How to choose a server
Wilhelm of AGN is one of the many players setting sail in the PotBS pre-order preboarding, and he's dealing with one of the hardest decisions MMO players ever make: choosing a server. OK, maybe it's not really that hard (choosing a class probably is), but there is an art to it.
The first thing that determines where you want to play in a multi-realm MMO has to be your previous in-game friends-- if there's anyone already in the game that you need to play with, then you want to make sure to be on the same server they are (as Wilhelm says, "go play with your friends" trumps his rules entirely). After that, everyone's got their criteria. Me, I like a server with a little higher-than-normal population-- it can't be so high that it's overcrowded, but I don't want to play on a low-population server. These are massively multiplayer games, after all. Wilhelm says not to pick the first or last server on the list-- clearly, he's a man who avoids extremes, and probably the highest populations as well.
After that, it's as arbitrary as you want it to be. Wilhelm goes for the most complicated name, but usually by the time I've punched in my criteria, the game only gives me one recommendation, and then I take it. Any other factors that go into choosing a server when you first fire up an MMO?
