To celebrate the big changes coming to our virtual lives.. a Spleh mega-news-update. This update is dedicated to Turnip, who makes me all tingly in the pants.

For those of you not locked in your parent's basement, you may have heard about the upcoming server transfers. Hyjal, Lightbringer, Shadowsong and Zul'jin will have the option of transfering characters to Black Dragonflight, while Alleria, Hellscream and Whisperwind will have the option to transfer to Dalvengyr. Ho hum, just another transfer for poorly managed overburdened servers right? Of course not! Else, I wouldn't bother with this update.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that Hyjal is now going to be allowed to transfer from their comfy PVE server to a brand new PVP realm is a bit odd. Since March 16, 2005, Blizzard has allowed over 65 server transfer opportunities. The exact amount is hard to cite because some of their archived news entries link to a dynamic page and the information has not been preserved. However, consider the following list of server transfers that Blizzard has offered to date. Notice the trend? For over one year, Blizzard would not allow transfers between PVP and PVE realms.

There are some obvious concerns with such a transfer. Leveling up on a PVE realm is considerably easier than a PVP realm as you don't have to worry about asshole griefers camping you at all levels. PVE servers tend to focus more on beating the environmental content and often times have progressed further, usually meaning much better gear. This may cause a serious imbalance with a big wave of well geared level 60 characters instantly populating a server that will have new and transferred characters of all levels. That said, I wonder why the change of heart. Or more specifically, why now?

It might just be pure coincidence, but Alex Afrasiabi (aka Furor) is the lead quest designer for Blizzard, a fairly important position. Alex also happens to run the Fires of Heaven (FoH) guild on Hyjal. After a year of (mostly) being the first to beat new content, FoH is bored, especially Alex. Being on an overloaded and overpopulated server sucks, but moving to a new less crowded server doesn't really make their content enjoyment any better. Moving to a PVP server certainly would, especially given they are the most well geared characters on Hyjal. No matter who transfers to Black Dragonflight, the odds are good they will be the top of the food chain. You do the math.

Blizzard tries to mask this by saying this change is "in hopes of increasing the number of players seeking to transfer, which will in effect help us further disperse our population." What a load of shit. The motivation is escaping the 90 minute prime-time log in queues and the constant lag in every zone, regardless of population. The lure of new hardware, not the lure of going PVP is the key.

Regardless, forcing a bunch of people that grew up on a PVE server to choose between a PVP server and staying on one of the oldest servers is a joke. If a third of the server transfers off, it will be at the capacity it should be. Even if half transfer off, it will be back to overloaded in a month or two. Thanks Blizzard, and thanks Alex. Hell of a choice.

Oh well, in honor of the somewhat forced move to the life of PVP, a special look at some of the highlights of the last six months of Hyjal battlegrounds!

Disclaimer: These screenshots were collected over the last six months. Take that into account!

I've got mail.