How many servers are there in world of warcraft

On lower population servers there are fewer other players to group with, making non-cross-realm features such as an arena, trading and serious end-game play much harder to achieve. However, players do not have to queue to play the game, and lag and server problems are minimal. The population can also affect play within the larger game world.

High population servers may feature far more competition for resources and quest mobs, and an increased chance of griefing or world PvP , especially on PvP servers. In extreme cases, high numbers of players in busy areas can cause long queues to complete quests, or even cause the server to crash.

Lower population servers typically feature little such competition, but also make it harder to find other players with whom to interact.

However, in extremely low population areas, the cross-realm zones feature may act to mitigate these differences by introducing players from other realms. This feature does not affect capital cities or most end-game zones but may improve the experience while leveling on lower population servers.

While server population affects many areas of the game world, it has little impact on cross-realm aspects of the game, such as non-rated battlegrounds or dungeons queued for through the Dungeon Finder. Aside from the overall population, each server features a different balance between the factions. Unlike the overall population, this information is not displayed in the server list, although it can be viewed through sites such as WarcraftRealms.

The population of a character's faction is often far more important than the combined population of the server, and since many aspects of play including the auction house are faction-specific, individual characters' play experience is largely determined by this rather than by the total population. For example, a Horde character may play on a server highly populated with Alliance characters, yet find few other Horde characters with whom to play, trade, etc.

World PvP is one area where the population of the opposite faction can be directly significant, especially on PvP servers. While different realms are almost identical in their game world, NPCs and rules, in practice each offers a slightly different playing experience, as well as a unique collection of players to encounter and interact with.

While server type, population, and language are some of the more obvious differences between servers, there are many other factors that can lead to realms offering their own unique environment. As separate instances of the game world, realms may develop their own reputation or sub-culture, specific to that server, or even to one faction of that server's population.

The presence of well-known guilds or players may also affect the reputation of a realm, with some realms becoming well-known or notorious as a result of the actions of certain inhabitants. Player interaction ensures that each realm offers a unique experience, with communication and group play largely only available within a server.

Aside from population and server type, some realms feature more guilds with a certain focus, such as rated battlegrounds or high-end raiding, with players sometimes choosing to transfer characters between servers in order to join a particularly prestigious or desirable guild. Realm statistics provide some interesting insight into overall player trends and certain differences between regions and server types.

The following data was taken from WarcraftRealms. Wowpedia Explore. Main Page All Pages. World of Warcraft. Classic Vanilla The Frozen Throne Reforged. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? View source.

History Talk 6. This article is about WoW servers. From landscape-changing expansions to classic server releases, players still travel to Azeroth in droves to enjoy characters they've grown up with and take on new challenges with friends. Any online-focused game that runs for a decade and a half is going to scale back operations eventually, and World of Warcraft has reduced its number of servers in the past.

Still, considering that most games in the genre contrast down to zero servers and shut down in this timeframe, it's still rather noteworthy that Blizzard's game is still running smoothly.

Blizzard calls World of Warcraft servers realms, and each one has a distinct population. Some servers serve players just looking to experience the game while others offer role-playing for more dedicated fantasy aficionados.

This means that some players are pretty attached to the realm they choose initially, but they'll have to make room for a whole bunch of new neighbors in the near future. In an official post on the World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard outlined the details for their planned realm merger. They've already completed an internal survey of each server, measuring population over time to a point where they can pick out the best targets for combination.

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