What is the future of "DEAD" realms? Al'Akir

#0 - Feb. 10, 2010, 9:53 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Can someone lead me to a blue post of some sort? Because i believe it was discussed multiple times.

How it started:

— Historically there were always more horde then alliance (60/40)
— Al Akir was always a realm with some hardcore pvp in mind so when faction change became available top pvpers went horde side and moved their guilds with them.
— This resulted in horde winning WG 9 out of 10 games and reduced experience for Alliance
— Al Akir was also a "locked" realm (means A LOT of people), so after new content recently went live we had 2000 queues in the evening which denied our top PVE guilds from progressing.
— Giving away a free transfer started chain reaction — top pve guilds started to leave. Mostly from alliance side because H:A ratio was already unhealthy.
— Free transfer was closed and now we are stuck with ghost towns and 10/90 A/H ratio.

This results in:

— No one to raid with or group with or make a guild with or chat with
— Our capitals are ghost towns, horde is killing guards with 5m groups and no one is fighting back. Not just guards but auction brokers, flight masters and class trainers.
— More and more people are leaving using paid transfers
— I am afraid to think about Cataclysm leveling as alliance, i doubt that i will be able to experience anything but slaughter
— The realm is empty. Its Dead.


Possible fixes:

— Open free transfer FROM Alliance side so we can leave this sinking ship and stop the frustrating gaming experience
— Open free transfer TO Alliance side and FROM Horde side, so realm doesnt become over-populated and get more alliance players in the process


P.s. What do i do?!?! Woooaaaaa... I am scared, sad and lonely. *Panic*
#27 - Feb. 12, 2010, 10:49 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Our goal for all realms is a healthy population and reasonable faction ratio. If a realm does not have this currently, we either target it with free Character Moves or consider other options such as the PvP to PvE conversion that we recently began with the realm Vek'nilash:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12304662580

To help alleviate the population as well as the Horde dominance on Al'Akir, it has has Horde-only free Character Moves to Trollbane this week. Please see the "Realms & Free Character Moves" thread for more details.

It would help if all future questions about realm population and faction ratios were kept in that thread -- thanks in advance:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12534273785