
Here we go lads
link
We kind of already knew this by proxy, since Blizz promised that all layers would be flattened before Phase 2, and they already announced Phase 2. Some of us have been wondering what they're going to do on the bigger servers, and it looks like they're just going to rip the band-aid off and get it done with.Blizzard Entertainment
Tuesday, November 12 – All Realms to One Layer
With scheduled weekly maintenance beginning at 7:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday, all WoW Classic realms will be set to a single-layer. We expect some realms listed above to experience long queues after this step. We especially encourage players on Arugal , Faerlina , Herod , and Whitemane to use the Free Character Move service to avoid excessive queues.
They're also opening another round of free character transfers. My favorite comment about this over there so far:

I really hope these character transfers are faction specific.


I transferred months ago from Grobbulus to Deviate Delight. Best decision I've ever made. Love the community on there. I think people should stop being so worried about 'dead' realms. If a realm's population ever got that bad, I doubt Blizzard wouldn't take action.


I would imagine both Grobb and DD have solid communities, it is RPPVP after all. I'm glad I stayed on Grobb, but if I ever level a horde alt it will obviously be on DD. How are the RP and PVP scenes over there? And how's the faction balance?
Vennrick - Human Warrior
Keatts- Human Rogue
Grobbulus - US

I had the biggest guild on Firemaw (in terms of xp and population) and I tramsfered from Firemaw to Earthshaker. Best decision I ever made. No mafia, plenty of guilds to choose from and we can actually camp BRM without insane lags. Plenty of people to recruit and it's actually good to be able to farm things on off-hours while seeing a lot of people on the peak hours, as it should be.
The only thing that's a bit worse than a full pop realm is the AH but even that makes finding good items on the AH more exciting. There is literary no downside to moving to a medium pop realm.
On Firemaw there was no server politics that mattered. One guild could literary work with the Alliance and there would be no repercussions because the other 40 guilds either didn't know or didn't care. WPvP was shit either because of layering or because one guild had to work with at least 5 other guilds to stop the other 10 from getting anywhere. It's hard enough to manage two raiding teams without people having to bother with Teamviewer at work. We actually have a community where we know each other, both on the Horde and the Alliance side of things.
I'm kinda bummed out the tramsfer option is still up for Earthshaker. Realm is fine as is. Screw all the naysayers with "dead realm" memes.

You guys think this will enable paid char transfers to be added?

The whole point of having so few realms is to avoid dead realms. Once the megaservers are reduced to single layers and queue times reach unbearable heights, many people will take the easy way out and transfer. I wouldnt be surprised to see a bunch of smaller guilds transfer.

Deviate Delight #1 Dad server.
On a serious note. DD had a bit of a draught earlier on. People wanted that phat queue because "muh population". So DD got neglected a bit. But its been rising more and more as time goes on.
I love deviate delight. Perhaps on the most organic servers ive ever played on. No one planned to play on this server, no ones rushing to beat all content. The "Top" guild isn't hardcore in anyway. Most people are having a great time. If you want to play on a RP-PvP server that has one of the most relaxed communities and friendly raiding environment, deviate delight is for you.


You've got me largely convinced except no one has talked about population balance yet. Care to enlighten me?Caspus wrote: ↑5 years agoDeviate Delight #1 Dad server.
On a serious note. DD had a bit of a draught earlier on. People wanted that phat queue because "muh population". So DD got neglected a bit. But its been rising more and more as time goes on.
I love deviate delight. Perhaps on the most organic servers ive ever played on. No one planned to play on this server, no ones rushing to beat all content. The "Top" guild isn't hardcore in anyway. Most people are having a great time. If you want to play on a RP-PvP server that has one of the most relaxed communities and friendly raiding environment, deviate delight is for you.
Vennrick - Human Warrior
Keatts- Human Rogue
Grobbulus - US

Maybe like 60/40 Ally-Horde from last I looked. That was a month ago though, might be more 50/50 or closer to it.


I find it really fcking irritating that blizz doesn't just publish the server populations. It would also be so simple to measure the character transfers faction specific as so many have said already
Vennrick - Human Warrior
Keatts- Human Rogue
Grobbulus - US

I agree. My realm is still layered. Im super curious what that means for server queues as soon as they pull the plug on layering. We'll find out soon.
2000 IQg0bledyg00k wrote: ↑5 years agoNever making a single investment again until I 100% know it pays off.


Seems like raid teams should plan on dusting off their team viewer installations to beat login queues this week just in caseStfuppercut wrote: ↑5 years agoI agree. My realm is still layered. Im super curious what that means for server queues as soon as they pull the plug on layering. We'll find out soon.



Yeah, raid day means leaving PC on and running team viewer again. I haven't missed that, but I am there for the long term goals anyway so leaving Firemaw ain't a option.

Update: Blizzard introduced faction-specific server transfers!
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t ... ves/357529
With the coming server squish, free transfers are back for another round. Many servers are only allowing horde characters to transfer off. My server is one of them. Fairbanks has been pretty badly biased towards the horde. I am interested to see how much this helps improve the balance heading into the honor system.


The server finally feels alive!!!! Welcome to Classic brothers, welcome home!
2000 IQg0bledyg00k wrote: ↑5 years agoNever making a single investment again until I 100% know it pays off.



Ugh I'm so glad I chose a server that never had queues, even at launch. With the limited time I have to play would be reduced to no time at all.
I had this problem back on retail during one expansion release, can't recall which one. But I had to get teamviewer(I think it's called) on my computer and smartphone, leave my computer on when I left for work and access my comp through my phone an hour before I got off work so I was able to play when I came home.
Ten Storms EU Alliance
Finnigan - Dwarf Hunter Lvl 30
Portalmaster - Gnome Mage Lvl 19
Shaelur - Dwarf Paladin Lvl 22
Shaelus - Night Elf Druid Lvl 50

They weren't that bad on Firemaw, we only had about 1.2k queue at 20:00 server time, it was just layer removal, no new content.
I expect it to be worse on thursday...
Also thursday is our main raid day so it gonna be interesting


Luckily I had no queues at all last night when i logged in. It was around 22:00 so usually a quite busy time.
Perhaps that's another advantage of playing on a carebear server ^^



How did your queue or lack there of go for Tuesday Reset Day? There was about a fifteen minute one for Grob Mob, nothing too bad for a Tuesday on patch week. With all the hype and official statements about all layering being removed, I'm actually happy to see a queue.
I still do not know what is going on with capital cities and BRM. They seem like they have zone boundaries and some kind of sharding tech still in place even though the layering tech shouldn't be there. Maybe there is still some remenant turned on until Thursday.
For example, PVP battles are still unmanagable, even though in an interview the guys John Hite and Brian Birmingham said their servers could handle much more. That seems to be incorrect. I hope they fix the lag in pvp battles and city raids before the first world boss spawns and it crashes the servers from pvp fighting.

Idk man, IF was more packed last night than I've ever seen it, I'm pretty sure layering is off.Baal wrote: ↑5 years agoHow did your queue or lack there of go for Tuesday Reset Day? There was about a fifteen minute one for Grob Mob, nothing too bad for a Tuesday on patch week. With all the hype and official statements about all layering being removed, I'm actually happy to see a queue.
I still do not know what is going on with capital cities and BRM. They seem like they have zone boundaries and some kind of sharding tech still in place even though the layering tech shouldn't be there. Maybe there is still some remenant turned on until Thursday.
For example, PVP battles are still unmanagable, even though in an interview the guys John Hite and Brian Birmingham said their servers could handle much more. That seems to be incorrect. I hope they fix the lag in pvp battles and city raids before the first world boss spawns and it crashes the servers from pvp fighting.
Vennrick - Human Warrior
Keatts- Human Rogue
Grobbulus - US