Move or stay?

World of Warcraft is undergoing a period in which server populations change a lot. People resubscribe for the Burning Crusade, and server get overcrowded until there is a free server transfer, a server split, or people are paying for a paid server transfer. Great migrations, WoW style. So a lot of players will pose themselves the question whether to move or whether to stay.

The main disadvantage of moving to a different server is a social one: You don't know anybody on the new server. If you are in a guild you like, and the guild didn't decide to move as a whole, moving would mean giving up your guild and friends, in the hope of finding a new guild and new friends. Of course if your guild just exploded in a huge fight that might actually be an advantage.

People who just resubscribed after a prolonged absence don't have that problem. Sad as it is, but WoW guilds are often very fast-living, with a high turnover, and if you haven't been online for a couple of months, either you've got kicked out, or nobody remembers you. You might as well move to a different server. The same is true for people who didn't join a guild, or who joined one of the numerous phantom guilds which don't really play together.

The main advantage of moving to a new server is that you avoid login queues and lag. But there are other advantages as well: The economy is different on newer servers, with less inflated prices for trade goods, and more lower level items still being traded in the auction house. Interesting especially if your character isn't level 60 yet. Very new servers also have a higher percentage of the population below level 60, so finding a group below level 60 is easier.

So if you are offered a free server move, and you have no social ties to a guild or friends, moving is probably a good idea. I'd stay away from paid server moves, unless you have real-life friends on the server where you want to move to.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:02 AM Permanent Link