It isn’t 100% precise and not automatically updated, but it seems pretty much reliable. If you click on the server name you also get the details. It’s neat.
There’s another shared tracker here. I’ve downloaded the code and using it locally for the Mannoroth server. Sadly I cannot manage to turn on the php directive “allow_url_fopen”, so the drop down menu is broken.
EDIT: I’m so l33t. I hacked the script to use the cURL library and bypass the flag. There’s a nifty tutorial in the Dreamhost wiki. I’ll have to mail the author for this.
EDIT2: Blizzard has also started an official one. It seems updating only once a day, though.
My server is third at the moment (Mannoroth, one with the most balanced horde/alliance ratio), yesterday there was a huge (player-created) event in Silithus with both Horde and Alliance getting faction to trigger something else. Zerging one against the other in the most lagged environment ever. Lots of rooftop camping and the taurens with Kodos cockblocking the NPCs. I really don’t know the details and was busy with the guild in MC. I just know that it was probably the biggest PvP event ever. And it ended badly.
The server crashed more than 15 times (not a joke) before just dying completely for more than an hour (then I stopped checking).
We were digging a really big hole under the wall, and it happened to crash the server 10 times and have 2 GMs come and stop by to say hi.
Quoting from F13:
The REAL Catassery is from the poor top end raiding guilds who are competing to be the first ones to open the Gates.
The raiding guilds trying to open the gate must first earn (on ONE character) Friendly reputation with the Bronze Brood. You start out at FULL HATED. You get 1 reputation point for every turnin of an item (only able to be seen by characters deputized to help) which drops off of the elite Silithids in Silithus (think of it as similar to a Scourge stone). Since they drop at around 1-4 per mob, that means you have to kill 30-40 THOUSAND of them, all the while makeing sure someone who can loot the item is there to pick them up and pass them to your Rep Bitch.
And you thought Timbermaw faction was a cockblock.
And after you hit friendly, they smack you with a string of 10-15 raid level quests that will require you do do MC, BWL, Darnassus, Stormwind, and god knows what else raids. Sometimes on timers (one, i think, requires a Broodlord – Neff kill in under 5 hours).
On the ranting side:
Well, I’m disappointed to report that the catass who told me to stop levelling and farm linen is tacitly supported by the guild officers. It seems that while I was gone (6 months) the guild underwent a rather interesting metamorphosis from people who had played one game together well to a completely catassed-out-the-ass guild. In other words, I am a very small minority. (I even got booted today briefly for daring to tell the catass to stop telling me how to play – the guy’s not even an officer).
Ah well.
I fail to understand why Blizzard is falling into the trap that has snagged others – providing elite content for the 5% of ubers who don’t have jobs or families. Why why why? The disparity in equipment between those without jobs or other rl commitments and those with is just silly. Who designs these things anyway?
I want to play a game that’s designed by a 30- or 40-something person with a couple of kids and a job, not a 20 something person with neither.
Actually that’s one reason why most of the developers don’t play their games.
About the rant on guilds: as I said when discussing the voice chat, the content shapes the community and the guilds shape themselves around the content. It only seem just a responsibility of the players, when it’s actually a responsibility of the developers. It’s the game to dictate the way you play after the initial pact is made.