Thiris

To give a little background on "me," I've played since friends and family Beta on several different servers, but have no become attached to the characters that I currently play (70 Druid & soon to be 70 Mage)

Recently we've had a bit of a guild implosion, resulting in some of our best players leaving after a "cleanup" of the guild to try to get rid of people who said that they wanted to raid, but their heart (and pocketbooks?) weren't in it to progress. We stagnated in Kara, eventually wiping it from the schedule and mainly farm Gruul once a week and make a day or two of attempts at TK, banging out heads against Al'ar or VR.

With losing some of our key DPS players, I'm concerned that our guild is going down a path where there is going to be some kind of implosion or I'm just going to log in one day and it's going to be disbanded.

Sadly the server I'm on, Kalecgos, has a lack of raiding guilds. I think that it's partially due to having a small population, but we have the hardcore guild that's in MH/BT at the moment, and everyone else is stuck with maybe a boss or two down in SSC and has maybe killed Mag. We get the people who burn out from the endgame guild, who will share some strats with a lower progressed guild, but it seems those people just eventually quit, whether or not that's due to not receiving any loot from instances that are below them is something that I can't answer. None of the guilds go to Kara anymore, but it seems that none are really successful in those 25 man roles either. It's lead to a pretty sad endgame on our realm.

My question, in a roundabout way, would be the following: When do you decide that a server transfer is for you? How do you go about finding the right realm, and testing the waters before making that investment?

While I understand that there is little "safety net" when making a change such as this, sometimes it needs to be done to preserve the "fun" that you had previously with a game. Given that maybe I've just played WoW long enough to where I'm past the point where I feel like it's new and shiny, but I'd still like to be able to find a realm in which I can either find a guild that is small enough to still enjoy things like Kara (I'd like to play my Mage through there) and/or still make progress into SSC and beyond eventually.

I'm open to suggestions and discussions about this, though creating this topic may get me the big /gkick tonight. I'm interested to see how people have tackled this situation in the past, and how they were successful, or IF they were successful. I appreciate anyone who has taken the time to read through this and has ANY insight on this decision that I'm starting to feel like it might be time to make.

edit: grammar/spelling

 

PsiVen

Well, I'd have to say there's a few main factors to make me switch servers:
- Are my friends still here?
- Realistically, will I get to play with them?
- Will I be able to find a different guild I'm happy raiding with here?
- Is there any hope for my current situation to work out?

August last year after my old guild disbanded, the answer to all of these questions was 'no' -- the guild disintegrated and over the course of a week 90% of the active members weren't even on the server anymore. Those who stuck around weren't really interested in raiding, and trying to find a new guild was futile because (at the time at least) every serious guild had too many Paladins already. This didn't leave me with much choice, so I followed a few friends to my current guild/server.

Your situation is a bit different, since your guild hasn't disbanded (yet). In my experience, there is little hope for a guild which exists as a mixture of people who want to halfass it for loot and those who want to dedicate the entire rectal region to getting the job done right. The result is usually some major split like you described. If the "implosion" you experienced caused bad blood and sent friends away, you might consider discussing with a few buddies the possibility of looking together for a more serious guild on another server that's looking to pick up a few recruits. On the other hand if it was almost entirely "deadweight" members being removed, you could take the opposite role and try recruiting a crossrealm group of competent refugees willing to risk getting stuck on Kalecgos for a while.

 

Dakous

In no particular order (yes, I realize some are PVP, some are not), consider being Horde on the following realms:

WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Blackwing Lair
WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Mal'Ganis
WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Korgath

WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Drenden

And just for the OP's convenience: WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Kalecgos

I don't really have a point, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I hadn't at least examined the question myself, and those links are what I think about. I ran to the Horde AH on Mal'ganis, and saw a number of tier 5 patterns listed.

Everybody is your brother until the rent comes due.

 

Furo

I think answering PsiVen's questions will give you an idea of where you stand. Almost all guilds will stumble at some point so the real question is whether or not they will recover. Having recently left my guild, after talking to many of the "veteran" members, it was pretty clear the consensus was the guild wouldn't pull through. Deciding to leave isn't easy and finding a new guild isn't any easier. But for me, it's worth the risk. Hopefully it will pay off in the end.

 

Dozer

I promise you that the horde populations on those servers will not be as quick to tell you to transfer there.

 

cheebamonkey

I think PsiVen pinned it down pretty well. I've gone through a lot of ups and downs on my server and the key thing that kept me here through the low times was a close attachment to my friends here. If one day they had decided to stop playing the the choice would have been easy.

 

Northerner

It is a funny question and one you have to answer for yourself.

I've been playing these games since UO (and well before that if you want to count MUDs). For the longest time it was playing with good friends and only that. Those were good times, I'm a career geek and a lot of my friends are similarly inclined so it made for a nice hobby and a way to kinda spend time together as well.

Somewhere during EQ though it come around that I was more competitive about this hobby than most of my friends were. The same guys that I could spend days arguing and fighting over Diplomacy, Axis and Allies or even Go or real-life golf with were frankly not terribly hardcore about EQ. Some were, some were not and some of the former were more time-constrained than I was. So, I faced a problem. Stick with buddies for the game that I enjoyed or bail out and play with strangers. I went with the latter and honestly, I'm still close friends with 90% of those old friends. We play golf, we play other games and we do things. Perhaps not sharing a hobby like the one that still consumes a lot of my time doesn't make us closer friends but damn man, I'd have strangled some of them by now otherwise. Luckily I'm not juggling a marriage in there at this point but that's another topic entirely.

Find your own answer of course. For me though, I separate my gaming hobby very, very distinctly from my real life and it seems to work. For those of us that are OCD at all about gaming I just don't see much of another answer other than quitting it entirely. As it stands though, I enjoy WoW raiding, I enjoy the hell out of myself in the real world and I try to keep them balanced in the long term. I might turtle up for a few weeks over a big push but I don't think it is that big of an issue in terms of stunting my mental and social growth. I'm an old guy now though and your results will *definitely* vary if you are dealing with younger people.

 

Raiha

I've done a shot-in-the-dark transfer a little over 4 months ago, after having played on my previous realm since the release of World of Warcraft. I had a lot of friends on my former realm, in fact I still do, but I was growing increasingly frustrated in my guild and did not consider joining a different guild on the same realm, that just wasn't an option for me as I wanted to start completely anew, eschewing all possible drama.

I had basically been playing with the same group of people since release. The first guild I was in made a split when we reached Ragnaros but pretty much everyone I knew in that guild came along with me (myself and a couple of others were the first to leave that guild) to form a new guild in October 2005, a guild that exists to this day and that I left when I transferred off.

To me, having fun and being in good company has always been more important than making good progress raid-wise, but I am quite serious about the raid aspect of this game. There has to be a balance, I won't be too fussed about not being in the top guild on my realm, but I will not be content to wipe over and over because people are being idiots. Likewise I would never join a top guild if it consisted of socially inept people.

Anyway, as I said I was growing increasingly frustrated with the guild I was in, mostly because since TBC there had been an ever growing amount of internal conflicts and lack of decent performance. I realised one day it just wasn't fun for me to log in any more (I couldn't bring up the energy to help 'fix' it, it had just been too much after certain events) and then I decided to take up the operation of carefully analysing which guild on a different realm would suit me. I went through every single realm forum (on the offical forums) for realms that I knew I could transfer to. I did this both to take a look at the PvE progression and at the overall atmosphere. My former guild was wiping on Magtheridon at the time, which had been going on for far too long a time, so my criterium when it came to PvE was to find a guild that had, as a minimum, beaten Magtheridon, as to me that was a clear sign at that time a guild was in decent shape.

I made a list of all the guilds that met this criterium (Magtheridon killed, possibly some SSC progress but I didn't really care about that, I'm not fond of skipping encounters, so they couldn't be too far progressed for me yet either) and their website. I visited all these websites, and where possible read through their forums a bit, checked out the requirements to be able to join, if they were actually recruiting shamans (which, admittedly, was usually the case as I'm alliance so that kind of made it easier), etc. One of the more important things to me was the raid schedule, I had no intention of raiding 'officially' for more than 4 days per week. I also tried to make out the overall atmosphere in the guild if possible, it's mainly guess work but there are telltale signs and some forums are more open than others.

I finally settled on my 'top 5' and wrote an application to the first guild on my list. I transferred off the very same day . In the mean time I've made new friends and I'm having a lot of fun in the game again (progress has been good and, most importantly, consistent), whereas my old guild seems to still be in a downward spiral. This isn't to say I've completely cut all ties though. I still troll their forum, I provide some insight where possible (game related, I try to stay out of guild affairs as it's just not my business any more) and I truly hope they'll make it out alright still. I have a bunch of my old guildies on MSN and regularly speak with them. I still have one alt (my first main, actually) over there but I must admit lately I haven't really logged in to him all that much, simply haven't had much time for it. By that you can see I left on pretty good terms, I was an overall well-liked person, if I dare say so myself, who contributed a lot to the guild.

In a nutshell, I didn't have fun any more, took a shot by applying for a guild on a realm I literally knew no one on, and it turned out good for me. I pretty much decided before my transfer that if it didn't pan out, I would most likely just stop playing WoW. I'm happy that was not the case .

So, this seems to simply have become my life story with little help for you, I'm sorry about that :p.

 

◊ Abradix

I think this is the most important line said sofar. A game that you pay for, is not supposed to turn into a chore. So you just have to answer one question; Do you want to keep on playing like this? You've allready said you didn't, so that leaves two options. 1) Quit, 2) Transfer to try and get the fun back into the game. If that doesn't work, you can still decide to go with option 1.

Staying because you feel like you have somehwat of an obligation to your guild is noble in one way, but you're going to burn yourself out with it and just quit anyway, if you really feel the way you described above.

 

Andeh

Funny that this thread should pop up just now: I just this week applied for a guild and will be transferring Saturday. For me, the deciding factor was raid schedule. I'm starting a new job, and the last thing I want in addition to stress from work is planning on raiding Thursday/Friday/Saturday. It was a hard decision to leave, since I've been with my current guild over 2 years, but in the end the opportunity to have Friday & Saturday off, while seeing more content, was too good to pass up.

My recommendation: do what you think will make the game fun for you. You will make new friends on new servers, and there's no reason why you still can't talk to or play alts with your old friends on the old server.

 

Tick

It's only been a couple of days after I've been in the same position as Thiris. The factor that tipped the balance for me was the fact this is a pay-to-play game. Either I would continue to pay and find some way to do (at last) what I've always wanted in it, beat all the scripted mobs, or just quit. My real life friends with whom I started the game with aren't playing right now, so you can say this made my decision a lot easier, and my server isn't exactly rich on guilds that can go far in PvE (currently there's one guild in MH, one in SSC, and the rest are struggling on Gruul or Magtheridon, my previous guild all of a sudden decided to migrate to find more players that weren't brain-dead and disbanded shortly after that :/). Sure, I know most of the people there and it doesn't feel good leaving them behind, but there's no way I'm staying there to wipe on Magtheridon over and over again.

So, I did as Raiha described. Started browsing all the guilds that could take me in, weren't too hardcore as I do want some time outside what is, after all, a game, and had a spot for warriors :P We'll see how that is gonna turn out for me shortly

 

Farstrider

I just moved. I have a load of RL mates on my old server, but in the end I realised that I'd still see them around in RL, and the guild that had opened up a spot for me was a pretty exceptional guild (no compulsory raids, no loot rules, no GM, but working on KT).

That said, definitely do your research. Nothing like being stuck on a deadend server with no guild if you fail your trial. Create an alt, level it to at least level 10, preferably level 20, check out the AH, the realm forums, the progress, the ratio of A:H, the rep of the guilds that you are looking at, etc etc. If you do all that, and it still feels ok - not "great", it'll never feel that if you are leaving people you know well, if it feels ok - just go and do it. Say your goodbyes and get it over with. Just my 2 cents.

John O'Groats to Lands End 2009 for Leukaemia Research

 

Giske

Just be careful that you can deliver on what you promise, if you join a guild under false pretense (e.g lying about experience) you'll get kicked pretty fast. We had a resto shaman migrate and join us, even after extensive talks and his assurances that he had T5 experience and knew how to play he turned out to be one of the worst shamans we've ever seen and now hes stuck without a guild on our server. Dont aim for a guild where you cant deliver the goods.

 

Mem

I didn't transfer my toons but I made a reroll shortly before BC was launched, leveling my new rogue right to 60 during the christmas holidays. I didn't know anybody from the realm but for several reasons found a guild that would take my as a prospect for BC raiding. Ok, the guild nearly disbanded (most of the core members left (me including) for several other guilds), but the reason for my transfer was pretty simple: playing on my old realm wasn't fun anymore due to the conflicts that couldn't be solved. The other raid groups on the server weren't attractive for me then (and still aren't).
So if you feel you really need a change, then do it. But be honest to those who you may encounter on your new realm, as Giske said, quite a lot of folks will do some background research.

 

Thiris

I appreciate the amount of replies that I've received since last night when I posted this. I was away from my computer most of the evening after work for a change, and really enjoyed it after my Druid not being wanted for a raid.

I think that a few people have nailed it on the head that there is a lack of "fun" for me in this current state. In a pay to play game, it seems silly to keep three accounts active for something that I really just don't enjoy anymore.

That being said, I am planning on checking out some realm forums, asking around a bit, and it seems like quite a few guilds who are recruiting aren't full of people that I fear I might despise. I would think that the current server that I'm on is full of mouthbreathers, and ther "the grass is always greener..." type sentiment. I know that there will always be annoying people, but if there are people that you can go to and progress and have a great time, I'd think that those are the places that you'd like to be.

I think that each of you who have reponded have brought a different, yet viable view to me, and I appreciate that. I do hesitate using wowjitsu at all, since having a single person who was previously in a higher end guild that then moved to another will artifically bolster their figures. I know it happened with the current guild I'm in, yet since that person has quit, the rating has dropped back down to where it should be.

I am curious to search more active servers, instead of the ghostland that my AH has become.

 

spronk

Take a break from WoW play some other games (Hellgate is coming to beta in 10 days, Bioshock is awesome, Tabula Rasa is in beta). In 2-4 months you can come back to WoW if you choose and see how things are.

 

Bahkauv

Sorry for off topic, but you made me smile ;-) I am a big fan of Lord British, but I refuse to believe anything about Tabula Rasa until I see the package in a store. 6 years ago I was more forgiving. My standard joke regarding Tabula Rasa is, that I´ll play Duke Nukem Forever until TR is published.

 

• Navaash

ahh the good old days of "TRANSFERS GO HOME"

Also fortunately the OP is on a PvP server so this doesn't apply to them, but if you're stuck on a PvE server it might be in your best interests to just cancel until Blizzard relents.

 

Foxery

Part 1: Be certain of two things: That you want to keep playing the game, and that you don't want to do it with any guilds on your current server.

Part 2: Wowjutsu is an amazing tool for finding guilds at your experience level, and the official Guild Recruitment Forum is worth a look. When I found mine before any nice tools like that existed, it was by finding a list of realms which identified PVE/PVP/RP, checking them for time zones, and then taking the time to visit every realm forum.

If they didn't have a "Raiding Progression" thread, I figured they either didn't care or had a lousy community. If they did, I wrote down any realm with multiple guilds who appeared motivated. (i.e. if my first choice falls through, I won't be stuck in a wasteland)

I was *very* certain of what I was going into, that it was the right thing to do, and I wound up in a far better home than anything my old server has ever offered - before or since.

 

spronk

Anyone can get a free TR beta account right now from gamespot (sorry, don't have exact URL on me right now but I signed up a week ago and am playing), and they announced a launch date, mid october I believe. You can also go instore and pre-order for $5 and start playing beta right now as well.

My personal opinion is that its not really a MMO, more like guild wars. Very little content at end-level means fun for maybe a month or two and then nothing left to do.

Hellgate beta starts in a week as well, looking forward to that. No healer classes should be interesting.

 

Thiris

Do you have any information on Hellgate: London's beta? I had no idea that was starting in a week, and sounds like it might be a great resource in getting my mind away from WoW and all that is happening there and either finding that I honestly DO enjoy playing WoW and was just frustrated with my position, or if I don't really like it, but play out of habit.

 

Coriolis

Hellgate london is currently unconfirmed, some people said they got a note saying beta was going to start on 9/17 for people who preordered, but very recently it seems a number of these people got a second email apologizing and saying that it's still unconfirmed by flagship (the developer). And yeah flagship hasn't said anything conclusive about beta yet although I can't imagine it will take much longer - it's coming out oct 31st after all. At which point I will kiss this sorry game goodbye. I'm sure it will be horribly unbalanced but it will be a ton of fun especially with hardcore mode . And for now I'm hoping the promises of new release content will be kept - this is a new company even if it's made by veterans and they really have to uphold their name now, or fail as a company.

I'm somewhat in the position of the OP as well stuck in a guild that tends to have lots of ups and downs, and honestly I can't see any of the other guilds on my server being worthwhile (there are 2 (with a 3rd one slightly ahead) more progressed guilds on the server but I certainly get the vibe that they progress more through plain beating their heads against the wall countless hours rather then actual intelligent strategy and play). It's not that I don't have time - I play too much, but stupid leadership really sucks the fun out of this game for me.

I'd say if you are really interested in playing on, look closely into the guilds you're going to ap. As an example reading over the aps page to EJ you can see that they are quite intelligently written and everything is spelled out very explicitly as to what they expect AND what they provide in terms of how their guild is run. Clearly the person in charge put some serious thought into it, and expects the same back from you. Things like essentially "don't waste our time and we won't waste yours" are a very good and not all that common attitude for a guild to have :P. Of course like a lying app the guild might be projecting a false image of themselves as well but like some people in a previous thread suggested talking extensively to their leadership and listening to their vent on a raid should solidify your impression of what it's really like.

 

Sou

Transferring means you need to create a new social network in the game.
I never thought wow seemed like any fun at all without a social network.

People want different things from their social network but I'd say it's always going to be pretty time consuming to find people who will entertain you, do heroics with you, bgs, arenas, quests, alts etc.
So I guess i wouldn't transfer if I only had time to log on for raids.

I think a lot of people who consider transferring are familiar with enjoying the game but not their situation in the game.
And I kind of think you should put yourself first when transferring. You might be afraid that your departure will be the last straw that causes your guild to fall apart or whatever, and it might fall apart.
But in wow, the fall out isn't so bad. It can be a good thing to let things fall apart.

 

Kokolums

The game is designed such that a player is going to get the most out of their wow experience if they play on a high pop server. A transfer to some place like Mal'Ganis is a smart move. Sure, there are small servers with maybe 1 or 2 hardcore guilds, but that's a tenuous situation. If those 1 or 2 guilds breakup, you are left with no alternative. This happened to me on a toon on the Anub'Arak server. The top 2 guilds imploded and suddenly no guild in my faction had even downed Maulgar. A place like Mal'Ganis is more resistant to those problems. If the top 2 guilds breakup over internal issues, there are 5-6 more guilds in TK+ that will happily absorb the remaining players and be pretty far advanced already.

 

Lymmel

Isn't it true though that being in a server with lots of endgame guilds causes a lot of guild instability too? When I was part of a larger server (AD-EU) our guild was 3rd or 4th raid progress wise on the alliance side and we would constantly have people hop from us to the more progressed guilds and a big amount of people apply to us from guilds behind us. We finally imploded when we lost our mt to a more progressed guild when it was clear we wouldn't do much in naxxramas.

I imagine from the player's pov it's just more options for them, but for me it was kinda disrupting to have a constant influx of players and exodus from others. People had to relearn fights and there was an increased danger of guild implosion every time our raids sucked for whatever reason for a while. Also, even if there are more recruits around, having to recruit all the time is a gamble as the pool of talent is finite in any server.

When I moved servers, I actually looked particularly for a server where I would be in the #1 guild and that guild would be kinda far apart from the next one, not because I like waving my e-peen, but because I wanted to avoid facing this problem again. And it was true, I doubt we have lost more than 1 player from my guild (who transfered to the #1 eu pve-alliance guild because he just wanted to play 7 days and we couldn't offer that) to others. It has made my gaming experience a bit better too, since being with the same group of players makes the game more enjoyable in the long term for me. I suppose it's not a factor for other people though.

Have to admit though that finding recruits sort of sucks, but we seek recruits less frequently than my old guild who had all the hoppers did. We don't have to worry that 'hey, we had 2 sucky raid weeks, let's expect 5 gquits now' effect at all, which helps a bit really since attrition only comes to people being bored of the game or raiding.