Blizzard recently announced that its long-running MMO World of Warcraft was about to group its many subscribers into a smaller pool of servers. Running nonstop since 2004, World of Warcraft is the undisputed king of MMORPGs. The game has been grandfathered into a paid subscription model thanks to its dedicated fanbase while other releases try to survive on free to play and microtransactions economies, to mixed results. From landscape-changing expansions to classic server releases, players still travel to Azeroth in droves to enjoy characters they've grown up with and take on new challenges with friends.
Any online-focused game that runs for a decade and a half is going to scale back operations eventually, and World of Warcraft has reduced its number of servers in the past. Still, considering that most games in the genre contrast down to zero servers and shut down in this timeframe, it's still rather noteworthy that Blizzard's game is still running smoothly. Blizzard calls World of Warcraft servers realms, and each one has a distinct population. Some servers serve players just looking to experience the game while others offer role-playing for more dedicated fantasy aficionados. This means that some players are pretty attached to the realm they choose initially, but they'll have to make room for a whole bunch of new neighbors in the near future.
In an official post on the World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard outlined the details for their planned realm merger. They've already completed an internal survey of each server, measuring population over time to a point where they can pick out the best targets for combination. Over the next few months, the company will do just that, merging players from each affected realm into what they call a "larger connected-realm community." This will also see the official discussion forums for each affected realm merge together. Those playing on more populated servers and realms running World of Warcraft Classic will not be affected in the slightest.
When a merger like this occurs, the entire history of the servers combines into one new whole. That includes player and guild histories, player economies, and the stock for sale at the local auction house. It also could mean that players with characters on multiple realms may see them now accessible on the same server, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how invested someone is in the world of Azeroth. Blizzard plans on giving players plenty of advance notice should they foresee any issues, but many more casual players may not even notice the changeover.
Realm connections at an earlier point in the game would have been a much bigger issue, but nowadays it's going to be accepted by the vast majority of World of Warcraft's player base. While "Massively Multiplayer" is in the title of the genre, the connections between players have gotten a lot more localized over time. Not only can you group with players from any realm nowadays, but lots of content is also doable solo if you've been playing for a while. These server mergers will help populate public areas for players on less populous choices, but even a player on a server by their lonesome can play the game as effectively as anyone.
Source: Blizzard