Don't just lock us! give response! Save BF!

#0 - Nov. 5, 2007, 5:53 p.m.

Hello there,

The Bladefist realm of Europe is in desperate need of your attention. We feel like our population is getting lower and lower by the day, due to people migrating away from us because on Bladefist as it stands today, it is pretty much impossible to get anything done. Not enough 70s to focus on real PvE progress, hell...not even enough players to get an instance done each day, and you can defenitly forget about PUGing an heroic.

Id like to bring your attention to the Bladefist forum, where a post like this has already been started and commented on: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=771509804&sid=1

From that topic, I would also like to quote to you the post of one of the Bladefist members:

Q u o t e:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1468607482&sid=1
Al'Akir, Burning Legion, Magtheridon, Shadowmoon, Twilight's Hammer are getting FREE transfers to Dragonmaw, Haomarush, Kor'gall (Some spanish servers to), starting today.
Any1 knows if those servers are worse than Bladefist?

Edit1:
Dragonmaw got 17 guilds killing void reaver, 8 on/killed Vashj and 3 guilds in BT.
Haomarush got 18 guilds that killed void reaver, 9 on/killed Vashj and 2 guilds in BT.
Kor'gal got 16 guilds that killed void reaver, 8 on/killed Vashj and 4 guilds in BT.
Bladefist got 12 guilds that killed Void reaver, 3 on/killed Vashj and 1 guild in BT.
I dont know if its that this server generally lacks raider or skill or if we just lack the amount of players.

Edit2:
According to Warcraftrealms.com:
Bladefist has an population of 2 747 lv 70:s
Dragonmaw 4 338
Haomarush 4 352
Kor'gal 2 426
(WarcraftRealms.com is not 100% right bla bla bla etc etc, but Warcraftcensus is down and i cant find an better website.)

//Balins

Q u o t e:
/signed
/agree

It sucks the Bladefist was once one of the best servers around... so much so that people used to hear 'legends' about us and wanted to roll here because of everything going on.

Then the lag hit, and instead of solving it, you opened Outland... Nice job. Killed Bladefist tbh.

About time we had free migrations open from some overcrowded servers to bring some new life here! It's getting harder and harder to fight off the dimming lights of this once great server, with people migrating every day...

...Don't let our legend server die :'/

By Sardonyx

Q u o t e:
Hi!

I agree with most of the thoughts posted here. Everyday I login into my account, and hope I will come online and see things got better. But no. Curently Bladefist has got around 1950 players, and that number is droping with warp speed. Simple example, which many already have pointed out, that it is simply impossible to find a group for dungs, and HC dungs are wilder dreams than ones with Jessica Alba :S Not to mention overall slow PvE progress.

With so many obvious problems, the thing that really kills me is the fact that Blizzard isnt even reacting. Not a single blue post about this very big and still growing problem. We pay for our game, and they dont even feel that would be nice to answer their customers, us. So, I join the club, and ask Blizzard following:

WTF IS GOING ON?! Do you see/hear/read our thoughts and suggestion? Provide us solutions, fix the situation, enable free migration to us, merge us, or gief us a chance to get the !!%% out of here, cause this server is going to be R.I.P. in few months..

By Puschkien

Q u o t e:
Our problem is fairly easy to solve really, just open migration to bladefist, some, if not many people will come. Bladefist will live once again, and people will be happy.
You could also think like this "hmm they are already paying for this game if we keep up long enough they might use payed migration and we get even more money!"
But that is not the way forward, and you know it! Just give us some more people so this server doesn't look so dead anymore. It would mean a small effort for blizzard, and a big deal for the people still loyal to bladefist!

By Orana

Q u o t e:
Payed character migration = money for Blizzard.
Free migration = no money for Blizzard.

Its not that hard to understand...

By Frederikdnd

Q u o t e:
You know that joke about "I've spent 5 talent points in improved Blizzard,but the company still sucks" ?...I'm starting to think that it's not a joke.
Many many things have changed since the release of TBC,and sadly I'm having a hard time finding the good in it...it should have been new encounters,new spells,new tiers,new zones...all that kind of interesting things that can only make a player curious and eager to play further,but...it didn't happen.

There are no more capital cities,only ghostowns.In fact,there is a chance that,there are more people in Goldshire on Al'akir then in Ironforge on Bladefist.
Blizzard please remember the fact that YOU are selling,we are buying.Since the money is in our hands,you should consider what we desire.We are not telling you how to organise the game,we are just asking for the environment we created our account for.The environment that is now lost.

By Icemix

I could go on and on quoting people about Bladefist, but it would be quite pointless and a waste of my time :)

Thanks for your attention, and I hope that soon enough our problems will be dealed with.

Originally posted by Frederikdnd!

Thundgot

#42 - Nov. 6, 2007, 2:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Hello there,

The Bladefist realm of Europe is in desperate need of your attention. We feel like our population is getting lower and lower by the day, due to people migrating away from us because on Bladefist as it stands today, it is pretty much impossible to get anything done. Not enough 70s to focus on real PvE progress, hell...not even enough players to get an instance done each day, and you can defenitly forget about PUGing an heroic.

Id like to bring your attention to the Bladefist forum, where a post like this has already been started and commented on: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=771509804&sid=1

I'm not going to address every point in this topic, but make a couple of general comments to address the concerns.

First of all, please read the sticky thread in each realm forum clearly stating that attention to realm forums is on a base of reported posts for moderation only. This also means that any post being reported as "please read this one" will be entirely ignored. If you want to bring up a concern about a realm, the General forum is the place to post it - not the realm forum.

Second, migration is never done by request. Period.

Free character migration (FCM) is offered to even out the population between realms, and population on the realm is the key factor in the considerations of which realms are source and target realms. We do not take Battlegroups, PvE progress, faction ratios or anything else into account, as we don't restrict FCM by faction, PvE or PvP intent and/or skill, or anything else.

So yes, a realm with (as an example) only a single player less when the (active) realm population is calculated and compared will risk not being on the target list this time around. And while you may check 3rd party sites those will never show the full picture. We base this on pure factual data directly from the game database.

However, we've run several rounds of FCM in the past, and intend to continue with it. Each time we choose target realms we pick the lowest populated ones (exception: TBC launch realms are excluded for now, population there being addressed mainly with the Recommended tag still). If Bladefist is among the 3-5 lowest ones it will be included. If it's not, it won't. While that's a concern for the Bladefist players, excluding a lower populated realm due to a /sign thread would be rather unfair.

And as a final comment, to repeat what we've posted several times before: A realm being lower in population does in no way mean it's half full or less. Merging even the two lowest English PvP realms would result in a realm with hundreds of players in queue each week. (And I'm sure merging three realms into two would be a logistical nightmare considering inactive players, guilds and friends, etc.)

Thundgot

#64 - Nov. 6, 2007, 4:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Are you suggesting that stats directly parsed from the Armory are incorrect? Anyway, that is not important. I have no doubt the current target destinations are in as much or close to as much in dire need as we are. I don't want to fight them over who has the worst server.

The Armory lists characters, not accounts or the time they spend in-game. Thus while the Armory data is correct it's too limited for determining the active population or concurrency on a realm. 2688 characters, all of which are logged in all day is a higher population than 9486 characters of which only 15% are logged in on average (e.g. for 30 minutes each). (Just an example, not actual numbers.)

Q u o t e:
It has already been suggested in this thread - the era of FCM having a big impacts on servers being neglected for too long is over.

That depends entirely on what you consider a "big" impact. FCM has an effect, but if you're looking for thousands of players filling each destination realm every week you'll naturally be disappointed. With most realms being veteran realms by now, people don't break up from their community that easily. This is expected, and appreciated. But we also appreciate those that are willing to move, and they're quite a few.

Q u o t e:
I don't belive that for a second.

See my point about Armory data above. I gave you straight facts. If you don't believe them, you'll probably not believe it unless you're allowed to personally run queries on our game database, which is of course out of the question.

For someone telling us we have to face the facts you seem to be quick to disbelieve facts when given, and use others for what they are not suited. ;)

Thundgot

#65 - Nov. 6, 2007, 4:16 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Server mergers is the solution for some realms and it's also quit possible, unless there are some technological issues, and in that case, you should state that rather than saying that two low (and I don't mean the tag) populated realms can't fit into one.

I prefer stating actual facts rather than make up an excuse to please those who won't believe the facts. ;)

Thundgot

#77 - Nov. 6, 2007, 6:22 p.m.

Q u o t e:
When snapshots of server activity (census) show us that Bladefist is much less than half of the big servers at any point they are taken, when we have 30% of level 70 characters than the bigger servers it is a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw that we aren't over half the size of those servers.

Then that "reasonable conclusion" is either based on incorrect data, or simply not as reasonable as you want it to be. I don't know the third party sources that well, as we stick to factual and directly relevant data.

Q u o t e:
If we are supposed to have a hidden player base that isn't visible though observation, where are they?

Nobody has claimed there's a hidden playerbase. You're just drawing incorrect numbers / conclusions from what you see.

Q u o t e:
I can see plenty of reasons why you wouldn't want to admit to this.

...hopefully including that the data I refer to is correct.

Q u o t e:
You do realize that Bladefist has gone from overfull to barren in less than two years?

Remember (when saying "overfull") that all realms have a higher population cap now than two years ago, and the population is naturally spread out over a bigger area with the introduction of the expansion. Though I'd consider "barren" an exaggeration, I haven't objected to the population on several realms being lower than desired (a perfect spread between realms would be the goal).

With adding in some facts I was hoping to help people see a bigger picture. If you don't wish to believe me, that's your choice, but as I already posted I won't make stuff up to please you.

Thundgot

#78 - Nov. 6, 2007, 6:26 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I am no statistics person and I wonder why the outcry of so many people from the server didn't make you take the issue seriously disregarding some numbers on the screen.

Nobody said we don't take it seriously. I was just pointing out that between the realms that could benefit from some more players we will make the selection of FCM target realms based on population, not on which realm shows the greatest outcry.

Thundgot

#92 - Nov. 7, 2007, 7:41 a.m.

Q u o t e:
but i suggest checking the number of accounts over the number of players maybe that gives a more accurate number of how many people are actually playing on the server.

And I suggest not jumping to conclusions. We check the in-game activity, not the number of accounts or characters (accounts are not tied to a realm, characters as you say would be misleading due to counting all alts).

Thundgot

#112 - Nov. 8, 2007, 8:08 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Just a question about realm activity in general.

What sort of level of activity would flag a realm as low population?[quote]
The Low tag on the realm selection screen is based on that realm's population compared to other realms' population right that moment. It may change completely from one hour to the next.
The tag being used in a deliberate fashion is "Recommended", which is based on a realm's population over time, the experience we have with realm population fluctuation, plans for migration (e.g. a target realm for FCM won't be flagged Recommended), and a number of other factors.

[quote]Also, will Blizzard ever be able to take into consideration / remedy faction balance on a per server basis?

We do not currently consider this when using FCM at least, as we don't restrict migration to a single faction. Experience has shown that opening migration from a realm with a lot of the faction needed on the target realm is almost as likely to work to the worse for both realms and thus it's pure gambling. Maybe we can consider running faction restricted migration in the future, but I won't do any guesswork on the possibility of it now.