Oh shit, Trammel comes to WoW

[WindupAtheist]

Not really. Or at least, only on one server. (Link)

As part of our continued efforts to balance the World of Warcraft player population across all realms, we will be converting one of our lower-population PvP realms – Dentarg – to a Normal PvE realm. For players on Dentarg, we will be offering Free Character Moves to alternate PvP realms both before and for several weeks after the conversion takes place. This will allow us to continue to support healthy communities on the realms and help new players transition easily into the community.

I get the impression they're really doing everything they can to avoid any "WoW closes server" headlines.

[caladein]

Looking at its WarcraftRealms stats, Dentrag's Alliance population is probably pretty dreadful.  It's also reasonably old, coming up in March 2006.

I imagine by switching it to PvE and getting the Horde PvPers to transfer off they can add it to the Recommended list to pump up the Alliance population.  If this goes well, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these happen around Cataclysm launch along with a token number of new servers so they don't add more capacity than they need over the next two years, again.

[Ingmar]

This isn't the first server they've converted, I don't think - it might be the first US server though.

[Lakov_Sanite]

This thread did not deliver.

[Morat20]

This thread did not deliver.

No, it really didn't. In fact, I think we should sue the thread title for false and misleading advertising.

There's not even a chart.

[WindupAtheist]

It's not my fault that this sort of thing isn't as fun as it used to be. All of my usual foils have long since lost the urge to flame. It used to be that I couldn't even mention PVP as a concept on these forums without one of the usual suspects leaping out of the woodwork to froth and babble about how I was an evil carebear who should choke on a thousand cocks and die. These days they won't make a peep even when baited. The closest we got was a while back when we had a couple of people waxing indignant at my implication that class balance and gear have something to do with Arena success.

Hey fuckers. There's an alternate universe out there somewhere in which all the population balancing gimmicks in UO were failed attempts to get people into Trammel, Shadowbane and Darkfall are huge hits, 80% of Eve players aren't craftards living in Empire space, and WoW attempts to jumpstart desolate PVE servers by enabling ganking. Suck my balls. /troll

Anyway, it's pretty obvious that PVP realms serve no real purpose at this point. Every PVE server has people getting ganked in Wintergrasp and city raids happening on a semi-regular basis. The only thing a PVP server adds is lowbie ganking. With everyone level 60 and up being able to fly everywhere come Cataclysm, it's only going to get worse. Drop out of sky, one-shot newbies, fly away, rinse and repeat. But hey, it's okay because anyone who doesn't like it can level to max in dungeons and Battlegrounds, or just transfer over at max level from a PVE realm, making the whole thing meaningless anyway.

[Ingmar]

Theoretically, world pvp on pvp servers will be revitalized by Catacylsm having a Quel'Danas style daily hub.

Or at least that is what people seem to be hoping. I don't really care myself, since I don't play on pvp servers.

[Simond]

Theoretically, world pvp on pvp servers will be revitalized by Catacylsm having a Quel'Danas style daily hub.

Or at least that is what people seem to be hoping. I don't really care myself, since I don't play on pvp servers.

Nah, "world pvp" (in the usual sense) will be "revitalised" by having flying mounts all over the world so bored L85s can literally drop out of the sky to gank newbies.

[caladein]

I like playing on a PvP server, if only because when I briefly transfered to a PvE one to join a new raiding guild, I felt like there was something missing.  Seeing an enemy player come into where you're questing or farming, having to keep an eye on them, and making sure not to leave yourself overexposed while still getting done what you went there to do is fun in the quantities that it usually happens after the initial leveling rush.

There's less of the fun version of that now since the places that are great to farm in are also the places were other players are incentivized to kill you outright instead of just going after the same resources.

I could do without the lowbie ganking, idiotic fights outside raid portals, and people's idiotic reactions to those events, but I still wouldn't choose a PvE server over a PvP one in the abstract.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Looking at its WarcraftRealms stats, Dentrag's Alliance population is probably pretty dreadful.  It's also reasonably old, coming up in March 2006.

I imagine by switching it to PvE and getting the Horde PvPers to transfer off they can add it to the Recommended list to pump up the Alliance population.  If this goes well, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these happen around Cataclysm launch along with a token number of new servers so they don't add more capacity than they need over the next two years, again.

LOL 400 Alliance v. 4000 Horde, sounds like that server has some competitive WG battles.

Seriously, though... I'm glad I'm on ol' crappy Turalyon after seeing those numbers. We don't have WG much (Alliance), but at least we have enough people to get it at a time other than 3 a.m. or so, when everyone else is asleep. These poor schmucks would never have it except maybe then.

[Merusk]

Alleria is nearly as bad on the ratios, with no hopes of rebalancing.  The ratio used to be 4:1 but more and more Horde transfer off every day since they can't even maintain a single viable 25m raid guild.  WG is a joke, no need to even try, and the world PVP of Cata will only make things worse.  With 14k players on the server they can't add it to the "recommended" list like Dentrag.    I wonder how true this is of other release day servers that had a bad pop balance to begin with.

If this works, I wonder if they'll use it to "fix" Archimonde as well.

[Threash]

I like playing on a PvP server, if only because when I briefly transfered to a PvE one to join a new raiding guild, I felt like there was something missing.  Seeing an enemy player come into where you're questing or farming, having to keep an eye on them, and making sure not to leave yourself overexposed while still getting done what you went there to do is fun in the quantities that it usually happens after the initial leveling rush.

This.  I just came back to the game and even on a pvp server it was weird seeing everyone mostly leave each other alone while leveling, i was happy to make the world a better place by killing the shit out of every horde i saw while i leveled to 80.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

There are more humans on Alleria than there are total characters on Dentarg or Archimonde. 

[Shrike]

The closest we got was a while back when we had a couple of people waxing indignant at my implication that class balance and gear have something to do with Arena success.

Ask any enhance shaman with half a clue about this and you'll get an earful.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's not my fault that this sort of thing isn't as fun as it used to be. All of my usual foils have long since lost the urge to flame. It used to be that I couldn't even mention PVP as a concept on these forums without one of the usual suspects leaping out of the woodwork to froth and babble about how I was an evil carebear who should choke on a thousand cocks and die. These days they won't make a peep even when baited. The closest we got was a while back when we had a couple of people waxing indignant at my implication that class balance and gear have something to do with Arena success.

If UO players had the option to transfer to a non-trammel server there's wouldn't have been the SWG NGE levels of fuss, sure, some rpk's would have complained about easy targets going, but fuck em. 

As clearly demonstrated in this thread with Blizzard's implementation of a server move using the totally revolutionary idea of giving paying customers a choice, it pays to build the technology into the game to allow said choice.  Just as it's unlikely that future games will not have the facility to rename characters, yet that's how it used to be (e.g. the "Cupid Stunt" character in AC1).

It's also unlikely that an extreme change of playstyle will be forced on existing players as with UO & SWG without giving them an opt out, as server transfers are now standard, so Trammel is a dead issue (except for when Mythic want to drum up some interest in a dead game), plus I thought we weren't allowed to discuss it, never mind start a thread on it?

[Xanthippe]

I am surprised that the server clusters have not been readjusted.  Somehow I assumed when they clustered into battlegroups, that Blizzard would revisit and possibly change the clusters around if they found horrible imbalance.  Or maybe I read it somewhere.

They haven't done any switching around, have they?

[Fordel]

I think the server clusters are actual geographical splits of hardware? That's why they seem to be organized how they are, or something.

[caladein]

I think the server clusters are actual geographical splits of hardware? That's why they seem to be organized how they are, or something.

Yes, US Battlegroups have all their servers in the same datacenter (source).

[WindupAtheist]

stuff

You took this way too seriously. I hadn't heard about ruleset-swapping on live servers before, so I made a thread on the topic while making fun of my own history and trolling a bit. That's all. It's cool.

[Arthur_Parker]

The differences between the PVE and PVP rulesets are negligible and have been ever since they introduced battlegrounds.

[Paelos]

I don't even see the point in having PvP servers anymore with the way the game is structured.

[Brennik]

They did that PvP-to-PvP switcheroo on my server (Vek'nilash-EU) in February. Population wise that saved the server since they indeed did mark it as Recommended for new players. PvP wise, well, going from "meh, there's no Allies to fight" to "Meh, can't fight anyone anyway" didn't really matter. It's taken quite long for Alliance raiding guilds to get established, don't think any have transferred here either, but seems they're slowly getting there.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't even see the point in having PvP servers anymore with the way the game is structured.

There really, really isn't.  World pvp outside cities or zones like WG is completely pointless and one-sided. 

[Nebu]

"World PvP" is little more than cap level players ganking alts trying to level.  Weeeeee fun.  The worldly objectives to engage in competitive pvp just aren't worth the time.  This is a PvE game at its core.  PvP is little more than a brief distraction.  I know it held my interest for a month.

[Shrike]

"World PvP" is little more than cap level players ganking alts trying to level.  Weeeeee fun.  The worldly objectives to engage in competitive pvp just aren't worth the time.  This is a PvE game at its core.  PvP is little more than a brief distraction.  I know it held my interest for a month.

This.

Last time I tried to engage in a little PvP world stuff out in Terrakar all it did was bring in the 80s. Initially it was my 68 paladin and a couple of mid-60ish hordies, but then an 80 orc shaman showed up to ruin it all. So I had to get my 80 DK and teach him the rules of the road, which devolved into me corpse camping him for an hour. Not what I had in mind.

On the other hand, Honor Hold riots can get kinda fun, but it is hell on the folks just trying to level past Hellfire. Or the hordies hassling the gnomes in IF when a Gnomer event spawned in at the end. Now that got exciting, but it was rather hard on the lowbies. Although, why they'd flag up in there...dunno. Excitement is where you find it, I guess.

[Zetor]

I had a few pulse-pounding world pvp encounters, and there are few more satisfying pvp moments than turning the tables on some wannabe ganker and killing him in the face (maybe even camping him for a bit). However, 95% of all pvp encounters are decided before they even start.

Even level 80 vs level 80 you get the occasional guy decked out in the best arena gear and top-end pve stuff obliterate people doing dailies. What fun! I know I can 2-shot people on my destro lock when we're both in pve gear... without letting them fight back, even 

[Paelos]

I can make meaningful consequence world pvp very simply. Put in one central small town in the middle of map that has a selectable port. It brings up a menu, and it can port you to any zone on the continent instantly. Also, have an inns near it.

Then, make that point capturable.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I can make meaningful consequence world pvp very simply. Put in one central small town in the middle of map that has a selectable port. It brings up a menu, and it can port you to any zone on the continent instantly. Also, have an inns near it.

Then, make that point capturable.

Now imagine what  the lag would be like in dalaran if all those players were fighting eachoher

[Paelos]

Except players would be using it as a porting place, not a fucking around point. Don't put all the other city shit in there, like vendors and AH and bank. Just ports.

[Rendakor]

With no AH, Bank, trainers, etc. it wouldn't get as packed as Dal. It'd be like WG pre-nerf, which was only REALLY laggy on Tuesday because VoA had just reset. Granted, Andorhal is only Medium Pop, but it was worth the lag for the epic battles we used to have.

[Rasix]

"World PvP" is little more than cap level players ganking alts trying to level.  Weeeeee fun.  The worldly objectives to engage in competitive pvp just aren't worth the time.  This is a PvE game at its core.  PvP is little more than a brief distraction. 

Heh, these were my thoughts going into WoW during the first beta.  Well, except for the objectives part, those didn't exist yet. 

As an aside (thank you links in this thread), my server has gotten fairly horde dominated.  We not anything like some of the problem cases, but what was a 1.3 alliance for every one horde has changed into a 1.6 horde to every alliance. 

[Shrike]

I had a few pulse-pounding world pvp encounters, and there are few more satisfying pvp moments than turning the tables on some wannabe ganker and killing him in the face (maybe even camping him for a bit).

Had one of these on Kargath a while back. Friend of mine at work has a few friends over on Kargath, horde side. So we made some DKs to go hang with them off and on. I was on after work leveling my BE DK and decided I needed that sword from Halaa, being about that level. Of course, it's in alliance hands, so I start in on the bombing runs. I'm slowly making progress and a NE hunter shows up. I see him while circling in for a landing at the bomb cart and think, yeah, this guy is going to try it. I'm 65. He's 70.

Sure enough, as soon as I hit the ground he sends the pet in. Not too smart, but it is what it is. I'm a blood tank with quest gear. So I DG his ass in and it's on. Fortunately, the guy doesn't have much of a clue and I beat him down. 5 levels. Took every trick in the DK book, but I'm still standing at 20% health at the end. Pretty cool. Before round two could get under way, about a half dozen 80 fellow hordies show up and I get my sword without further drama.

[Slayerik]

It's not my fault that this sort of thing isn't as fun as it used to be. All of my usual foils have long since lost the urge to flame. It used to be that I couldn't even mention PVP as a concept on these forums without one of the usual suspects leaping out of the woodwork to froth and babble about how I was an evil carebear who should choke on a thousand cocks and die. These days they won't make a peep even when baited. The closest we got was a while back when we had a couple of people waxing indignant at my implication that class balance and gear have something to do with Arena success.

Hey fuckers. There's an alternate universe out there somewhere in which all the population balancing gimmicks in UO were failed attempts to get people into Trammel, Shadowbane and Darkfall are huge hits, 80% of Eve players aren't craftards living in Empire space, and WoW attempts to jumpstart desolate PVE servers by enabling ganking. Suck my balls. /troll

Anyway, it's pretty obvious that PVP realms serve no real purpose at this point. Every PVE server has people getting ganked in Wintergrasp and city raids happening on a semi-regular basis. The only thing a PVP server adds is lowbie ganking. With everyone level 60 and up being able to fly everywhere come Cataclysm, it's only going to get worse. Drop out of sky, one-shot newbies, fly away, rinse and repeat. But hey, it's okay because anyone who doesn't like it can level to max in dungeons and Battlegrounds, or just transfer over at max level from a PVE realm, making the whole thing meaningless anyway.

Missed ya WUA. Nice to see you are still obsessed.  Now go back to holding hands with your Night Elf boyfriend on your PVE server. PVP servers were cool because it was fun to watch things escalate. One lowbie gets ganked by a 60. He would call his friend in. After about 15-20 minutes, it was an all out Horde vrs. Alliance slugfest at Tarren Mill.

Ah, good times here in memory lane.

[Brennik]

I'm so gonna get flak for this but: 9/10, would read again.

[Arthur_Parker]

PVP servers were cool because it was fun to watch things escalate. One lowbie gets ganked by a 60. He would call his friend in. After about 15-20 minutes, it was an all out Horde vrs. Alliance slugfest at Tarren Mill.

Ah, good times here in memory lane.

The Tarren Mill battles wouldn't have lasted though, people would have got bored eventually.  I liked them because they were unbalanced and therefore unpredictable, but they only escalated as they did by accident, not because Blizzard planned any of that.  I wouldn't be surprised if they rushed battlegrounds just because what was happening was unexpected, flight masters were killable then weren't they?