Anyone notice that 50% of the PvP servers are Low population and the other 50% are high pop.

Compared to PvE where its pretty much at least normal for the most part.

The FBI might call this a clue but all the small PvP servers xfer to the big ones after initial reroll level progression I know this for a fact that Ive rerolled out of boredom(I raid late nights hard to find a guild) and the exodus happens quite often. Malganis = a reroll or low population horde refugee.

Either way simple solution PvE to PvP but obviously lock full servers because a que is a failure imo.

I think some people are unnecessarily integrating the server population argument into this question. My server is Low Population - always has been, always will be. There are only maybe 6 or 7 total 25-man raiding guilds, and no one has broken into Hyjal or BT yet (although 3 are getting close).

PvE to PvP transfers don't alleviate that problem. That's an entirely separate issue that needs to be addressed by an excess number of servers. Blizzard thinks that a Low Population server is fine, because there's no queue to log on, no lag, etc. - players, on the other hand, struggle to find guilds, can't purchase basic materials or items on their Auction House (we're the only Alliance guild that sells Void Crystals? /boggle), and generally would prefer a larger player base to draw upon.



PvE to PvP transfers just make sense. Or, rather, not having them doesn't make sense - at least, not any more.

If you want to start a separate thread about the need for server consolidation, I'll be up and down that like Malan on Windfury.

You are operating off the assumption that this will only work one way. It very well could have the complete opposite effect. Where raiding guilds suffer on PVE realms is the limited pool of competent recruits. Opening these transfers up would give these guilds a much larger pool to recruit from. Many raiders don't really care what kind of server they are on, and some would even prefer a PVE realm. However, the one-way trip to PVE realms prevents most of these would be transfers from PVP->PVE.

Another thing that I have noticed in this thread is that most of the people talking about how rampant pvp/ganking is while leveling are the ones who enjoy pvp. Most likely they initiated a good portion of the pvp combat while leveling. Those who just tried to level while minding their own business and avoiding camped zones encountered much less downtime from pvp. Not to say it is wrong or bad to engage in pvp while leveling, or that it is possible to avoid all ganking. However, if you don't try to avoid it and actually initiate it I would take that to show that you enjoy pvping while leveling. If that is the case, why do you then try to claim it as a hardship?

What? Why would PVE servers die off? They are currently dieing off right now because YOU CANT GET NEW RECRUITS. Allowing PVE <-> PVP <-> PVE means people can take the risk to apply to a guild, get rejected, and then go back to their lolpvp server. Right now they can't do that; they apply and suck, and they're stuck on PVE servers forever.

The mere thought of playing on a PvE server makes my stomach a little uneasy, but I will tell the truth in saying I have thought "Man I would really like to apply and join this guild, but if I didn't like it I would be stuck on a PvE server forever."

My horror story I xfer to a PvE server cause its a morning raid thats only got kael left at the time and a week later they disband...Now this sucks 2 fold I can only raid night or day is no more on that server at those times.

But here I am perma stuck on PvE now and waiting cooldown and playing alts.....

I only brought up population cause I garantee you one reason those high pop pvp filled up so quick is its your most options to raid....

PvE are advertised as "normal" servers, which tends to drive randoms and casual players to them over PvP. This results in the PvE playerbase talent tending to be spread more thinly across servers, for one thing.

Second, there's the competitiveness argument this thread has brought forth, that more competitive players tend to be on PvP servers because they tend to enjoy that aspect of the game.

Finally, at this point there's also a preconception that PvP servers have better players, so competitive players tend to reroll onto PvP servers, which results in a slow drain of good players off of the PvE collection into the PvP collection.

I think there's a deeper issue here. All the hardcore players seem to be congregating on a few specific servers. Even if you opened up PvE -> PvP servers, we'll eventually see a few servers with a lot of end-game guilds, and the majority of servers with poor progression.

There's no force pushing the high end guilds to spread out. Back in the day, server performance forced high-ends to move to under-progressed servers (ie D&T and Korgath).

It isn't just that by any margin of course though.

There are massive forces and synergies that encourage strong PvE guilds to be on the same server. The AH is robust, the talent base to recruit from is there, the atmosphere is excellent (coming from a server where there is literally no competition and having played EQ on one of the most competitive servers for years, I cannot overstress this enough) and there is presently no downside. I don't think anyone that transferred off a high-pop/queued server to a low-pop one is presently happy.

While I enjoy the irony that has made Horde PvE only really flourish on PvP servers, I will admit that I feel left out at times.

If that's the case. why on earth would anyone on a PvP server be in favour of PvE-to-PvP migration? My server has a very poor pool of experienced players to recruit from (almost anyone who is any good is in one of the top 4 guilds for each faction) but I still wouldn't want a server full of decidedly-average player migrations from PvE servers who think that a PvP server means ez-mode PvE. The truly competitive would reroll anyway - Lord knows Blizzard make it easy for them at expansion by making old gear absolutely obsolete.

I was thinking about the whole high pop/low pop server issue that some people have brought up and I don't think that Blizzard can actually fix this problem. While some people are just bad and end up not really able to raid, there are lots of people who can't raid with particular guilds due to raid times, social style, loot style, whatever and need to shop around to find a comfortable spot.

The issue is that on any server that is somewhat small the list of guilds you can try out with is tiny, and once you have tried with 1 or 2 the others probably know you and you aren't likely to get in with the last couple real raiding guilds available. The chance that you will be a good fit with one of the guilds you try out with isn't very high, and you are left with no choice but to transfer. Clearly if you transfer because you can't fit in on your server you are going to go to the biggest server possible to maximize your options.

No matter how many servers Blizzard merges there will be a constant flow of transfers to the largest servers and the smallest ones will be filled mostly with those who are stuck there or are the sort of person who just does not transfer around. New players and casuals and such will often end up on low pop servers because they don't really know the raiding situation yet so the servers will never completely empty out but there is simply always going to be a very pronounced trend for people to run to the best raiding servers and stay there.

If Blizzard managed to make all server populations roughly equal there would still be a few with slightly better top end guilds and 20% more raiders overall and those would rapidly become destination servers.

I am not particularly offering solutions here, just pointing out that as soon as you allow people to shift servers you end up with high pop servers with heavy raiding populations and low pop servers with dead raiding situations. It is a natural consequence of being able to transfer.

That said, I think PVE to PVP should be allowed. I don't think it would seriously detract from the PVP experience and I can't really imagine more than just a bare few people rolling PVE with a plan to transfer to PVP upon hitting 70. Most people play the game with friends or make friends while playing and won't be doing this. If a couple really hardcore folks want to level grind PVE and transfer, does that really detract from the PVP experience most people get on a PVP server?

Update, nearly done, 45% of the way through 69, and been ganked very little the last few levels

60 - 5 (3 of these were to one 70 warrior, 1 to a 65 rogue, 1 to a low 60's lock)
61 - 3 (didn't notice the breakdown on these, 1 was a 63 hunter)
62 - 3 (all of these were in a half hour period in Zangermarsh from one group of horde from the same guild)
63 - 1 (same level hunter picked me up while i was on low life fighting a mob)
64 - 5 (i'm in terokkar now, get ganked alot by random 70's)
65 - 6 (this is a combo of terokkar and nagrand, lots of higher levels)
66 - 0 (my first 0 death level, was nice, Nagrand and BEM, mostly BEM, and noone goes there except for raid time)
67 - 3 (these were all farming the people for scryer rep in Terrokar, a few quests there, and i got killed a few times by groups doing the escort quest)
68 - 0 (Netherstorm, saw a few horde around, but we left each other alone)
69 - so far no deaths in 69, half way through.

So it seems my theory of being ganked more now that i'm in higher zones is wrong, although i still think Shadowmoon, which i'll avoid till 70, would result in alot more deaths because it's farmed by 70's alot more. But there you go, nearly 10 levels on a fairly busy US server, 26 deaths, less than 3 a level. I got camped only twice, and both times only for about the 10 minutes that i logged onto my bank alt while being camped. Assuming 4 minutes corpse run, and 20 minutes camped, that's 120 minutes of 'death time' from 60-70, or 2 hours. Now my alt is a hunter, so buffing up isn't an issue, just bandage and i'm good to go, i know that on a priest (my main) it's a bigger time sink, but not by a huge amount.

Personally, i think the easiest thing to do is to force the PVE - PVP transferer to have to do something to make those transfers undesirable as a means of levelling up easily. Make a long quest chain, similar to Ony key, that they have to complete before they can transfer. Make them do something so that they make up that 2 hours and more, but aren't 'stuck' on a PVE realm forever. That would at least eliminate the 'time' issue of people levelling on a PVP realm compared to a PVE realm, and make it so that if you want to play on PVP realm, it's quicker to level it there than transfer it across from a PVE realm.

I would just insist that they have leveled a character to cap on a pvp server in the past, OR have 100 days /played on your account. (Number chosen because it's memorable and makes the leveling experience decidedly the minimal portion of your gameplay).

Once you hit 100 days /played on your account, you've probably wasted more than the ~17 hours tedium of leveling ganking doing something equally tedious and silly in wow - I doubt blizzard cares about the quality of your time wasted, and I think running back to broken vaelstrasz or running back to broken c'thun or whatever you prefer as the latest "broken" moment is comparable to 10 minutes on a bank alt while the camper's adhd kicks in. If a new player to the game can reach 70 in (being lazy) 12 days on a pvp server, then transfer to another pvp server, I'm unclear on why a player with 100 days /played is somehow less worthy of a transfer. They've certainly paid blizzard more, and more of it profit, than the new subscriber.

That and if you wanted to level Horde most of the TBC launch PvP servers are so horde dominated they are basically PvE servers.

I think the issue with merging servers is more related to name change problems than to anything else.

That's the reason why Blizzard will not force players to change the server and just tries to fill empty servers but declaring them as recommended.

I think if I was forced to change my main characters name and the name of the guild, I would quit the game. And I am sure others think the same way, on RP servers even more.

Since it is impossible to merge two or more servers without name conflicts, it will never be done.

The only solution are free tranfers too an empty realm and as a long term solution to make it recommended. This will of course not speed up PVE progression quickly and there will never be a strong raiding force on such servers, plus recruiting will always be hard, but I think there is no possible way to prevent this issue.

I agree that transfers should be allowed with some limitations, but how exactly do you want to balance such limits? Another big issue might be economy. On PVE servers with a small raiding core, the price of herbs is usually far lower than on servers with alot of progress. I remember a stack of Gromsblood at Naxxramas times was at 8-10g on our server (with only two guilds in Naxx and both only killing the first few bosses, so consumables where a non-issue), while it cost 50-60g on Magtheridon when Nihilum was clearing Naxx. Such a difference is HUGE. And it means on a low population server, there are far less players farming.

I am sure opening PVE to PVP transfers would result in PVE servers becoming filled more and more with china farmers who will then transfer alts with bags filled with herbs and other raw materials to sell those on the high population target servers and resell the money.


The problem with such "obviously stupid" limitations is always that there are reasons beyond most people's scope that simply make it impossible to change something. Every change has effects on less related issues and as a developer, you always have to consider "the whole" and not only the part you want to see and to be changed.

True, a guildie of mine transferred to Coilfang (following a friend, who was following another friend). He was moaning about the poor state of the Alliance over there, so I took a look, and behold, the reddest Wowjutsu page I have ever seen: WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: Coilfang

I started on one of the PVP servers that was released two weeks before TBC and got to level 46 on my alliance Warlock before my entire guild quit to return to their old servers because the A/H ratio made it impossible to do instances with skilled people. The ratio was something like 40% BE, 40% rest of horde and 20% alliance. To keep my wife happy, I ended up starting a new character on not just a PVE server, but a RP-PVE server. Without question, RP-PVE is the short bus of WoW server types.

In any event, I decided to dust off the old PVP character about a week ago, and even though I am often the only alliance in a zone, I am not getting ganked nearly as much as I expected. I pretty much keep to myself. I'm not guilded and I don't have a dumb name that invites ganking. I'm not even very good at PVP. I am simply trying to get to 70 in a reasonable time frame so I can find a decent raiding guild. I have yet to be ganked by a skull while going from level 46 through 56. Typically the 70's wave or salute and go about their business. In fact, most horde leave me alone except for three specific classes: Hunters, rogues and shadow priests. If I get ganked, 99% of the time it is one of those three classes.

Only twice have I been ganked in a somewhat cheesy manner. Last night, a feral druid and I were killing gorillas in On'Goro. This went on for a few minutes, then I went into the cave alone. A few minutes later, while I'm juggling three mobs and I'm at low health he comes charging in to kill me. I SS res, and start to bandage and he runs away. Whatever. The other time I was in Searing Gorge killing quest mobs just below the FP, and this Paladin would see me and turn around and leave. This went on for 30 minutes, until he spotted me at very low health and mana while fighting a mob and decided this was the time to strike. Unfortunately for him, I was 100xp from dinging. I feared him, killed the mob which dinged me to full health and mana and then I went and killed him.

I won't hit Outland until this weekend, and I'm curious about what to expect once I get into less deserted areas.

I dont remember what newer server it was but I made a human pally there for fun knowing it was a newer pvp server I did a /who 10-29 to see how many people were leveling didnt find more then I think 3. So I did a /who 10-70 and you know what popped up.............?.,..........29 players found...I thought you cannot possibly be serious.

This is probably one of the most disappointing aspects of the game. I couldn't even find people to fight even if I wanted to. 99% of 70s sit in Shattrath or in an instance all day. Some of the most fun I ever had was when the two top guilds on our server (the alliance one I was in) were competing for the green dragons before AQ release. We literally had call rosters where we would start a relay chain to get everyone out of bed or whatever the second the dragons were spotted. I can remember fighting over them for 4-5 hours more than a couple times. I can also remember the nights where raids got delayed by an hour because we were all getting camped outside of BRM/AQ because we showed up 10 minutes later than the Horde guild. I'm not a huge PvPer by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that they continually make this game more and more (I hate to use such a cliche) "carebear" is pretty sad. If its supposed to be a "World" of Warcraft, perhaps the players should protect themselves and others and we should keep "demigod NPCs" out of the picture.

I actually welcome the addition of "peacekeeper" NPCs: not because I am opposed to world pvp, but because managing a raid with summons, subs, disconnects etc. is more than frustrating enough without having to deal with random ganking from opposite faction groups. There is in fact no time that I am less inclined to participate in world pvp than when trying to organise a raid: as any RL can attest to, it is already challenge enough to get everyone inside the instance, repaired, reagented, flasked, and ready to go, without the additional delay of unexpected corpse runs.

The fact that most world pvp occurs at instance zones really shows only that Blizzard has failed to create a compelling alternative (although daily quests at least provide an avenue where maximum level players will tend to congregate, and I think they could -and should- build on this concept, perhaps by integrating world pvp objectives into the daily system).

You made the choice of transferring, not blizzard.

Maybe you should be responsible for your decision.

Because world pvp usually ends up with zerging or being zerged.

Most of the time you don't know that "lowbie" you just ganked have a main in a bigger/stronger guild with many guildies in the area or not. And he would probably/most likely come back with more "red"s, and make what you were doing in the area a living hell.