broods

What a joke. Im leveling my fifth att at a very active pvp server and i get ganked so much you wouldnt beleive. People love to say that we only get ganked 5-10 times to level 70 but i get ganked that much every day while leveling. So now im gonna have to put up with pve rogues transfering and ganking me?

 

Henin

Maybe I'm missing something, but how is the ability for people to leave the PvE realm they're on for a PvP realm going to help PvE guilds on PvE realms?

 

• giansm

It was very difficult for PvE guilds on PvE realms to recruit. The PvP raiding scene is larger and players on PvP servers generally did not want to transfer to PvE servers since they would become "PvExiled" (stuck on the PvE server set and unable to transfer back). Opening up transfers from PvE to PvP means that players will be more willing to transfer PvP to PvE, now that they know it's not a one-way street.

 

seminarca

Because players currently on PvP realms can now safely transfer to PvE realms to join these PvE guilds without getting trapped in the PvE ruleset.

 

Sebalot

My last alt I leveled on a PvP server was perhaps 5-6 months ago or so. I wasn't ganked once until Outland. I don't have any recollection of being attacked by people of similar level more than a few times. Hell, most of the time I went 10 levels without even seeing an alliance player.

Add the new leveling speeds available to players today, making players speed their way to Outland and it is obvious that the idea that the leveling experience on a PvP server being so different is patently false. It is pretty much the same thing.

Most of the resistance to the idea is some petty elitism from what I have seen. Who cares if you got ganked in Tarren Mill 2.5 years ago? Should that really be reason enough that current subscribers should get less value for their subscription fee than you do? Blizzard is doing the smart thing here. The goodwill won is worth way more in the long run than the now habitual cries of "I will cancel my subscription" from the perpetually unhappy.

The only downside is the overpopulation of the Megaservers. But that was already the case.

 

Henin

So if they're unhappy with PvE they can now transfer back with the gear they've picked up on the PvE server... This change screams lose-lose to me for PvE servers already struggling.

 

• Neto-

So you'd rather have PvP server people not transfer to PvE servers at all because they would get stuck there?

That change is amazing, it makes recruitment much, much easier.

 

Henin

If the net result for PvE Guild A is lost loot to said pvp->pve->pvp transfer and an overall decrease in available recruits from their own server due to PvE exodus then this change is a negative one. And just my opinion but I foresee many more people leaving the PvE servers than joining them.

 

• giansm

You're not thinking about this the right way. Imagine you're the leader of a guild on a PvE server, and your challenge is recruiting people to fill a few light spots on your roster. Your guild members are largely loyal, you will probably only lose members if they get bored and quit the game or if something real-life-related comes up. Before this transfer change, you have a big problem because you can't convince any PvP-server player to join your guild, since they're worried that if it doesn't work out they'll be stuck and can't go back to their old server (or another PvP server). Now that transfers are open, you can get that recruit you wanted. This doesn't mean that the recruits you get will be jonesing to get back onto a PvP server, they just want to have that option open if it doesn't work out with your guild (they are rejected during their trial, your guild falls apart, they have a schedule change, etc).

That is basically what is going on.

 

Daenerys

Not to mention that, in the event the guild on the PvE server just can't fill it's roster, they now have the option of moving the entire guild to a PvP server if they so choose. This is win-win all around, and I'm terribly confused how anyone could see it as otherwise.

 

Trouble

As the top PvE Horde guild, we almost never got anyone from PvP servers willing to join us. I think we've had one person in the last year or so come from PvP to join us. We've had more people reroll from alliance than we've had transfer from PvP horde. It was just too much of a risk that their character would end up worthless.

 

Calixtus

I too subscribe to that theory. They recently felt they had to open a new Euro-PvE server, where as there's multiple PvP servers that are struggling hard to achieve criticial raiding mass; You can't recruit, then you can't raid, then you transfer and the problem compounds because now there's less recruiting for everyone else as well, and people aren't leveling fast enough to fill the gaps. The bleed effect is bad enough for some servers without it resulting in a smaller eligible pool for return-transfers.

Overall, I'm inclined to believe the poplation shift will be off PvE servers. Sure, you'll probably enlarge your recruitment base if transfers to PvE isn't a dead end anymore, but consider that we're going from a system where you could potentially recruit anywhere but your potential recruits were limited to the destinations they could leave to, to a system where your potential recruits can go anywhere. If your guild is good enough, you'll get more recruits. If your guild isn't good enough, you'll get less.

 

Uglesh

Overall I think this is LONG overdue. Really the idea that leveling PvP is THAT much harder then on a PvE is laughable. When you have people with 100+ days of game playing what's the extra 4-5 hrs that being ganked adds to the grind?? Seriously people need to get over themselves and end the elitism. It would be one thing if there was any tangible and meaningful penalty to death, but the only penalty is a few minutes running to your corpse. If I think of all the times I got ganked, I would bet half were times when I was mucking around areas I shouldn't have been.... and VERY rarely was the ganking more then a one off.

On a different note, how many people think that this will lead to them closing off some of the lower population servers?? I guess with Wotlk giving more options to smaller groups it will help prevent a mass exodus, but still I can't see many guilds wanting to stick around on servers that are difficult to recruit on.

 

◊ pewsey

This solution isn't for the T1 guilds (sorry Fusion, I still love you all). The problem occurs more for T2 and T3 guilds.

The T1 guilds will always get recruits. T2 and T3 guilds will end up having fewer options, and by opening up free transfers it allows a small guild of PvPers who are currently stuck with nowhere to go to try out a PvE realm.

Speaking as an Oceanic player on a PvE server with a reasonably progressed guild (3/6 - and so close to Twins death), this is the best thing that Blizzard has ever done.

There's a bunch of players on the Oceanic PvP realms that can be potential recruits to a PvE guild. As a number of them have exploded recently - it gives us the opportunity to expand our roster.

There will always be PvP players who want to play on a PvP server. I'm too much of a carebear and enjoy the PvE side far more (but also have a 70 on Mal'ganis as an experiment). I think what will happen is that places like Mal'ganis will be murdered - and Blizzard will have to stop the migration to High Pop servers.

As you say, it now is the quality of the Guild and Players that will determine the flow of players, not a decision that was made 3 years ago when people didn't know what the difference would be.

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

GSH

What Blizzard really needs now is something to push the hardcore guilds outwards, away from each other. The hardcore seem to be congregating on a few specific servers, and I think that's hurting the servers that they are leaving.

In the past, unstable servers and server queues served this function, but that isn't a problem anymore.

 

◊ manly

Well, every since that announcement Mal'ganis is now an unplayable server. Sweet.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Uglesh

While in theory this seems like a good idea, unless you allow A LOT of free transfers people won't want to move from a quality server to a poor one just out of the goodness of their heart.

I think the migration of "hardcore" types to one or two servers isn't a bad thing... The problem will ALWAYS be for the next teirs who don't have the time/dedication to try to recruit outside of their server if they can't fill from within. This will be partially solved as the guild fractures begin when people start focusing on 10 man content. The tricky part will be when those 2nd and 3rd teir guilds try to do 25 mans and can't find people willing to commit. THAT is what i think will be Blizzard's biggest issue in WoTLK. By catering to smaller groups, your joe-average player that filled the last 5 raid spots in many guilds simply won't be there anymore.

 

Axanor

I can't understand why they haven't locked you guys down.

 

◊ Merrack

The entire battlegroup's actually been running like crap all afternoon.

Questions? Answers.

 

Keldin

Yes, people transfer off their PvE realms with a cost of 20 euros to leave everything behind for a month just to gank low level alts. I'm sorry I do not see the logic in this. Frankly, you're just generalizing too much. All this "rite of passage" attitude just gets on my nerves.

Have you ever considered that there are more than some 12 year old AV afking kids out there? There are those few people who regret the fact they rolled on a PvE realm and are too lazy to reroll, because leveling takes time for them even on a PvE realm, plus add the random case of real life friends. And those who transferred off a PvP realm to a PvE one and later regretted it.

 

KamPa

Perhaps "Server First" titles will help with that - even amongst top guilds, some do know they are incapable of competing at that level and might chose some easier place to do so. Probably not a big thing, but it might affect some. Kinda like some people looking for fresh servers to get their Legendary mount.

 

Norfair

They could also offer a free PvP --> PvE transfer to tempt players on overloaded PvP realms to transfer to PvE realms. It's interesting to see what will happen though. Many PvE servers are low populated because people were afraid to transfer to them. I think this change has come too late as there are now probably more PvE players that wanna get off their "dead" realms than PvP players that want to transfer to a PvE realm. Only time will tell.

Keep f**king that chicken.

 

Jackstar

My feeling on the timing of this announcement is that it is designed to encourage the type of player who would be upset about this change to leave for Warhammer.

I briefly scanned the WoW forum thread about the change, and the people complaining about it have the abhorrent personalities and grammar skills that one would expect. I'm sure any one of them could play Warhammer for a mere week and contribute to a miserable experience for dozens of casual players trying out the game.

Irrespective of that, it's about goddamned time regardless. There may have been a time when allowing people to transfer from servers freely would have harmed the game, but that time has long, long since passed.

 

Glayde

It's really the same theory for when they implemented server transfers. (besides the few pvp people who are outraged or whatever)

- It's something people have been demanding for a long time.
- It helps retains subscriptions and is really just good for people to be able to choose to play with friends or whatever
- It makes them boatloads of money.

 

Calixtus

As tempted as I am to use my own bias and say "Why would they do that?" I'll settle for a more logical "Why would that be more likely than a small group of players stuck on a PvE realm transfering the other way?".

Given that the most disenfranchised players on PvP realms have already left for PvE servers, where as equalent on PvE realms havn't had that choice, I'm still very much inclined to believe that the net exchange is going to be less people on PvE realms. Which, consider the decline on some PvP servers, would probably help to spread the load.

Though that pretty much hinges on the assumption that an approximately similar distribution of people who wouldn't mind playing on the other server type - given the right incentative - exist on both PvE and PvP realms, which may very well be an unwarranted assumption on my part. But in the absence of any solid numbers, I don't think it is.


(Having said that, personally, I believe server population management is the biggest threat to the enjoyment of this game that Blizzard has yet to manage to address or make a partially succesfull effort to address. Free migrations from high pop to low pop isn't - at least for the Euro PvP servers I'm aware of - stabilizing the situation as much as it's postphoning the collapse. In no small part I'd say because the people who you'd need to stabilize the low pop servers are by now too smart to transfer to a low pop server, and when they aren't, well, then they seem to be smart enough to transfer back, even if they have to pay for it.

It's also difficult to separate population issues from content issues; "Instances take too long" or "Raid Content is inaccessible". Spending 45 minutes to try to put togheter a semi-competent group means you've already used a significant amount of time. Not being to form raids due to lack of people certainly shows up as "accessibility".)