Sorry to start yet another thread about CRZ. I would post on the battlenet forums, but I cancelled both my accounts because I don't like paying to beta test. I am very confused why anyone would like cross realm zoning and would like to ask a few questions about it. (Aside from Real ID invites which are the only good feature of crz imo)
Blizzard states that CRZ is to let you "see more people." Also, people say that crz allows world pvp, which usually means lvl 90s attacking lvl 30s but whatever.
As to the first point, why would you want or need to see more people in the overworld of wow? They only represent competition for you, even players from your own faction. Do you go to the grocery store at peak hours hoping it will be super crowded? Do you choose the longest line to pay so the store "feels more alive?" Do you hope the post office has a super long line and is sold out of stamps because that makes doing your daily chores more challenging? Most people PLAY games to relax. They don’t think of them as being real or representing some desire to achieve things. I have my real life to work at. I played wow to have fun. In short, there is no advantage whatsoever to grouping in wow. In fact, grouping usually makes quests take longer and you don't get as much exp, gold, or items.
Blizzard REMOVED almost ALL group quests years ago and now they suddenly decide you need to group while leveling? They reduced the required exp to level and added heirlooms to make it faster. You out level a zone before you even finish all the quests in the zone now! Who cares if there's no other people in Desolace or Stonetalon? If they hope to give new players (and we all know they are a very small %) a better leveling experience, jamming zones with 5-10 times the players quests can support is not the way to do it. Finally, to anyone who trolls, "WoW is an MMO", yeah I know that. I have played off and on since open beta 2004. It was an MMO before CRZ, duh. I like socializing with my guild and RL friends. I do not like socializing with asshats from other realms who come to mine for the sole purpose of causing trouble.
Now, as to the PVP issues and people not being able to quest and level due to roving bands for max lvls camping areas like the dark portal. Many will reply, "PVP happened on a PVP server!" Yep, that is true, though unbalanced pvp like that is for the weak cowardly 90s who run to a zone phase when anyone their level shows up. My question is this, why did WPVP "die off" without CRZ? There was nothing stopping pvp on pvp servers before CRZ. Oh, I see, without all the new low level toons to gank and grief on other servers, world pvp wasn't "fun."
I also find it funny that most of the low population realms are pvp realms, yet pve realms have to suffer through crz just so max level cowards can warp around and kill people 30-40 levels below them without even worrying about help coming because with crz, who knows what server the help will end up on. World pvp died for a reason, it was pointless and took away from the pve experience. PVP has battlegrounds and arenas. The game didn't even have pvp at launch! It was added as an afterthought! To design "features" around it is absurd given that the vast majority of players roll on pve servers.
Ok, well that was my vent. Again, I actually followed through on my threat to quit, as did many in my guild. I think anyone who believes CRZ was introduced for the players is very naive. Clearly this is some sort of money saving scheme. It is not logical to introduce CRZ now after years of entirely antithetical changes to remove any need to group while leveling. I think if something is not done about CRZ and all the bugs, wow is going to lose millions of players when APs run out and into next year. Maybe I'm wrong, time will tell.