- Author: Luxrah
- Date: August 22, 2024
- Updated: August 22, 2024
- Expansion: WoW Classic
Blizzard will soon be opening free character transfers from all realms to a single PvP realm and a single PvE realm, aiming to consolidate players on one server of each rule type. Existing realms will remain open for the rest of the season, but will be locked to new players.
The devs promise there is a near-perfect faction split among PvP realms, and the consolidation should not affect faction balance. It remains to be seen if/how they will continue to enforce it.
Choosing to offer free transfers instead of directly merging realms is likely intended to solve two problems: one, it allows players the option to stay behind and continue to play in a smaller community if they choose, and two, it avoids awkward workarounds for name conflicts. But there’s no doubt that origin realms will be mostly empty after the consolidation happens, and many players are likely to lose their names in the transition. Hopefully the benefits of having a larger community to play alongside will outweigh those downsides.
When Season of Discovery launched we were excited to leverage some technology improvements that allowed us to achieve significantly higher realm populations than ever before, and we’ve had a goal of seeing all Season of Discovery players of each ruleset playing on the same realm.
To reach that goal, we will soon open Free Character Transfers from all Season of Discovery realms to one single PvP realm and one single PvE realm in each region (where applicable). These free transfers and all origin realms will remain available for the rest of Season of Discovery, but with the origin realms closed to new players.
Most of the origin realms currently still have healthy populations, and we recognize that moving characters can be disruptive to player communities, so this is not a decision we take lightly. Faction balance on the PvP realms is also a concern for many players, and we’re pleased to note that daily active players across all PvP realms has been a near perfect 50/50 split. This consolidation should not impact faction balance. Ultimately we believe, and have seen from player movement, that people want to be with as many others as possible.
Thank you all for joining us in this journey through Season of Discovery. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone take on the final phases together!
–The WoW Classic Development and Server Teams
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