Ironforge Pro is not reliable for numbers, at least in this case.
First it is requiring that you upload the data.
Second it only counts the raiders but RPler do not even need to raid.
The manual counting from me about Celebras gave the numbers of around 63 Hordler and around 140 Alliance guys. But unlike Blizzard imagine, we are mostly not available for Hydraxian Waterlords. So when Celebras dies 10% will go to HW, 75% will wonder off to Razorfen or Lakeshire and the rest just stops playing.
3 Likes
It counts PvP’ers too, not just raiders.
This might give you a clue of its popularity: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/rp-pvp-realms-reconsider-one-realm/130723. In short, the answer is that it’s pretty popular.
So the obvious question is: why did the server die? It is not as an easy question to answer compared to the one you posed. There’s been (to my knowledge) no investigation into this and the interest in doing such an investigation is probably fairly low. So I’ll give you my own speculation based on what I’ve experienced and what I’ve discussed with others backed up by what few sources I can find.
RP-pvp servers do attract a certain type of player. I am one such player! And I was pretty adamant that I wanted to play on an RP-pvp server and I had a few friends who didn’t really have any preference one way or another. So I convinced some of those people to try the game with me, and I likely wasn’t the only one doing so. My point being: not everyone who plays on an RP-pvp server is necessarily there because it’s an RP-pvp server.
Zandalar Tribe had a pretty decent population throughout Classic and even throughout Phase 1 and 2 of TBCC. The statistics over on Ironforge show this:
https://ironforge.pro/population/archive/ZandalarTribe/
https://ironforge.pro/population/tbc/ZandalarTribe/
(although keep in mind that Ironforge statistics are not wholly representative of a server’s population or activity)
If you look at the server stats in the second link you can see that the activity is certainly lower than it was during the first months (which should have been expected) but it’s still pretty active. It wasn’t worse than it had ever been in original Classic. So what caused the dip in activity? There are a number of plausible causes. New World, a shiny new MMO, was released the 28th of September. Season of Mastery began the 19th of November. And, what I believe to be the most damning of all, Blizzard announced the first batch of free server transfers the 10th of November. Zandalar Tribe is on that list now but it wasn’t back then – but the narrative that the server was dead caught on fire shortly after the free transfers began.
The main arguments (as to why the server was dead) I saw was that it took too long to find groups for heroic dungeons (or that it was “impossible”), that there were no people to group up with while levelling alts and that raiding guilds didn’t have a large enough pool of players to recruit from. The people pushing these arguments all wanted more players on the server for their own convenience and believed the grass to be greener on the other side which it may have been to some but probably not to all. The first mistake Blizzard did, in my view, was to allow free transfers from Zandalar Tribe.
The reason Zandalar Tribe is in the state it is in is because Blizzard allowed it. Because as I said at the start, not everyone who plays on an RP-pvp server because of the RP-pvp tag, and those people likely would have had fewer doubts in abandoning the server. So what about the people who do care? Well… staying whilst others abandoned the server en masse imposed a certain risk. Many likely reasoned that they did not have a choice in the matter, and so were forced off the server.
And this is where the Ironforge numbers are so treacherous. Because what about players like me? I was part of a fairly casual guild that did some raiding (for the record we did not log our raids and so our activity did not show up on ironforge), but raiding was not the main focus of the guild per se. The community was. Yet we tried to organize 25man raids and we had some success – early on we teamed up with a similarly sized guild to take on Gruul, and a large chunk of this guild left the game to go and play New World. We then organized pugs for some time and we were actually successful in doing so. But we could only ever keep doing T4 content. We could not pug T5, and we failed to find someone to team up with. We decided that we did not want to sacrifice the soul of the guild by rebranding as a raiding guild, and so most of us went into hibernation. We stopped playing.
… and now with Zul’aman and Magister’s Terrace out, some of us have slowly crept back. Some who left the server have come back, even though they have been unable to transfer their characters here as that has been blocked by Blizzard! They have instead chosen to roll new characters. The resurgence isn’t massive by any stretch of the imagination, but it is real. What if Blizzard had never offered transfers off the server in the first place? That’s, sadly, a hypothesis we cannot really answer. But the consequence of the reality we’re in may very well be that there won’t be an RP-pvp server in Classic anymore. As for why that is a problem I’ll refer you to the first link at the very start of my long, long post.
9 Likes
Never ever in wow history did Blizzard locked servers to transfer from. Keeping people hostage isnt a way to keep players, players will leave one way or another.
ZT just had same path as all pvp servers, players just gone to onesided megaservers. They even paid to move last summer, when whole pvp servers exodus started, at that time there wasnt any free transfers. They didnt want balance, they didnt want world pvp, they just wanted to follow meta and get parses, they just wanted to beat the game “better” than 15 years ago, they wanted PvE.
This all didnt happen on pve servers which supports my arguments.
1 Like
I think you guys put too much empathy on the free transfers. I know a lot of people who just roll a new character to the server they want to go, me included, instead of waiting for free transfers or do paid transfer.
If some server is pronounced dead, free transfers wont help. Why would anyone transfer to a dead server?
1 Like
I don’t think this is correct if you look at when and why and how people moved to and from the RPPvP servers.
If your suggestion was the case then RPPvE servers would have received a huge influx of players from all of the RPPvP servers, and they didn’t.
I think it is fair to say, that anyone pushing for following meta and parses is 15 years late to the party at this stage. People just want to hang out with friends, raid and arena. Now obviously there are some people who want to get server firsts and that is fine, play the game you want to play. But you can’t say that RP server wise, that everyone left and went to RP PvE servers, because they just didn’t.
1 Like
The issue is Tevura, that a lot of people have 5+ characters and don’t want to give that up and really why should they? Keep your playerbase happy, or you lose your playerbase, Blizz know this.
It’s a really simple thing to keep your playerbase happy, you just keep them informed on a regular basis. This is not achieved by offering a sweeping statement on something important, and then maintaining strict radio silence while your playerbase are asking for clarification.
2 Likes
The problem was Blizz offering FREE transfer off ZT and the other RP servers. People panicked and left. It happened on HW - the English RP-PvE server as well.
3 Likes
there is and was ONE of Each RP-PvP and RP-PvE and RP-German. Blizz offered free tarnsport off all three to the non-RPservers, not to the PvE server.
2 Likes
That clarifies some confusion. I thought the free transfer was from all the other RP servers into Normal-RP server.
Isnt the merge going to do that anyways? All RP servers become one?
1 Like
That’s the plan, yes Hydraxian Waterlords, the English RP-PvE server is set to be the sole survivor. The free transfer is not up as yet and I think it is a big mistake, as the German RP coomunity is generally not moving there, and either stops, or goes to the German normal/PvP servers, as they can’t RP in English.
Etiher all three RP servers should stay, or if only one then Celebras - even if this would force me to go play in German.
2 Likes
Yeah back in History Blizzard allowed only transfer to servers with lower population category. There whas no option like pay and you can move your character from a low realm that actually needs players to a high realm that is bursting with players and they need to get them away from it. Allowing to even let people pay to transfer to firemaw, venoxis, pyrewood, etc whas one of the most unclassic things they did.
The free transfers away where even more damaging as they allowed people to just leave the server with their hard earned progress intact. If they would have been truly classic then if you once landed on a small server the only way to leave a small server would be pay to get to another low server and hope most people will do this too turning it into medium or reroll on a high server and start from zero.
This way you keep playing as you do not want to just reset and so the server would not die so fast as you then first try to connect yourself with other player.
2 Likes
Giving this thread a bump alongside a picture my best friend did back when people proclaimed that the server was dead: https://imgur.com/g6KrayH
Like GLaDOS sings, it would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
4 Likes
Blizzard thinks that rpers are pvers? This is way far from reality. Do a quick search in you tube and you will find great pvp videos on ZT. Actually on ZT I had the funniest pvp than in any other pvp server i had join in the past.
Please Blizzard, give us an rp-pvp server, no other gameplay compares to that.
2 Likes
Zandalar Tribe has a wonderful community and is a unique server as a RPPVP-Server. I just hope, that they will keep it open. Zandalar Forever!
3 Likes
I’m really sorry, but they won’t.
Celebras and ZT should have been allowed to survive.
3 Likes
sigh Hoping for some wisdom from Zanza for those in charge.
The dream lives until the end.
3 Likes
I have characters on other “big” servers, but there is no community what so ever. ZT will always be home.
We all have to work together to achieve the goals that we want, and it all brings us closer together. Please don’t kick us out of our home, left standing in the dark.
Zandalar forever!
6 Likes
Hello Blizzard,
I implore you to close free transfers from ZT and to open free transfers to ZT. It would be much appreciated thank you.
8 Likes
Please make this happen, Blizzard show you care a little at least.
4 Likes