Friday, November 1, 2013

Connected Realms: What are the Odds?

I would really love to know what the odds of something like this happening.  If you are one of those people that like to play with numbers feel free to have at it.

Let say you started playing on Server A.  In BC, thanks to queue times, they started to offer server transfers off of server A.  When the new wrath servers were started they added transfers to those start up servers and you took that free transfer to go to a less populated server, lets call it server B.

Now, since then you have played the game and made Server A your horde server with the characters you did leave behind and made server B your alliance server as you new home.

Now connected realms come many years later and Server A has been connected to Server B.

In a game with so many servers that has to be a long shot.  But how would you feel if you were the person that ran away from a full server to, years later, be put back on it?

13 comments:

  1. 0%, I don't think they'll be connecting anyone with a full server. :)

    More generally, though, it'd be pretty simple to calculate rough odds if you knew how many connected realms we'll end up with. One example - with 250 or so current US realms, if we end up with a total of 50 connected realms (so, an average of 5 realms per CR), it'd be roughly 2% odds of any random two realms being connected. With 25 total CRs, it'd be roughly 4%.

    I think.

    Assuming I left the original server on good terms (ie. wasn't run out of town, either due to me or to them), I'd have no problem being merged back in the general sense. I suspect most would welcome it, actually, presumably they still have SOME friends there still.

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    1. The server I am talking about was labeled full before the merge.

      So do not count out full servers being merged. As long as there is not a queue time to enter, I see it as possible for even a full server.

      We all left on good terms. Only left to get away from queue times to get on. No other reason.

      One female member does have an ex that she needed to file a ticket on because he was harassing her. Needless to say she is not happy being put back on the same server with him.

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  2. I am hoping that something similar happens for me, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I didn't transfer off because of being full, but rather to raid, so it would be nice to get multiple servers that I have played on in the past merged.

    I think that would also be a nice reward for longtime players as well if they allowed us to consolidate the different toons that are scattered across different servers over the years, having transferred multiple times, without having to pay a small fortune to do so.

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    1. I doubt they would ever let us consolidate out characters but that is a pretty awesome idea.

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  3. I'm pretty sure it depends on the type of server you moved from/to. So far, they haven't combined any PVP realms with PVE, only to like realms, and the vast majority of US connected realms have been PVP (28 of 30 currently).

    More interestingly, the only PVE realms to be connected were the first realms to report any major problems with the connection (Nesingwary+Vek'nilash). One new pair of PVE servers is currently planned (Winterhoof+Kilrogg) and no RP servers have been connected or listed for connection. PVE connections might need to move more slowly due to potential errors, and RP/RPPVP is up in the air.

    TL;DR: I doubt any PVP realms will be paired with PVE, so your chances are higher than you think if you didn't cross that line.

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    1. This us true, once you start taking things and putting them in appropriate groups for no cross mergers, the pool does get rather small.

      I still think it is odd to end up on the server you left. Kind of a funny, who would have thought it, sort of thing.

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  4. Be interesting to see if this winds up being way to "get around" the 11 character limit. If I have 8 toons on server A and they connect it to server b where I have 6, do I wind up with, effectively, 14 toons on 1 server?

    I have a couple of extra toons on servers in the Battlegroup with my main group and guild, so could happen.

    I see this being an issue going forward...

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    1. Yes, they've confirmed that if there are 5 or more realms connected together you could technically have all 50 of your toons on one "server".

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    2. I have characters on both servers and they can be in the same realm. Even characters with the same name on different servers can both be there. And even be in the same guild.

      So like jaeger said, if they combine 5, you can effectively have all 50 of your characters on the same server.

      Heck, if you wanted to, you could have 5 of the same name too.

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  5. Anon, Grumpy's former GL:

    I was not amused by it. The thing is not yet a done deal in that the servers have not been connected yet, but I have little to no hope that the decision will be reversed. Instead a server that spawned as many as a half dozen server splits is now going to be reunited with it's last (that I know of) child server.

    I went to the realm page of Blizzard and sure enough the old server was listed as medium population. I guess that means it was no longer the recommended server the last couple of years or so. Which being the first server a new player saw was the reason for the damn server being over populated in the first place. A body might have drawn a clue from the massive ques that the original server suffered from for years and have caused us to not leave in the first place by removing that recommendation much earlier.

    Now having gotten my bitching out of the way, I don't mind the server we are being connected with nor did we leave under duress or stress, so for us it will be a homecoming of sorts though no one I personally remember still plays there. Also I only have the one DK left on that server as I used the free transfer to cut all ties with the old server and its massive que lines.

    Still waiting for word on my RP servers. Those are the ones I am most interested in for the limited numbers of that type of server means I have a much better chance at two or more of my servers being united. The normal PvE servers were much more a long shot on being connected. A long shot that basically did not pay off for me. I had hoped that instead of the original server that another one of its' child servers would have been selected...one on which I did have a lot of toons. Oh well, luck of the draw and all.

    I might add that I hope that the medium population of both the original server and the one my main toon resides on are both on the low side, enough low so that another PvE server is added to the mix...one of the ones on which I have characters already. Likely not I admit is the most probable answer, that would be to much like good fortune. Can't be having that.



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    1. The old server is "full" status, sometimes it fluctuates to medium, I think that might be based on the people currently online.

      It is still a packed server comparatively. They pug heroic SoO on that server where our server only has one guild that even attempts heroics. So there is a huge gap in the player base.

      I am wondering with the RP ones as well. I've seen nothing mentioned of them.

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  6. It seems that their target realm size is 100-140k toons based on the wow.realmpop.com data on the largest merges so far. It really seems like almost every medium pop server is going to get merged with another server, which seems like they want everything to be 'small' high pop servers, which is a little higher than I expected. Anyway, it means that I expect Drak'thul to get connected soon since it's one of the smaller PvE servers.

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    1. 100K-140K characters?

      So I am going to be alone on the server with an army of my hunter alts? Just kidding of course.

      I think they need to do "subscribers" per server and not characters. In my guild alone there are over 20 players that have all 11 slots full that I know of, and 8 of them have all 11 at 90.

      So counting characters or counting 90s will not balance a servers correctly. I sure as hell hope they are not using that as a judging factor.

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