Couple random questions

[WeeBaby]

Couple things I was always curious about. First one was, how are the times on different servers decided. The main server I play on is 2 hours ahead of my local time but another one is 3 hours ahead. Is there a way to see a list that tells you what servers are in what time zone? This might be a stupid question but are the servers located in different parts of the country (USA) and that's what decides what the server time is or are they all located in one spot and they just assign different times for each of them?

Next question concerns RP realms. Is there some sort of guide on how you are supposed to act/chat? Never played on one but thought of creating a toon on one just to see the chat that takes place. Just wondered on what it was based.

Last one, When people speak of "balanced servers" what does that mean and how do you know if one is or not?

Thank you for your patience on my random curiosities!!

[Yhor]

Somewhat of an answer.

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

I think they are decided by server location, but I couldn't say for sure.

[Republic]

Originally Posted by WeeBaby Next question concerns RP realms. Is there some sort of guide on how you are supposed to act/chat? Never played on one but thought of creating a toon on one just to see the chat that takes place. Just wondered on what it was based. Last one, When people speak of "balanced servers" what does that mean and how do you know if one is or not? Thank you for your patience on my random curiosities!!

Regarding RP realms, they are essentially the same as normal realms imo. The only exception is that you have more people "dedicated" to roleplaying that you wouldn't normally run across in a normal realm type. To be honest, you can roll on a roleplaying realm and sometimes never see roleplaying. I think most codes of behavior associated with "terms of use" for a RP realm are not enforced/poorly enforced and thus, never a real issue. I can't even see where they stick to the naming policy on most RP realms. Others might tell you different from their own experiences, but there just isn't a big difference to normal realms that I've ever seen. I have a 70 in a RP realm, so I have a little experience with it.

Regarding balanced servers, people use this term to indicate an even horde vs alliance ratio, or close to even. A realm with 80% alliance and 20% horde is not balanced. A realm like Area 52 for example, is a rare beast in that it's a normal realm with a large horde population. That almost never happens anywhere. I think the ratio is like 50/50 alliance/horde. That's about as balanced as you're going to find. So, the term balance refers to population balance with regard to factions.

If you want more info on population balances, go here...

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php

[Sepioth]

I can't speak for all RP realms, just the one I play on, Argent Dawn.

But on AD there is practically no RP'ing what so ever. People still spam trade with useless real life issues and chatter as well childish games like Chuck Norris, STFU Trucks and the VERY childish "anal" game to name a few.

There may be more Guilds that may partake in the whole RP thing but if they do it is usually kept to their own channels.

As far as the naming conventions on RP servers they changed the rules a long time ago to pretty much follow that of non-rp realms. At one point letters with accent marks where not allowed (and I still think they should be completely removed from any name on all servers as you can not typically type them on a standard US keyboard and it allows for extremely similar names.) but they are now accepted. The only real exception is names that form "sentences" like "Imagod" for example. If reported these are usually changed pretty quick .. but it requires a report as Blizz does not manually look for this.

RP Policies

Needless to say Blizz never enforce their own policies ..

[Gako]

Recommended servers are the ones in your time zone. Im not sure how the zones are decided (It seems unlikely Blizz has server farms all over the world) but its so that you can play with people near you, and/or on around the same time as you.

[Torhal]

Originally Posted by Gako Recommended servers are the ones in your time zone.

Not quite. When I first started playing I went with the recommended realm, which I still play on. It is on the West coast, and I live on the East coast. Makes it a bit of a pain for raiding, since when it's midnight where I am and I should really go to bed most of the rest of my guild is fine since it's 9pm for them.

[Jesamyn]

I play on an RP realm too, Feathermoon. I have actually seen a lot more RP lately than I have in a long time, especially in the Purple Parlor in Dalaran, which seems to be there for no other real purpose.

I think it just varies by server. I know that on Feathermoon, RP in the global channels like General just doesn't happen. At the most, you might see someone phrase a question about a quest or something in trollspeak. RP by emote or in 'say' does happen. I've seen guilds do initiations in RP form in the Ruins of Lordaeron.

All that being said, I can't count the number of times I've yelled 'Lok'tar Ogar!' when Ony or Nef were killed, or when we'd just succeeded at a city raid. Not really serious RP, I know, but it does add some flavor.