename that cluster so people KNOW THEY ARE CONNECTED and can join same guilds/trade etc.
THIS INFORMATION IS SHOWED NONWHERE IN game and you barely can find it online.
Primitive amateurs.
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Exactly my point!
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People do not even know at all /may not invite someone to guild because DIFFERENT REALM and you cant cross realm guild.
EU Realm connections for this week for reference:
| # | Language Locale | Assumed Copied Realm | Assumed Host Realm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | ENGLISH | Darkmoon Faire / Earthen Ring | Defias Brotherhood / Ravenholdt / Scarshield Legion / Sporeggar / The Venture Co. |
| 2. | ENGLISH | Bloodfeather / Burning Steppes / Executus / Kor’gall / Shattered Hand | Darkspear / Saurfang / Terrokkar |
| 3. | ENGLISH | Dragonblight / Ghostlands | Deathwing / Karazhan / Lightning’s Blade / The Maelstrom |
| 4. | GERMAN | Perenolde / Teldrassil | Garrosh / Nozdormu / Shattrath |
| 5. | SPANISH | C’Thun | Dun Modr |
| 6. | RUSSIAN | Borean Tundra | Blackscar / Grom / Thermaplugg |
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No Azjol-Nerub there. The hope they’ll leave it alone still lives.
i would have assumed Darkmoon faire and ER go to moonglade/Sha’tar / Steamwheedle since all 5 of these realms were normal RP pve realms.
Defias Brotherhood/Ravenholdt/Scarshield Legion/Sporeggar/The Venture Co. Were tradtionally RP /pvp realms.
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Yoooo, Darkmoon Faire and Earthen Ring is on there! Where did this info come from Jånek?
Edit: Wait, I see it in the Breaking News section in game on log in. Alright!