You know I’m a crazed wannabe lost designer so:
– If you can build the game from zero, here
– If you need to solve it without changing the structure, here (hidden into that long entry)

In particular:
use the unbalance to originate fun and interesting gameplay.

The idea is to unsderstand and accept that your game will have serious balance problems. You can try to solve them directly at the root, like I suggest in the first link, or you can still consider the problem and manage directly the gameplay so that you can use the unbalance aa a strength.

I start from the idea that playing in an overpowered faction isn’t so interesting or cool. From a roleplay point of view it’s a lot more exciting to play in the faction that is outnumbered. It will give your actions a bigger epic purpose and what you’ll achieve will have a greater value. This is exactly where the unbalance can become DIRECTLY a strength for the game, instead that a big issue.

The strategy is about making a list of the strength of an unbalance faction. This is easy to do even by looking at DAoC. Large zergs are unorganized, chaotic. They move slowly and have a general “dumb” reaction. A smaller group could be able to attack the bigger realm on different points, quickly and before the bigger realm can react. The goal is exactly to focus on all these dynamics to then give them value into the game and incentivate them.

There was also a great idea about drawing the population for the PvP battlegrounds from ALL the servers. Instancing them perfectly by level and faction. This would have solved radically both the problem of barren servers and off-peaks.

The simple conclusion is that everything can be solved in the case you think the issue is important and needs to be a strong element of the gameplay structure. Instead of ignoring/crossing fingers like both Mythic and Blizzard are doing.

As a player I just analyzed the situation, hoping to make the best choice on the few elements I have.

No fun flying all over the game universe looking for a fight. Obviously, switching sides, professions even, was a much easier matter in SWG. It would take quite an effort to maintain 2 (or more) level 60 Warcraft characters, suitably outfitted for PVP.

Other than allowing dynamic server selections for everyone, how could they even address this? Limiting server pops in some way? Monthly incentives or powerups for the weaker faction?

On the other hand, I live in New Zealand, so I miss the US peak time and don’t see any server queues and despite the distance have a 250ms ping to Proudmoore which is fine. You should stop your bitching and just move country. Problem solved.

My first two worries are exactly the opposite of everyone else: the population unbalance between horde and alliance, a solid, big community that won’t vanish with the time.

Mannoroth, for now, is good for both. During my checks to establish the horde/alliance ratio I obtained satisfactory results (1900/1400 players at peak times) and the server was the most popular during the first days, now it has moved down a few positions which isn’t a bad thing since I never see queues.

What matters is on the long run. I’m not one of those players creating multiple alts on various servers. I make a character and play that one, so my need is to choose the best server with an healthy and rich playerbase that won’t leave the server barren and unplayable with the time.

And despite now it’s extremely popular it’s still not so easy to find healers to finish that hellish Uldaman.

The luck, instead, is because Mannoroth has been one of the most stable, lag and queue free servers. But I still care more about the long run.

Here’s a tip. Break the words into chunks. Example: Ass-lick-er. One who licks ass until they like the taste.