Picking a Server

Bringing a solo character from level one to eighty takes a lot of time and effort. Why waste your work by planting your toon on a server you will ultimately be disappointed with. A little bit of homework can go a long way in avoiding a scrapped character or a $25 transfer fee.

First things first, do some preliminary research. Pick your initial targets by identifying servers of a type, size, and timezone that meets your needs. Next, check the forums of any server you are targeting on the World of Warcraft Community Website. This will give you some sense of the server's "tone" as well as an idea of who the power players are. Go a step further and peruse a few of the major guilds' websites. Even if you are not planning to be an endgame raider, you will be sharing Azeroth with these people.

If the server seems to mesh well with you thus far, it is time to make a toon. However, do not get too invested yet. Do some initial leveling and then spend a fair bit of time in one of your faction's major cities. What is the conversation in Trade Chat like? Is there a lot of activity in the Looking for Group Channel? Are people looking to fill spots in groups that correspond to the role your toon will ultimately play? Next check the Auction House to see how the server's economy is doing. A healthy server economy will have wide variety of goods available and healthy competition amongst sellers.

Doing this initial investigation will go a long way to saving you headaches down the road, but keep in mind that no matter how diligent you are things can change. Free server transfers can change the complection of a server literally overnight. It is always a possibility that your new server will be a far different place by the time you hit level 80. However, you will always be better served to assume a good server will stay good as opposed to betting on a bad server turning things around.