#0 - Aug. 12, 2007, 10:56 p.m.
I logged onto my main realm Azshara about 2.5 hours ago. I was looking to lg on, do a heroic or two (or even a non heroic tempest keep instance) before it got too late. I was on at 3pm my time, and I would consider that a pretty "prime time" for most WoW players.
So I log on and I send up in trade chat "LFG ANY heroic, or non-heroic Tempest Keep insances ( I heal )". I wait for 15m sending this message pretty often and I get no response. I join the LFG channel and I see 4 other healers all looking for groups. I see a mech group looking for more, and I ask to join but the group leader was yet another healer trying to fill his group up. After this I got pretty frustrated that all I saw in trade and LFG was "holy priest lfg _______", or "LFG Slabs heroic - healer" etc.. I decided to go check the forums for a minute and come back to find out that FINALLY a group wants a healer. This was at around 4 by now, I already spent an hour looking for ANY group at all. I get in this group and to my surprise its a warrior (who actually wants to tank), so I figure great, now all we need are some DPS this so get off the ground fast! But I was wrong, about 10m ago the group broke up, we ended up with two warriors and myself and then they both dropped after taking an HOUR to look for two damn people.
Azshara is one of the LOWEST pop realms and we are suffering from this. It is near impossible to make any 5man group at the servres PRIME TIME, which is ridiculous. People from Azshara have asked and petitioned for server mergers, server transfers, and ANYTHING that could help ease our huge population deficit but we receive NOTHING.
Please Blizzard, this is far out of hand. I know there are other realms out there just like ours. I don't feel its necessary for us to create a huge amount of drama to attract people to our realm (ie Onyxia) to fix a problem that rests completely on the poor incentives to staying on a server that Blizzard has given. Any kind of response would be greatly appreciated, even if its something along the lines of "we don't care about your server" because then I know transferring is my only option left and I can get on with that.
Throw us a bone, it would probably double our population.
According to this information these are the servers that are suffering the most from low populations: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php?sort=Total
Maiev, Nazjatar, Tortheldrin, Ysondre, Coilfang, Zuluhed, Lethon, Vashj, Anub;arak, Anetheron, Shu'halp, Garithos, Cho'gall, Undermind, Azshara, Scilla, Alterac Mountains, Shattered Hand, and Malorne.
All of these realms have a total population from level 10-70 of under 10,000 players. These realms, and the people who play on them are affected by this in their game-play daily. People will just continue to transfer off and cause these servers to drop even more into the hole they are already in. This problem will not work itself out Blizzard. You need to step in and start merging low pop servers. Some the community you actually do give a damn for once.
Here are some posts throughout the thread.
This ones gets bumped to the top of the list since I think its that good - page 12
Q u o t e:
While combining servers can create a host of adminstrative headaches, such as how to handle duplicate character names and guild names, it would resolve a lot of problems experienced by the folks struggling to function in the low-population servers. TBC and the period shortly before the expansion's release saw a massive influx of new servers which, when combined with the expansion in each server's population capacity, resulted in a substantial watering-down of server populations. This was probably a good thing for the heavy-population servers. However, the newer, lower-population servers were set up for failure, as WoW's player base did not expand enough to fill the void created by these changes.
As anyone with any time in this game knows, new servers result in a short-term and massive population spike as "server locusts" reroll there and progress until bored or they transfer off. Within a few weeks, the "server locusts" go elsewhere and the population abruptly crashes. This population crash tends to come at a relatively delicate stage of the server's economy, i.e., that time where lowbie greens are horribly overpriced, there is a severe shortage of higher-level items or "twink" items and little to no demand for raw crafting materials. This combination is devastating for the remainder of the server's population.
Once the population crashes, the economy is effectively crippled because it can no longer follow the traditional development of server economies. The foundation of this process is a stable, slowly expanding population, with a relative balance of low, mid and high-level characters. Once the locusts depart and the higher-levels have mostly transferred off and the lower-levels have been abandoned, there are fewer people to participate in the once-developing economy. There are fewer consumers of auction house goods and crafting services and fewer producers of those goods and services. The result is economic stagnation for many months until (and unless) enough of the population sticks it out long enough and enough alts or rerolls are present to result in a more balanced economy.
The notion of enough folks sticking it out and transfering over to improve and eventually balance a low population server's economy is unrealistic. It is extremely difficult to level a character on one of these servers because (1) the AH is essentially worthless as a means of obtaining items or selling items; (2) it is extremely difficult to find groups to run instances or quest with; and (3) many of these low-population servers are extremely lonely. It is extremely frustrating to try and develop a character under these circumstances. Consequently, many people try their best and then go elsewhere once their frustration threshold reaches its limits, either transferring their character or abandoning it altogether.
My worst experience with a developing server was a month after TBC came out and a week or so after the server locusts departed. It was impossible to sell basic items like linen cloth or light leather on the AH, despite cut-rate pricing. There was a total of 400-500 items on the entire alliance AH at any one time. What items were there were often grossly overpriced or wholly redundant because there was no demand. Consequently, it was difficult to improve one's gear or make enough money for basics, like training. Leveling a profession was costly and frustrating because the market was dismal. It was virtually impossible to put any sort of five-person group together during peak server times to run an instance. The server was also extremely lonely. Trade and general chat were almost non-existent and there were many times where I spent eight or more hours online only to see two or three other players the entire time. I did the best I could for three weeks, trying to rationalize this ordeal as a challenge and then finally snapped and rerolled on another, higher-population server.
The folks on lower-population servers are in a tough spot. These servers have communities that have developed through all of the shared hardship of leveling there. However, the players are severely handicapped by the lack of opportunity to do the very things that most of us take for granted, like getting a group together to run an instance, join a guild, or even sell something on the AH for a reasonable price. This set of problems would be solved by server mergers, preferably ones that balanced out overall populations.
Blizzard would do well to consider the plight of a significant portion of its customer base, swallow some pride and take the steps necessary to resolve this problem. Blizzard created this problem by prematurely diluting the population base. It only seems reasonable for them to resolve this problem and stop ignoring the plight of those effected by its shortsighted population base expansion.
Edit: Alliance side-story from Azshara (post on page 3)
Q u o t e:
Tspaladin does speak the truth, Azshara is ridiculously low-pop right now. Speaking for the alliance side of things, we have at this point only 2 major raid guilds. We've had dozens of players (including the guild i was formerly in) just transfer off. We've been petitioning for server mergers and the like, but so far no results. Yes, transferring is an option, but shouldn't be THE option to enjoy the game. I pay monthly, and I shouldn't have to spend additional money just to simply enjoy playing a game I love.
I know there are several low-pop servers out there, Blizz, it's time to get some mergers or promote free transfers to low pop servers to try to re-populate them. At this point, some action, if any, would help.
Say SOMETHING Blizzard.
