The Reason World of Warcraft Has Realm and Server Population Issues

If you've played World of Warcraft for any length of time you are well aware of the population issues that exist with relation to the vast amount of realms and servers that Blizzard has released. They currently have well over 200 servers up and running at this point in time and a good chunk of them are labeled as "low" population and are considered "ghost town" servers. Blizzard has tried many things to fix this problem such as offering realm character transfers and labeling a group of servers as "New Player" servers in hopes of luring new players into creating characters on these servers. Nothing has solved the problem, however. So why is there such a terrible population problem and what can be done to fix it?

Believe it or not the players of World of Warcraft are not to blame for the population issues we currently face. Most people seek to blame the players for creating new characters on new servers over the years and then either quitting or transferring off to another server after a few months. This is a common objection that needs to be corrected. The players are not to blame for the population issues, but rather it is Blizzard who is to blame for the problem.

If you look back over the history of World of Warcraft and the changes that Blizzard makes to the game you will see a common trend taking place. They are always seeking to appease "cry babies." That is, they are always seeking to give the players what the want, no matter what negative implications it may bring overall. This can be seen in many ways such as the removal of many elite quest mobs over the years. The lowering of the cool down time on the hearth stone. The installation of tons of flight path locations in areas that you previously had to walk to. They have done so much to make the game easier in an attempt to stop people from crying about things.

We can also see this taking place in relation to the creation of new servers. Blizzard has created many servers throughout the past and they usually start with a small batch of 3 or 4 servers. These servers are instantly filled with players and maxed out, generating long queue lines. People then cry and complain about the queue times and in response blizzard gives in and releases another batch of servers shortly after the first, often times larger than the first, and many people switch to these new servers and spread themselves out. What you are left with is 12 low population servers instead of 3 or 4 full or maxed out servers whose populations would never drop.

Another thing to take note of is the fact that most of the low population servers are "PVP" type servers. Blizzard could potentially solve their entire population issue by merging low population servers together to form larger servers. The only issue this bring up is the fact that character names would have to be changed, and this might upset a large number of people. Remember, Blizzard doesn't like to upset people for any reason, and this is why they haven't merged these low population servers after all these years.

As you can see, it is Blizzard who is to blame for the population issues, not the players. Let's just hope they learn from their mistakes in the future if they want to fix their population issues and ever want to create new servers for returning or new players.