WoW: Where is everybody? Time to merge realms?

Eleutheria from the World of Warcraft Europe Forums raised an important issue (not really new, but important nonetheless). She noticed that she was finding it hard to find groups for lower level characters and that only the end game Outland zones are reasonably populated.

She asked whether the solution should be to close down the least populated realms and merge the characters with another realm. Does the old world Azeroth need some life breathed back into it? A number of players noticed this as well, though there really isn’t much to do since players would want to roll characters on realms with people they can group with. Blizzard poster Thundgot dropped by the thread and said:

Closing realms is absolutely not needed, and merging realms would create realms with frequent and long queues. Opening new realms at this time would just thin out the population, which I don’t really see a reason for. While one might find it easier to find groups at lower levels on a new realm for some time, it’d make it harder on realms “losing” players to the new realm. Opening new realm should always be based on the total population on the realms of the same language and type (e.g. English PvP, French RP, German PvE).

This may be just a matter of perspective. Before The Burning Crusade was released, everybody was compressed in Azeroth. After the expansion, the Outlands expanded the land area and thus the seemingly lower population at one location at a time. Thundgot added that it is understandable that lower level players will have a difficult time finding people to group with on older realms. He suggested that new players or people planning alts should choose the relatively younger realms.

Eleutheria from the World of Warcraft Europe Forums raised an important issue (not really new, but important nonetheless). She noticed that she was finding it hard to find groups for lower level characters and that only the end game Outland zones are reasonably populated.

She asked whether the solution should be to close down the least populated realms and merge the characters with another realm. Does the old world Azeroth need some life breathed back into it? A number of players noticed this as well, though there really isn’t much to do since players would want to roll characters on realms with people they can group with. Blizzard poster Thundgot dropped by the thread and said:

Closing realms is absolutely not needed, and merging realms would create realms with frequent and long queues. Opening new realms at this time would just thin out the population, which I don’t really see a reason for. While one might find it easier to find groups at lower levels on a new realm for some time, it’d make it harder on realms “losing” players to the new realm. Opening new realm should always be based on the total population on the realms of the same language and type (e.g. English PvP, French RP, German PvE).

This may be just a matter of perspective. Before The Burning Crusade was released, everybody was compressed in Azeroth. After the expansion, the Outlands expanded the land area and thus the seemingly lower population at one location at a time. Thundgot added that it is understandable that lower level players will have a difficult time finding people to group with on older realms. He suggested that new players or people planning alts should choose the relatively younger realms.