How to chose a server

[species6729]

Hi Team
Just starting back up after take a few months off. I am thinking about starting grinding to 80 with another team. I want to try some different server to see if I can get less lag, getting into raids. I am in the westcoast but when I sign out WOW assign me to a CST server in Dallas. So most of the time I am unable to Raid or play with other people (this was one of the reason I start to multibox). I play mostly in the 12am to 4 am slot, and my server is a ghost town.
I want to find out if it is better to sign up on a server in the LA location ; make sure the server in on PST ; and there is a low population?
I remember a few month before I took sometime off, I was unable to login to my server because it was full during my days off, this sucks when I try to login with 5 accounts for multiboxing.

[MiRai]

They usually only suggest the "Recommended" realms because they're in need of more people [ie shitty progression/ghost town]. But as you know you can obviously choose any server you wish. Are the hours that you play at going to be permanent or are they subject to change in the near future? You can always choose an Oceanic realm. Contrary to popular belief all Oceanic realms are located in the LA data center and not in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

I would say that any server you choose in the Bloodlust battlegroup is going to be awake at almost all hours of the night. Bloodlust consists of 8 PST, 2 CST, and 9 Oceanic timezone realms as can be seen here. With the diversity of timezones this is by far the most active battlegroup. It is also the battlegroup that seems to have the most issues though...I would guess this is either because of older hardware or the cluster having so many realms with a high population is stressing the servers and things break.

With the hours you're allocating for playtime, any US server you choose that doesn't have a high population is going to end up being a ghost town. Normal people are asleep at that time. I also haven't seen a queue to get into a realm for quite some time. If you chose an Oceanic server but then in the future had to switch your playing time then you'd be in the same 'ghost town' scenario. Only you can decide what's best for your situation. Someone will say their battlegroup is the best they've seen and another person on a different realm in the same battlegroup will say it's the worst. I am currently on Kil'jaeden in the Bloodlust battlegroup where [I'm guessing] the largest Alliance multiboxing guild currently resides. Take your pick of servers...you've got about 240 to choose from.

[Ualaa]

If you are into pvp, realm can be a consideration too.
The side with more players, generally wins most of the Wintergrasp battles.

If you want to world pvp, you'd want to be on the side with fewer toons.
But not to the extent that you have no chance.
Something like 45-50% vs 50-55% might work.

If you do a lot of battlegrounds, you'd again want to be on the side with fewer toons.
A queue ends, and the BG begins, when both sides have the maximum number of players in the queue for that BG.
That's not to say all of them will click to enter, but if their side has 200 people queuing for a 40-man, and the battle begins as soon as your side has 40 people queuing, it will be much shorter waits.



PvE considerations are more along the lines of...

Are you into raiding?
How many progression guilds exist on the server and on your faction?

How mature is the auction house?
You want a balance here, between things are available but rare items still sell well.



Do the stress test on the realm.
Try your team in Dalaran if you can get a port.
At prime time, and see how it runs.
Anywhere else will be smoother.



Check into the aspects which are most important.

[crowdx]

I play on Uther which is a PST realm, lots of high end raiding gets done and there are a few other MB'ers on the realm. I moved here from Norgannon which was a west coast server. Ping times for me (SF Bay Area) are always around 100 - 135 compared to Norgannon which was about 100 more.
I have had no issues here as a MB'er, although I never pvp as a boxer.

Btw I play Alliance.

[Boylston]

Absolutely try to find a server that is in a datacenter near you, and verify that you can sustain relatively low latency to that server over the course of a few evenings. In my experience, the WoW Time Zone feature is meaningless in terms of setting raid times or play times for people.

This is helpful:

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

Also, take note of this for LA:

Please note that the Los Angeles servers are located in 2 separate datacenters, and as such the battlegroups are grouped oddly.
When doing a traceroute to servers in Los Angeles, the last hop should be one of the following:

• 12.129.193.242
• 12.129.193.246