Increasing Population

[Marharbal]

I was editing my post several times, sorry, maybe you already answered before the final editing, just wanted to point that out (if you want to refer to some other things in the post^^).

As far as my experience tells me (i too was part of a rather small Private-ClassicWoW-Project), any diversification of player-rights leaves the Server-Team open to really problematic criticism, that can damage the reputation of the Server beyond repair. Of course this "little change" may have rather small impact (don't know for sure), but its rather the impulse, that comes with it. If you overstep the line once, next time won't be as hard to do as the first time^^.
So no, even though it might somewhat reasonable, i absolutely can't get behind such a system.

I also want to avoid a long queue-system of 30mins or more, because this would exactly lead to the things you described. It's a delicate matter to introduce a queue. But there are possibilities to get the benefits from a queue-system (stop population growth) without producing too much wait time (my assumption, can be contested!), the Team therefore needs to find the right number for a queue and also handle it somewhat dynamic.
This would be, if there would be no new server. If a new server is introduced, a rather harsh cap could make sense as stated above.

But why is it unlikely, that a whole guild transfers to the new Server? I'm just curious - what are the really big downsides? As far as i remember my own social contacts always centered around my guild anyways.

[Tinkertown]

But why is it unlikely, that a whole guild transfers to the new Server? I'm just curious - what are the really big downsides? As far as i remember my own social contacts always centered around my guild anyways.

What almost invariably happends if a guild decides to leave because of sudden circumstance is that a portion of the guild decide that they are staying. Sometimes declaring that they think that the guild should stay too, sometimes they are more or less reqruiting more people to stay, sometimes they leave early because there is an opening in a staying guild that they don't want to see close because they hesitated. Now the guild leadership is faced with the decition of staying or breaking the guild in half risking death, sometimes it breaks before they even have time to reconsider.

In smaller guilds, like on retail this is less likely, but your average 40 man guild generally has a lot of subgroupings and leaving intact will be rare. Expect a lot of guild merges/absorbsions/breakups on the other side.

If the decition isn't made in a hurry but in good time before, then there is a much better chance of it working well. It gives time to reqruit before if needed and it gives time to convince the sceptics. It also vastly diminishes the power a group of say 6 people has to keep the guild on the server by threatening to stay. A planned move has a far better chance of success.

Most of this is based on what happened 10y ago when free server migration options popped up. History doesn't always repeat itself, but trying to get the guild up and leaving in a hurry is a fairly big gamble.

Top end guilds also have it easier. Both since their players tend to be less prone to give up a raidspot in what they consider a good guild and because they often have an easier time filling up should the need arise.

[Marharbal]

So the primary issue could be time. So another Server under previously described circumstances (queue aso.) needs to be something that is communicated early on to the player base. If i remember correctly, The Nostalrius-Team already did that with the PvE-Server, so there are good chances they will give it time to grow in the minds of people before they introduce it (if they plan such a thing^^).

Back in Retail: Did the possibility for Server-Switching pop up rather suddenly?

Ofc a change like Guild-Transfer will most of the time be followed by tension and tendencies for break-up, but especially in the Private-Server-Community you often find Guilds, that are quite used to travel from Server to Server with the majority of their players.

[Tinkertown]

Well, we were talking about guilds considering making or going through with a sudden decition. For example because of a queue causing more problems than anticipated. In those cases time wouldn't matter very much. I'm actually not sure how much warning we got in Vanilla before transfers. My memory is that it was fairly sudden but it could easily be that I just didn't get the memo. I do remeber guilds deciding during the window though, sometimes with sad results.

But as I said, guilds that planned ahead often had no issue. And I'm sure that would be the case here too if a second Nost pvp server ever opened up.

I still really don't want a queue though. That Nost doesn't ever throw that on you is one of its greatest strenghts. And given the enourmous amount of players straight up demanding a second server I don't get why you worry so much about noone migrating. And regardless, if added incentives is what you want. Use positive reinforcement. Give players who transfer to the new server a 24h +100% xp buff or something.

There is no need to kick raiders in the groin just because you think that players who want to leave wont leave.