about time!
22 realms will be closed and those on them will be merged into higher population realms. Perhaps this will solve many peoples problems.
They probably have the population of one medium realm in total.
This exactly changes nothing for highly imalanced realms WHICH most servers are. It is another embarrassment within a history of embarrassments. The most active server listed was Celebras with 103 people logged last week, the next was Skullflame with 13 and the rest was basically 0. All the server combined had a population of less than 160 people, thus the only thing that is changing is servers nobody played on will be closed. THAT IS IT.
Nothing changes for Alliance on Gehennas, Horde on Earthshaker, Alliance on Morgraine, Asbringer, Razorgore, Patchwerk and many more.
Yes I read what they plan with pve realms etc. but a) That doesn‘t freakin help the dozens of pvp realms (which are explicitly excluded from your statement) and b) if you know it is a problem right now than fix it today, not in some unspecified future - people were more than patient with yoz. People needed the help yesterday and these lazy helpless developers only give empty promises with delay after delay.
And for got sake hire someone who is actually coming up with solutions to the server imbalance that are beyond „And you get a free transfer! and you get a free transfer“. My 4 year old niece could come up with that and would need 4 months of „careful consideration“.
This company is the pinnacle of stupidity.
10 Likes
Hope’s lost. Even the upcoming FCT wave was announced for PvE realms only
For some reasons they didn’t include Ashbringer in the FCT. I’m forever stuck in this dead realm with no one to play with.
Too many players 
„Dead realm today was considered full back in the day“
That you won‘t finish shattered sun before Wotlk is just an optical illusion.
1 Like
Sounds like a you issue.
You must pay them to solve a problem they gave you!!
6 Likes
Faction balance is mostly player made issue and not a blizzard made one. It would be a lot of tears and cries if Blizzard went to micro manage each and every server to make sure proper faction balance and even than it’s questionable how that would turn out.
Faction balance was an issue even back than and with current min maxing we’ve got going on it’s gotten even worse. That’s why Blizzard developed connected realms, warmode and CRZ, to solve exactly these problems. However for that to function you need all the cross realm tools. However if they do that, people start crying about #NoChanges
It’s catch 22 for Blizzard.
Player wants balanced servers but don’t want any solutions because cross realm is bad.
2 Likes
Always that stupid argument. I cannot bear it. Blizzard sets the rules, the boundaries how a game is played. With your statement they get a free-pass on basically anything. Balance problems? Well why do players have to exploit certain specs instead of just enjoing the game? Exploits like gold dupes? Yeah why do players have to research for flaws in our code?
To put it in John Staats (lead 3D level designer during the development of World of Warcraft) words:
If there is a place where players can exploit gaining experience, items, currency, or reputation, then that’s precisely what players will do, because they always take the path of least resistance. Since MMO content is measured in months, not hours, the content is paradoxically daunting, so any shortcut to the top will become the most popular route, even if it isn’t fun. And if a game’s path of least resistance isn’t fun, it means the game isn’t fun. Lazy or inexperienced game developers blame players for “ruining” a game with aberrant behavior, but these accusations are like dog owners blaming their pets for eating unhealthy scraps.
From his Book “The WoW diary : a journal of computer game development”
There is a distinct difference between “micro management” and not managing at all. Back in the day people were more spread accross a multitude of realms because certain stuff did not exist. You should be very aware that a combination of unlimited layers, unlimited player count on a server and unrestricted character transfers may be convenient for players but also accellerate faction imbalance problems. And they were warned and gladly ignored it to collect money. That is the hard truth. We are not talking about “Hey it 70/30 on a major realm” but more like the 2 biggest US realms are completely lopsided. That is neither “micro-management” nor management at all.
I bet my CensoredByBlizzard off that if layers wouldn’t exist, “full” meant actually “full” and character transfers were much more restricted we would have (ofc not perfect but) more healthy and balanced servers. Yes people would complain that they have to level a new char to play with their friends on a different server, just like they do right now with faction change going into WOTLK but that is exactly what John Staats meant: It is not the dogs fault to poo (Blizzard censorship ftw) on your carpet, it is yours to not train him well enough.
To be honest: The opportunity to learn from the mistakes of retail and overcome them is gone. Now we basically have to take the same path. So I agree. What we now need are cross realm tools in order to stabilise smaller realms and incentives people to start playing there. And the only chance is giving them the same possibilities in terms of raiding, farming, AH etc. compared to the bigger ones. But with every move Blizzard is doing I don’t think that that is their actual plan. My (controversial) bet is that free transfers from pve servers will in the long run destabilise them. For the longest time they were isolated but now they get the opportunity to transfer to potentially bigger realms. It only takes a few guilds transfering and a critical mass is reached to screw the population. Ofc that will not happen on all pve realms - but it is a potential risk for some. And what we’ve learned is that Blizzard will not intervene to stop it even if an entire population crashes like e.g. Gehennas Alliace. I feel like an endless cycle of mass transfers is not only tolerated but endorsed by Blizzard.
13 Likes
Solve what exactly? They’re closing down servers that no one logs into because there’s no point in keeping them up.
This is not addressing any population issues, just cutting down some server upkeep costs lol.
“and we will remove the rule on PvP realms that prevents players from having characters in both factions on the same PvP realm in Burning Crusade Classic.”
???
Not enough, and at least 10 months too late. Classic Activision Blizzard! By doing this now you’re going against your own arguments for not merging servers and/or allowing free transfers earlier. Milking your customers until the last drop. Pretty sure the only reason they’re doing this now is the cost of running a server is higher than they would earn from the remaining players paying for a transfer.
3 Likes
Though miracolous the servermaintancecost for Era realms are nothing as they are still running.
This is so far a great move. Yet, people keep complaining lol…
Better real merges than crossrealm
2 Likes
Except they went with a different approach and connected them instead of merging them.
This is not so -
Man I’ve seen so many posts of you and everytime I am speechless. This was a move to close dead servers that already got free transfers. Lets cross examine, c’mon shall we?
Bloodfang → FCT NOV 21
Celebras → FCT NOV 21
Dragon’s Call → FCT FEB 22
Dragonfang → FCT NOV 21
Dreadmist → FCT NOV 21
Finkle → FCT FEB 22
Flamelash → FCT NOV 21
Gandling → FCT NOV 21
Harbinger of Doom → FCT NOV 21
Heartstriker → FCT NOV 21
Hydraxian Waterlords → FCT FEB 22
Judgement → FCT NOV 21
Lucifron → FCT FEB 22
Noggenfogger → FCT FEB 22
Rhok’delar → FCT NOV 21
Shazzrah → FCT FEB 22
Skullflame → FCT NOV 21
Stonespine → FCT NOV 21
Ten Storms → FCT NOV 21
Wyrmthalak → FCT NOV 21
Zandalar Tribe → FCT FEB 22
There is not a single, A SINGLE server that not already got a free character transfer prior. All those servers had a combined population of 160! people (115 on the German RP server celebras). THUS this announcement is basically irrelevant (with the exception for the two RP communities). They just said “Hey these servers are not worth any server capacity anymore”.
4 Likes
For those lazy to read that useless wall of text from Kaivax, here is the relevant information from the post:
- Servers that got FCT earlier will get closed on 10.08.2022. You may transfer your characters from there via either FCT or automatic transfer that will happen on 10.08.
- PvE to PvP transfer restriction will get lifted
- You will be able to create both, Horde and Alliance characters on one account on PvP servers.
1 Like
I unironically hope they just allow for cross faction gameplay in Classic too. This barrier that is preventing so many people from being able to play the game needs to go, in Classic as well.