World of Warcraft®

In specific regards to the sale on realm transferring, I'm curious:

Is anyone leaving this server? Why?
Is anyone moving over to this server? Why?

One of my Horde main's is on CC, and a few other of my alts.
<------This is my Alliance main. I'm just getting back to him since MoP launched.

I'm considering bring him over from WRA.
I'm also considering bringing over my Actual Horde Main, my Goblin Shaman. Totembolt.

Right now though, Arc is my main focus. Leveled my Monk and my Hunter (Troll) to 90, and, well, I just missed this guy...

Oh, wow, didn't mean to go into all that, sorry.

EDIT: Well, here they come!
(Not that I don't already have a mage over here haha! Come to think of it, I've got 2 monks as well...)

I am planning on moving some of my characters to Sargeras, because it is a Central Time server.

I did a realm transfer of my mage that's on WrA from Alliance to Horde, but as per my CC characters, everything is staying the same.

I went over to Wyrmrest Accord during Wrath of the Lich King, when they offered free transfers to a new Pacific Time RP realm. Moved my whole stable of toons over there (most of whom have been moved back, at cost, and a couple were just outright deleted).

It would take something pretty serious for me to pay to move off Cenarion Circle: a massive population dip such that guild recruitment would just be outright impossible, or the presence of someone I'd have to regularly interact with whose mere name showing up in a chat client would make me want to punch a baby.

In short, no, I don't see it happening.

I'm going to do some name changes, but that's it.

Re-arranged a couple of characters between my two accounts, but that's all.

Just transferred here with a few friends. I checked out a few different servers and felt that this was the friendliest group.
Now to find our dream guild for our mains... one that does bgs & raids together, is helpful, friendly & social, maybe even with a touch of RP? But that's a whole different thread!

I came to CC maybe late 2010. I don't see myself transferring off, barring guild collapse or the alliance fracturing tremendously. (Yes, I've seen that happen elsewhere. Entire faction no longer raiding due to some shenanigans.) The fact is I'm sick of server hopping and the wallet-gouging Blizzard is making off it. They need to do something on their end to make things work. CRZ is a step in the right direction, but until they allow us to do current raid tiers and guilding cross-server it's pointless.

The fact is CC has seen a pretty big population dip in the past two years; not enough to affect most people yet, but it's definitely been getting to be a steadier trickle effect. We're about ~one-quarter our population from 2010. (6k alliance down from 20k alliance.)

I know some people that went to Stormrage, but that's not for me (it's an Eastern Time server). If I ever go anywhere, it'll likely be a PST server, hopefully RP-friendly. Don't laugh, Moon Guard is still picking up a lot of steam -- a lot of RP folks tend to centralise and they're actually way ahead of us on progression which is completely new. The only downside is they're a CST server. (Before anyone brings up Goldshire, might I remind you we're already CRZ with Moon Guard. Our Goldshire is their Goldshire.)

Honestly, at this stage in the game (been playing since 2005) I'm more likely to retire playing than transfer.

Edit: To give you an idea, most servers (right now) are in the 2-6k range for alliance population with some of the big six sitting at 12k. Stormrage is sitting at 51k. It's been a huge PVE centralisation. I can't even imagine what the login queue must be like.

It's the last day of the sale and I decided to transfer my only level-capped alt to Ravenholdt. Which means I had to gquit Zlatta's guild. :< Sorry, Zlatta!

Caska, you seem very concerned with server population and PvE progression. I know CC's population is a lot lower than it used to be, but do you think the server is in a bad spot right now because of it? I think your guild is a raiding guild, so is it difficult to get recruits when you need them? Do any raiders in your guild ever try to set up pugs in trade or where ever and find it difficult to fill the pug?
Does the server as a whole not really progressing, even if YOU personally are, bother you that much?

I miss seeing pugs formed almost 24/7 but aside from that the smaller population has not affected me in the slightest. I wouldn't mind hearing experiences from people it has affected, though.

Caska, you seem very concerned with server population and PvE progression. I know CC's population is a lot lower than it used to be, but do you think the server is in a bad spot right now because of it? I think your guild is a raiding guild, so is it difficult to get recruits when you need them? Do any raiders in your guild ever try to set up pugs in trade or where ever and find it difficult to fill the pug?
Does the server as a whole not really progressing, even if YOU personally are, bother you that much?

I miss seeing pugs formed almost 24/7 but aside from that the smaller population has not affected me in the slightest. I wouldn't mind hearing experiences from people it has affected, though.

A little concerned, sure, but tremendously? No. Otherwise I'd have left, right?

It's a thread about server transfers, on or off. As such, it's a thread that runs concurrent to the subject of server health, both ours and others. I find census data fascinating as it's a real metric of what subscribers are experiencing. So my interest is academic.

As to your specific questions, yes, I'm a part of what I would term 'casual raid' guild. I'd say most of CC is casual raiding at the best of times these days. (Remember, if I or someone else wanted different or subjectively better, we could go off-server for it. So it's a choice.) I'd also go a step further in saying the decline in our server population is what's put us in that casual spot more than not. Every raid guild is having some difficulty in recruiting; there's only so much guildless talent out there after all.

The fact is the number of subscribers is falling pretty dramatically and continues to escalate. I'd make an educated guess by saying we're sieving one million a year (from WoW), but at some point that'll start to jump multiplicatively when server pops become unhealthy and adversely affects grouping (in a group-based game).

Re: Pugs. I almost never see pug raids anymore. I don't even see pug dungeons or heroic scenarios much these days. I haven't done Oondasta in 4-7 weeks due to the lack there as well (we used to have multiple groups a week). That could be partly item dispensation already going out and lessened interested due to previous acquisitions (from Oondasta or ToT), or it could just be the length of time since the expansion came out and a trending down of players interested. Similarly, it could just be more are turning to OpenRaid rather than on-server action. Could be a lot of things and it's a fool's errand to correlate it as anything in particular. The fact remains it's lessened, even recently.

Just making observations, really.

Edit: To be clear, at 6k, we're still in a medium-low pop balance with enough to get things done. We'll just see less open/pug raiding and groups. (Which is a shame.) If we ever fall below 4k we're going to see some in-guild problems (if you haven't already). Furthermore, "why does it bother me" -- the server's continued health is always a concern and one I like to be aware of rather than ignoring.

And here Virtual Servers come to save the day and reinvigorate CC.

Looking forward to being permanently merged with several other realms and, hopefully, having an abundance of pugs and RP. My cup runneth over.

And here Virtual Servers come to save the day and reinvigorate CC.

Looking forward to being permanently merged with several other realms and, hopefully, having an abundance of pugs and RP. My cup runneth over.

That will be two of us. I've seen a lot of people calling it server merges. And maybe it is, but as I see it World of Warcraft have too many servers, the community is too fragmented and that problem needed to be addressed. I think Blizz solution is clever, at least technology-wise.

Let's just wish we don't get permanently stuck with a dreadful Goldshire. But then again, that's only one spot in all Azeroth's map.

So I was thinkin' 'bout this virtual realms thing.
It seems like an improved CRZ, which I totally approve of since auction houses and all that jazz would be linked together, not to mention you can join other guilds. An expansion of community!

Assuming we'd be affected by virtual realms (I don't know how it'll be distributed among medium population realms): I looked at our battlegroup and the only server that's in Whirlwind that's also the same type as us and in the same time zone is Blackwater Raiders. Maybe we'd get stuck with them...
I'd be surprised if we somehow got in with Moon Guard, since they're not even a pacific server last I checked not to mention they have a huge population already.

Unfortunately, Aloom, there's just not enough information about Virtual Realms - including if mergers will be restricted by battlegroup and time zone or not at all - to know if it'll be a good thing or not. I really hope it is, but it might be the case that flex raiding solves more issues (especially with the current recruitment problem - have you seen all these threads asking for just one more raider?) than virtual realms does.

I also think we might want to get together as a server and talk about some things before it happens, but I want to wait until after we know more to start that kind of thread.

I'm kind of eagerly awaiting new information on virtual realms as well. If I understand it properly (which I almost certainly don't, given the dearth of information we have), it seems to me to be one more step towards an EVE Online-style "massive single realm" approach. CRZ is spotty, and creates issues for the RPers when we meet someone new, try to go elsewhere for story only to discover our realms aren't merged in that zone.

On the flipside, it means we might just get a permanent Moon Guard presence in our Goldshire. I have no issues with that realm as a whole, but I have definite issues with their Elwynn Forest merging with ours. That issue is bad enough that I've taken to camping out on top of the Lion's Pride Inn and just reporting offenders while I'm waiting for a dungeon queue to pop.

The messed up thing is this: since action is typically only taken if a single account receives multiple reports from different players, I probably run more risk of punitive action for abuse of the reporting system than the offenders do for their actual offenses.

No good deed goes unpunished, eh?

06/27/2013 03:44 AMPosted by Alniyat

I really hope it is, but it might be the case that flex raiding solves more issues (especially with the current recruitment problem - have you seen all these threads asking for just one more raider?) than virtual realms does.

Sometimes I wonder if the raiding community has just slowly killed itself off and made itself unappealing to the point of where it is now. :X In which case, I don't see anything being a huge help. Just maybe things like flexible raids/beer league-esque stuff bringing back old raiders for a few patches.

In regards to speculation on Moon Guard... like how some players and I were kinda agreeing last night, we'd be surprised if they merged a Full realm with anyone else. It just makes more sense to merge Medium and Low realms with each other.
Though that might just be my wishes talking.

Anyway, speculation is good. Gets the brain running.