WOW

[imported_obsidian]

Originally posted by: gsaldivar

Originally posted by: CVSiN
ganked over and over by a bored player from the other side because of the high pop he has nothing better to do...

Welcome to PvP.

If you find that its easier for you to level on a low population to avoid repeated ganking in contested areas, that's fine. But your issue isn't with the population of the server, its with the play style you chose. This isn't even an issue on PvE servers with high population...

If you want to avoid getting ganked it is all about picking your zones right and just hoping the opposing faction members in that area want to quest and level as much as you do. Never, ever, fight near a road.

I play on one of the higher population PvP servers, Kel'thuzad. It is also constantly down...

 

[imported_obsidian]

Originally posted by: CVSiN
Well... being on a pansey ass PVE server Ya I guess you dont have many problems... except for overcamping of areas..
btw where do you get your info there has been no such changes to any wow server.. the only thing that was adjusted was the servers hardware...

Blizzard wants people off those overcrowded servers they have posted over and over to the complainiers to MOVE.. they have never caved in and upped spawns on any server...

If Blizzard wants me to move, they can either blow up the server or offer me a character transfer. I'm still trying to figure out which option they are working on.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: benchiu

The Horde/Alliance populations I'm sure are grossly inaccurate. The most that these programs can do is survey using the /who function which only returns a max of 49 people at any given time. These programs try to modify ranges until they get less than 49 and then compile those into some kind of server "population" number. Also it's completely dependant on zone, as well as time you're logged in. Only Blizzard has the accurate numbers and they aint giving them out. Blizzard has already stated that the factions are much more balanced than most people think.

The warcraftrealms.com database uses submissions from multiple people polling zones randomly in the fashion you described. However, rather than trying to extrapolate realm statistics from a single poll, as the Cosmos Census plug-in attempted to do, warcraftrealms.com compiles data from numerous polls submitted by many users across all realms, and processes the data in such a way that duplicate entries are matched with previous entries, and irrelevant entries (characters <lvl10; characters not seen for >30days) are removed.

Even assuming single that single-level ranges of /who listings for each zone regularly exceed 49 (they rarely do), the data recorded is still quite usable when combined with a backend database engine to interpret and collate the data into a usable form, such as warcraftrealms.com has done. In fact, only a single "hit" of a character being in a given zone with no more than 49 other characters at the same level is required to be listed on warcraftrealms.com for 30 days. Even if there are an excess of 49 characters in a given zone, this doesn't mean that the data hits collected on the first 49 characters at that level are suddenly invalid - it simply means that the additional characters that happened to be online in that zone at the time the census was taken won't be recorded for that session. As soon as the first 49 characters listed in that realm move to different areas/log-off etc., a subsequent census will begin recording the characters that were previously unrecorded. Warcraftrealms clearly lists each census "hit" on a given character:

Name: Aeleth
Server: Hellscream
First seen: Dec 23, 04
Last seen: Jan 17, 05
Troll Mage 58

History
Level Guild Name Date
41 Immortalis Dec 23, 04
43 Immortalis Dec 27, 04
51 Immortalis Jan 07, 05
52 Immortalis Jan 07, 05
53 Immortalis Jan 09, 05
54 Immortalis Jan 11, 05
55 Immortalis Jan 11, 05
58 Immortalis Jan 16, 05

Yes, of course Blizzard is clearly the authority on realm statistics, but, as you've also said -- they aren't giving these numbers out.

While there are some flaws in the way statistics are gathered independently, I highly doubt these figures are as "grossly inaccurate" as you say they are.

 

[bcterps]

I agree that the overall server populations may have some value, and can even be compared to the server "load" that Blizzard states on their realm status, but I have my doubts about the faction percentages. Blizzard has repeatedly said that the census numbers reported on the web are not accurate and that the faction balances are closer that people think they are. What that means is anyone's guess, I just don't personally put much faith in the census numbers. It's like people that look at thottbot and believe in the drop percentages.