20/01 Realms and Migration

Previous thread: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12227743345&sid=1

New Player realms
Normal/PvE: Eonar
PvP: Xavius

Free Character Migration (FCM)
The below FCM is available until January 26th 2010.

From: Al'Akir, Burning Legion, Frostmane, Grim Batol, Outland, Ragnaros, Ravencrest, Stormscale, Sylvanas
To: Bladefist, Chromaggus, Genjuros, Xavius

From: Argent Dawn
To: Moonglade, The Sha'tar, Steamwheedle Cartel

Please note: FCM is opened based on realm population tracking and analysis, not by request. If you're looking for a specific migration (from realm A to realm B), you are in most cases better off using Paid Character Transfer, or you could end up waiting for a very long time.

Paid Character Transfers (PCT)
All English realms follow the regular PCT rules, found here:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/faq/paidcharactertransfer.html

Q u o t e:
Oh dear.

Excuse me, not requesting, merely asking - how does exactly the "realm population tracking and analysis" work? This is concerning the migration pool of Argent Dawn, and my point is, I'm looking at the numbers on WarcraftRealms.com as I write, I see that Argent Dawn has seen ~31 thousand characters during the last 30 days, while the pooled realms oscillate around 15 thousand average.

What stands out, is Earthen Ring, the only non-pooled English RP realm, with almost 6,5 thousand characters... Just my personal opinion, but wouldn't it be logical to open the FCM from AD to ER, in addition of the above?

I'm asking, 'cause, uh - me, my small guild and a handful of friends are kind of hoping for that to happen since Argent Dawn was picked for FCMs back in December, and we really would like to reinforce Earthen Ring's RP community.

I know it's in your interest to relieve Argent Dawn from some stress. Again, not a request - hoping my question can be answered. :)

For a start, let me just clarify again that the numbers you see on third party sites are not to be relied on. We have the exact numbers here, unfortunately these aren't for sharing. What I can share though is that even though Earthen Ring could still fit a few more people before it got to Argent Dawn population levels, the other RP realms (Steamwheedle Cartel, The Sha'tar and Moonglade) have more space for an influx of active players.

Earthen Ring has been a destination for Argent Dawn FCMs before, though (last time was at the start of November 2009), and it might be again. So keep your eyes peeled, but please be aware this reply is in no way a promise.

We have a lot of new source realms this week, which we know will be appreciated by more people than usual weeks. Yes, Kazzak is not on the source realm list this week as we are concentrating on other realms with queues at the moment, but it is quite likely to appear in the FCM in the near future.

Q u o t e:
Was there ever any more talk about that realm "Fizzcrank" that appeared on the armoury? Wondered if it was confirmed as something for testing or if there were any plans to open it as a player realm in the future.

There is no realm called Fizzcrank so it looks like the armory is incorrectly saying there is. We'll pass this on to our web team. Thanks for the heads up!

Q u o t e:
Okey now , the migration is succesfully done.

Great, thanks for following up. :-)

Q u o t e:
I have to admit that currently i'm quite dissapointed how this turned out.

in the beggining of the week there was a transfer out from Al'Akir to Shattered Halls and few other realms. So i decided that i'll move my 4 chars away to Shattered Halls, quietly hoping that Ragnaros will get Shattered Halls as option to in near future.

Now my guild in Ragnaros is planning to make a move to new server Chromagus or some other... And what makes me sad is that Al'Akir and Ragnaros both can choose same servers now.

In the end I now have 4 chars in Shattered halls thru FCM from Al'Akir and 1 char i transfered with PCT to Ragnaros from Al'Akir :( Wish there were any other option than PCT to get my 4 chars to new FCM servers offered right now.

That's unfortunate and I feel for you. It is unlikely there will be FCM from Shattered Halls any time soon, as the population is higher or the factions are less balanced on other realms and so we focus on those first. Sorry to disappoint you. :-(

Q u o t e:
I dont mean to pester im just asking nicely as im sure they're are many other players on kazzak who want to get away from that egotistical jam packed realm.

It's okay, we understand your frustration with the queues and we do empathise. That is why in a previous reply to this thread we mentioned that it is quite likely Kazzak will receive an FCM soon. (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12304210972&sid=1&pageNo=2#31) We have to be careful not to risk overloading the destination realms, so even though we have had more source realms this week than we have for a long time we still needed to limit it somewhat. It's fair to expect that we will switch around some of the source and destination realms again next week. As always, things can change so this is unfortunately not any kind of promise.

Q u o t e:
Hello blizz employees,

Me and my guild migrated to Burning Steppes on Sep 2009 when a FCM arrised.
Since that time until now, no more FCM opened to our realm.

Do you guys know how's the Alliance side on Burning Steppes?
Ok, i'll give you a brief in 3 lines:
- One serious raiding guild - The Survivors (me and my guild)
- Two 'casual' guilds, which the best progress of one of them is 1/12 in ICC25.
- A few players that you can't find in Dalaran between the hordes.

Wintergrasp? 20 stacks of Tenacity.
Auction House? Yes, the Tanaris one.
BTW, did you know that Ironforge is a horde city on our realm? Yes usually there are more hordes there than alliance.

So I would like to understand why isn't Burning Steppes listed on the Alliance destination realms.
Thank you.

There are no "Alliance destination realms" at all actually, as there are no faction specific FCMs this week. Instead we are concentrating at the moment on realms with queues.

Q u o t e:
I know that there aren't faction specific FCMs atm, but they could exist and solve the queue problems as well. [...] Thank you

it is the first week for a while that we've not had faction FCMs, so it's just a temporary pause and it is quite likely faction specific FCMs for realm faction balancing will occur again in the future. Taking one exceptional week as the rule is not really giving the full picture of what has been done for all the other weeks we have had FCMs.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feedback on FCMs; we also carefully monitor them and are well aware of what works and why. We wouldn't open FCMs if we did not know they were useful -- people do use them and they have improved issues with population or balance on many realms.

Q u o t e:
It was an unofficial Russian realm - no longer exists. Probably just copied an old list of the BG its in as its that battlegroup which has an extended maintenance.

Yep this has now been corrected (read: removed) in the breaking news.

Q u o t e:
A possible extension or new realms would be posted tomorrow I assume?

Just like clockwork each week. :-)

Q u o t e:
Please extend this migration for 1 more week!

Extensions cannot be guaranteed, so if you're keen to move, do it today before the FCMs are over for this week. Some might re-occur for the next set of FCMs, but we'd hate to see you taking a bet and losing.