Searching for the most popular server
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 3rd 2009 at 8:00PM
Of course, even that can't be trusted -- those numbers are picked up from the site's addon, all within the last 30 days, and it could just be that WR has more info about more people on that server. But at the same time, I'd guess that Warcraft Realms' numbers are in the ballpark, as long as you're talking about Yankee Stadium. Whisperwind, Cenarion Circle, Stormrage, Moon Guard, and Proudmoore are all big servers, I can promise you anecdotally, while Laughing Skull, Blood Furnace, and Malorne are definitely at the other end of the spectrum. As for a most popular realm, there probably isn't one specifically (it changes periodically, if not even at different times of the day). But if your realm is near the top of Warcraft Realms' list, it's probably busier than the others.
Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Diablo Oct 3rd 2009 8:06PM
Does this mean that the servers do not all have equal capacity? I chose the illidan server because it was "full" when I picked it and I wanted to play with more people to group faster and have more interactions. Does this list indicate that some non-full servers actually have greater capacity than the full servers?
Rocky Oct 4th 2009 12:25AM
The capacity indicators are instantaneous. That is, at any given time, whatever it says, is only accurate at that time. So, a server that is "Full" might have fewer total characters created than a server that is "Low" .... it's just that at that specific time, there are more people logged into the first one.
Nitemare Oct 3rd 2009 8:08PM
Based upon having the largest guild in the world (AIE), I would say that there is a chance that Earthen Ring will have the lead.
Derick Oct 4th 2009 12:44AM
Are they the largest in the world now? I thought it was just in North America. Did the giant one in the EU split up?
Nitemare Oct 4th 2009 12:54AM
On a recent Instance podcast, I believe that Randy had admitted that the European guild was a bunch of dead accounts/inactives which had since been cleaned.
kooda Oct 4th 2009 6:11AM
AIE? sorry im from europe
jbodar Oct 4th 2009 7:29AM
http://www.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&gn=alea+iacta+est
Kirkules Oct 3rd 2009 8:11PM
Hmmm, My mains on Stormrage and I never have a wait time.... but I'm always working during peak hours so that's probably why.
Also, apparently Windrunner as no Alliance. Almost 4,000 Horde, but no Alliance. I'm gonna go ahead and become the 1 Alliance on Windrunner! lol
ed223 Oct 3rd 2009 8:21PM
Windrunner has over 32k people with alliance topping out at over 20k the last I checked. Although the best way to chose a server is to use the http://www.wowprogress.com/ website. Find the server with the most top guilds and your likely to find a server with high activity and a lot of good players.
Kirkules Oct 3rd 2009 8:29PM
Yea, I figured. So that website doesn't seem too accurate. What with neglecting 20K Alliance on a server.
Hoggersbud Oct 4th 2009 12:19AM
It isn't the website that's neglecting those people. It's that hardly anybody on Windrunner has run their addon to poll the server and submitted the results.
If you click the server name, you'll see that data come up, and see they're asking for more results. 20 is not enough.
In contrast, Whisperwind has over 1000 Alliance submissions and 100 Horde.
Neil Oct 3rd 2009 8:20PM
I moved to Whisperwind last spring from relatively low-pop Norgannon. I really doubt Whisperwind is the highest pop server.
Haven't seen a single queue in 6 months. And if Whisperwind really were #1 you'd think it'd have more high-progression guilds. I'm in the current top raiding guild on the server and when last I checked we were only floating around 1000 rank on Wow Progress, and haven't made it past Heroic Twin Valkyrs on 25 TOC.
kabshiel Oct 3rd 2009 9:25PM
I almost never see Whisperwind as "Full", so I doubt it's the highest pop realm.
NinthBatter Oct 4th 2009 12:44AM
Actually Whisperwind does has the largest population, that's why the Ron Paul event and the PETA thing supposably choose Whisperwind. But yeah I havn't seen a queue in a long time but then again neither has anyone else. And the fact that my main is on Whisperwind in no way influenced my opinion :P
Verit Oct 4th 2009 4:21AM
I get queues on tichonodrous all the time :/.
Androdar Oct 3rd 2009 8:25PM
Over here in Europe, Al'Akir is a very popular server. I remember this from back in the vanilla days, when Stature of the Gods raided, and Zalgradis made his famout paladin pvp machinimas. I don't know how it is today though, as I currently play on a far less trafficed RPPVP realm (those always seem to have medium/low population around here).
Gíant Oct 3rd 2009 8:26PM
According to WoW Progress Mal'ganis has some of the highest Horde progression, with a decent amount of Alliance progression as well. 20 guilds in the top 2200, 4 of which are alliance, so at least it isn't completely horde dominated.
Jimmy Oct 3rd 2009 8:30PM
trollbane!!! There are like 5 people from it...
dboobis Oct 3rd 2009 8:55PM
I'm gonna throw something out there, if you don't like it, give it back, but if you do, just let it lie there for a bit...
Is it fair to define the most popular server as the one with the highest population? Or would a more accurate way to show popularity to be the one with the greatest transfers in/out ratio? A particular realm might have say 40,000 people, and be 10,000 ahead of the nearest rival - but if they've lost 10,000 additional toons in the last week, I'd suggest that it was no longer so popular. On the flipside, a realm might have only 10,000 people, but if the majority transferred in in the space of a few days, that might suggest something about that realm is attractive.
Rollo Oct 3rd 2009 11:57PM
As someone has already said, a server with more frequent updates will show up with more active characters.
If a single person on a server is running the censusplus addon, the data might be from the same time every day. He might miss a lot of people regularly playing at other times.
If playing lots of alts is somehow very popular on a server, the server will show up having tons of characters without being more crowded.
There are probably more ways the data could be inaccurate. The warcraftrealms data is not intended to decide the most popular server. It's there to provide info on the balance of classes, levels and factions.