Did Blizzard think through Xrealm tech properly?

[Deleted]

I am one of those players who left during cata and came back for WoD so there are many features of Wow which are new to me. I guess im lucky that i have all of MoP to play through as well as WoD, two expansions for the price of one

Now, im starting to notice something which concerns me... thats using xrealm phasing to realm hop.

The new Group Finder is great, i like it. Being able to find groups for almost every part of the game is cool and works nicely. But more and more people are seeing the potential to use xrealm phasing as a way to simplify all sorts of activities out in the openworld. All you do is go to the location of what u want then get on the Group Finder and join any group u find, u phase onto the leaders realm, check if what u need is there, then leave the group if its not there.

The obvious activity to take advantage of this Xrealm phasing is rare spawn hunting, for rare mounts etc. Ive quickly realised that i can use Xrealm phasing to get loads of ingame activities done easier and quicker.

1. Rare spawns.

2. Fishing, just find a safe school node and once u have fished it out phase realms and u can fish node after node without even moving.

3. Achievements. Plenty of achievements can be simplified with clever use of Xrealm phasing.

4. Rep farming. Killed all the adds on your realm? Simply phase onto another realm and they all reappear!

(im sure there are more uses of phasing but cant think atm)

The other sad part of this new ingame habit is the poor guy who starts a group to get something done and endlessly gets a whole load of players joining and leaving his group... Its antisocial, its rude and does nothing to add to the ingame community. This all promotes totally the wrong community attitude in my opinion

Can this new ingame activity be called exploiting?

Does it trivialise openworld content even more?

Does it reduce community relations even more?

[Vilendor]

Working as intended. Less complaint from overpopulated realms = happier Blizzard

[Deleted]

Working as intended. Less complaint from overpopulated realms = happier Blizzard

Sure i agree theres less complaints about realm populations now, but did they really fix the problem the best way possible?

[Pull My Finger]

To me, the concerns you listed are totally trivial things/non-issues. I think crossrealm is OK.

[Jewsco]

Since they implemented the xrealms this has been an issue discussed in many a thread here.
Conclusion blizz just doesnt care they want the world to "feel" lived in and the illusion of lots of players out there.
Even if one purposely choose to be on low populated realm to farm rares too bad too sad that is t what blizz wants.
Nevermind I pay to be on the realm I choose.
Best I can tell you is you/us have to deal with it.
It is the way things are now.

[Sansnom]

The other sad part of this new ingame habit is the poor guy who starts a group to get something done and endlessly gets a whole load of players joining and leaving his group... Its antisocial, its rude and does nothing to add to the ingame community. This all promotes totally the wrong community attitude in my opinion

Can this new ingame activity be called exploiting?

Does it trivialise openworld content even more?

Does it reduce community relations even more?

Well, that is human nature. Me first, help me to get my stuff attitude. People like this will always use others for their own ends, in game or out of game. Nothing can be done about it.

Just have to accept that there will always people like this anywhere in the world, virtual or real.

[SlippyCheeze]

I am one of those players who left during cata and came back for WoD so there are many features of Wow which are new to me. I guess im lucky that i have all of MoP to play through as well as WoD, two expansions for the price of one Now, im starting to notice something which concerns me... thats using xrealm phasing to realm hop.

The new Group Finder is great, i like it. Being able to find groups for almost every part of the game is cool and works nicely. But more and more people are seeing the potential to use xrealm phasing as a way to simplify all sorts of activities out in the openworld. All you do is go to the location of what u want then get on the Group Finder and join any group u find, u phase onto the leaders realm, check if what u need is there, then leave the group if its not there.

Can this new ingame activity be called exploiting?

Does it trivialise openworld content even more?

Does it reduce community relations even more?

If you left early and only just returned, maybe you missed the incessant whining about how CRZ made it impossible to farm rare pet spawns, etc, any longer, in exact counterbalance to your complaints.

Anyway, to your specific questions:

No, this isn't exploiting anything, and it can't reasonably be called that, since it uses the in-game feature exactly as designed. In MoP oQueue could be used exactly the same way, and even without that you could have friends invite you to a low-pop realm to make it easier to farm spawns, etc.

I'm personally on the fence about "trivialising" open world content -- the only sort it makes easier is "random chance of rare spawn" stuff, which is really content that favors people who can, eg, sit there with wow running all day doing nothing, rather than actively playing. I'm not sure it makes a huge difference to any interactive content.

I don't believe it has any relationship to community, or lack of community, and don't find your example convinces me otherwise.

[Rivin]

The current Group Finder wasn't a thing when they implemented cross-realm technology, so no, that wasn't even a consideration at the time. It just happens that the way both features work allows people to group jump across realms. And considering how minor the impact is, I doubt Blizzard is even going to bother trying to fix it.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think it was done alright. Of course after the fact you can always find something to complain about if you want to dig deep enough.