Should CRZ Go Bye-Bye On PvE Realms?

[BenBos]

I have two main issues with CRZ. One is the glitches. Random hangups when you cross zone boundaries, UI issues, all that. They're better than they were, but they still certainly exist. This is the issue that can and probably will eventually be resolved.

The second one is trickier. CRZ makes low-pop servers suffer from the extra competition of high-pop servers (nodes, rare spawns, quest kills) etc, but without any of the compensation that you'd normally get from a high-pop server. Essentially, CRZ turns low-pop servers into hybrids that are low-pop in the areas where that's a disadvantage (current content, economy) and high-pop in the areas where _that's_ a disadvantage (resource competition). The worst of both worlds. That'll be hard to fix, I expect.

Then there are the peripheral issues, like server clocks being different (screwing up things like the fishing derbies, spawn timers, etc), and target detection problems where you fly over a rare mob, but when you get off the flight path it's gone because you crossed realms.

I also felt like they really hosed up the one good reason to do it in PVE. The group quests that were so hard to complete before would have been helped by CRZ, but the same patch that brought us CRZ removed all the difficult (and fun) quests. I was so sad the first time I got to Razzarius after Cata. Who was this wimp? WTF?

Those 2 "problems" you mention are peanuts compared to the FUTURE possibilities of cross server open world play really.

It is like saying: look automobiles can not be trusted mechanically in 1888, so let's not continue and go along with horses...

----

With CROSS server technology (Blizzard started already it in 2006 with those BG's and later added dungeons in 2009 etc) you defy any population problem of your MMO in the long run...

You no longer will speak about "realms" in a few years time.

The so called "community" of a Realm is not something fixed or defined. It is JUST THE RESULT of the technology LIMITS that were put forward in Massive On Line play during the past years ....

MUDS: 100 people could play at the same time.

Present day MMORPG's single realm play: 2 K people (divided in 2 faction) play at the same time. Since on average only 20% is on line, a server these days holds around 10K different accounts ...

But that's simply because of the technological LIMITS.

Those limits will now be BREACHED in Blizzard's next MMO and in WOW.

Example:

---> EVE NEVER had these issues because they had ONE server cluster to play on and regrouped 300.000 players. It was easier for them as >EVE does not have a world, not even a gravity, nor landscapes to deal with,... only empty space filled with space ships.

The BASIC of EVE play are the corporations (their equivalent of guilds): they make the game, the same will happen to Blizzard's new MMO and WOW within just a couple of years.

The fact that this NEW technology (for a landscape based game) has been implemented (seamless and without loading screens) just makes your new Azeroth BIG, much bigger than the single full realm play we are used to...

WHY ? Because cross server play allows to let an MMORPG flourish because it will be INDEPENDANT of single server (realm) play.

The basics will be guild play - independant of server technology.

ALSO:

Moaning about non adapted content for this CRZ is silly: the game just introduced this new technology: you can't expect ALL content to be adapted the second they introduced open world play across servers.

BUT there IS already LOTS of old content being replayed en mass: the PvP zones of Outland are just one example. No doubt there will be incensitives to adapt new mechanism now this new CRZ is in play.

Conclusion:

Look : everyone complained about cross server BG's (without them you wouldn't have 70+ bracketed BG's), everyone complained about cross server dungeons (without them NO lower dungeons would EVER be played again), everyone complained about phasing (without phasing it would be IMPOSSIBLE to have farms grow in your world). Now everyone complains about a NEW technology that will open up WOW to EVER lasting populated worlds whatever the LEVEL or the content.

Silly people really. it is quite obvious with the many examples shown in the conclusion part that a lot of players have NO CLUE about MMORPG design whatsoever.

Or they would design games which left people stranded on single server play with 10 dudes waiting for each other... and NO the "old" merges" don't help s hit, because you only populate the higher zones, NOT every zone and every content from lvl1 to lvl 90 /+...

This is NEW technology and it stunned me Blizzard could implement it in a legacy system like WOW in such a short time.

No doubt CRZ is the first step in a complete NEW and exciting way to play in open worlds without EVER having to worry about dying populations. Like I said earlier: WOW could loose 95% of its players and with cross server play Azeroth will be filled 10 times more than the biggest server (realm) could ever hold...

[velde046]

I can understand why people would want it for PvP servers, they get the world PvP that they think they didn't used to have. But people on PvE realms seem less than enamored by it and tend to be finding it quite a nuisance as per what I've been reading on the official forums.

Of course it's got a lot of problems that need to be ironed out, but should that be done only in the context of PvP servers and just put PvE servers back to normal?

Well that's if you assume it is broken. From what I read is that it is working as intended. So it basically not problems that need to be ironed out, but questioning whether this is a desired situation. And I think Blizzard is fine with it. Zones were meant to be more lively, and farming for herbs or ore, should have some competition according to Blizzard. So with that in mind I don't think there's much to 'iron out'.

Blizzard intends this to be 'normal' for PVE.

[pitakos]

CRZ is the worst and most poor mechanic blizzard ever thought or implement into this game thus making it gamebreaking.

1.) Giving you the option to MIGRATE your character(s) from a server to another is being here for a long time.The desicion to give YOUR extra money for this can vary for many reason.For example someones prefers to be on a low pop server, or can't stand a party of people (religion,nationality etc), many bots on this server and the list go on.
To give my example i payed to move my characters out of Genjuros which is full of retarded people(certain nationality) in such an aspect that they were making this game for me frustrating.But hey with the new system now I have them again in my face.Why don't they refund me the Real Money i have wasted for the useless Character Migration?

2.)Making the game like they wanted to be, but things have changed now. Ok zones seem populated now, but this also means that there will not be only people on your lvl there but lvl 90s too.So the intention of this game is to be camped on your alt by lvl 90s from x,y,z server?When every gathering profession, rare etc is being camped by 90s from other servers is justice?You already have to compete other people into your server for it.

3.)There is no actual competition whatsoever CRZ is gamebreaking.People can do achievements/dailies/rare/farm etc by being invited into different servers with low population even as a crossrealm zone.So whoever has a battle.net friend who can invite him can farm freely while you are stuck into a full CRZ...

4.)Most things are bugged cause if this poor design (quest items,quest givers/turners ,rares,minerals etc)


I could go on forever how bad CRZ is but it will be too big to read post and also it makes me frustrated the more time i am thinking of this.



They should at least give our money back we wasted on Character Transfers since they nagated the aspect of this service for those who did it for a certain reason

[voidspark]

To me, zones are more dead with CRZ... all I see now are zones filled with brainless players rushing about like city rioters and dead NPCs.

The one thing I've never heard anybody say is "You know what I love about Black Friday sales? The THOUSANDS of people out in the malls! The whole world seems so alive and wonderful when I'm standing in queues for a new toy, or trying to find a parking space in a forrest full of SUVs, or smashing my way through a horde of greedy people tearing apart a shipping crate fresh out of the stockroom!"

Quoted here. There's a difference between making good communities (which is a really important thing when it comes to me) on realms and getting to know your server versus making the open world a total hell.

Most of my "bonding" and all that is usually done at level 90, in PUG runs (for instance, getting to know people over some Mogu'shan action or Firelands/Dragon Soul in Cata). I do not meet people in the world. I do not make friends with them there, they are just people to be swept aside as they make your day longer. I REALLY do not meet people or make friends with them at level 40, they are just there to slow me down and make it harder for me to actually meet people in the 90 PUG raids.

When it comes to interaction I think Blizzard should really emphasize that (by, for instance, making alts easier to get normal raid-ready) and not try to herd people into dailycraft and cross-realm zones.

[zshikara]

In its current form I dislike CRZ, however I think it is a step in the right direction. If I see people from other servers on my server I should be able to do everything in the game with them. I should be able to buy the stuff they put on the AH, join their guilds, run in their raids (non lfr), and such. I think you get the idea.

[Kalium]

Lol ez from my research on the official forum - ''DEY TAKING MY NODES / HERB SPOTS ._.''

''I wanna quest alone too many people taking my kills''

Mainly the second one that I've listed for pvE anyway

My biggest complaint is battle pet hunting... you have some pets that only spawn during certain times of the day... or under certain conditions... all of a sudden you cross an invisible line... your clock jumps up to two hours and the pet you were just looking at vanishes... move back a few feet it pops back up... but it keeps disappearing before you can get to it. That is a problem. I would prefer to either stay on one realm the entire time or spawns server hop with you.

[Barnabas]

I play on high pop server with many botters. I don't have any problems gathering, if I choose to do so, which is rare. The economy on my server isn't ass so I don't see the issues people that play on servers with bad economies have. I honestly think rare spawns should be rare and not something you can just go freely kill with no competition.

[lockedout]

I can understand why people would want it for PvP servers, they get the world PvP that they think they didn't used to have. But people on PvE realms seem less than enamored by it and tend to be finding it quite a nuisance as per what I've been reading on the official forums.

Of course it's got a lot of problems that need to be ironed out, but should that be done only in the context of PvP servers and just put PvE servers back to normal?

People are just mad they can't farm ore and herbs in low level zones. Never see any other compelling arguments other than there are to many people in my MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE role playing game.

[scubistacy]

No offense to you, but these are terrible solutions. This will render goods completely worthless as the entire competition will take place in the AH driving prices down into the dirt, especially on larger servers. Having everyone get credit for the kill of mobs means every gets access to loot from said mobs, and that is an inequity; if I'm farming and someone whom either thinks they are helping me or is specifically trying to hijack my drops throws a dot on everything then gets to roll on what drops, it's going to destroy the game...

Well, LOTRO has already implemented the tagging solution in its latest zone, together with an automatic loot system. Anyone who strikes a mob / boss will get credit in form of random loot, Exp and quest objectives. This is only implemented in the latest zone because people do mounted combat there, and do not have time to roam around and loot each and every corpse with mounting / dismounting.

And the GW2 node system works out well, too.

I don't see any reasy why this would "ruin" WoW's questing experience or economy. You already have the situation that people who have more time at hands can spend more time farming and thus are more prominent at the AH. This is especially important for low pop servers, which economy is only affected by additional farmers, but not additional bidders / sellers.

[Mnevis]

I do not meet people in the world. I do not make friends with them there, they are just people to be swept aside as they make your day longer. I REALLY do not meet people or make friends with them at level 40, they are just there to slow me down

It used to be that we did. When my first characters leveled up, my friends list was people I'd joined up with for quests in Hillsbrad and people I'd run BRD with. I get that they're trying to shift away from the impersonal back to multiplayer, but this implementation just won't have any effect. I do miss that meeting random people aspect, and I suppose I might meet someone cool while questing on my Monk and in theory I could put them on my friends list.

But, you know how many people I have put on my friends list from cross-server dungeons? Zero, of course. I can't have any interaction with them that involves stuff. I can't join their guild or raid with them at level cap. I could tell them they're welcome to transfer to my server and join my guild, but the odds of that happening are roughly zero.

I think 'give players on pve servers the option to turn it off' is a ridiculous proposal, but I'm glad that people are expressing their discontent with this implementation, even if I agree that it's a step towards a WoW that I like better.

[Conscience]

CRZ does not even improve the population. Its just fills up what was missing. And only so much a zone can handle.
No benefit over controlled server merges and free transfers away from dead realms followed by closing them down.

Yet you can fill pages with game breaking and fun killing weaknesses and bugs. On top of that flaws that turn dead server even worse. Like the increased competition of several realms over the same number of resources impossible to be shared between each realms economy yet. A death blow to the auction house of all the unfortunate low populated server.

Two step sidewards to avoid bad press with merges and a stumbling step backwards from a point many don't even fully realized yet.
Yet they keep up this farce to continue milking death trap realms with paid server transfers.

[Darnakus]

Once it gets improved with time, CRZ will be good, but currently it's a little iffy on how well it handles

[Pancaspe]

CRZ is NextGen Tech, it is the future, and Blizzard is right to embrace it.

[Geminiwolf]

Nah it's fine on PvE realms, I haven't had too much trouble with it, if at all. Maybe on PvP realms though I could see that getting really annoying but as for PvE I think it's fine the way it is. At least for my server it is.

[yjmark]

I do not meet people in the world. I do not make friends with them there, they are just people to be swept aside as they make your day longer. I REALLY do not meet people or make friends with them at level 40, they are just there to slow me down and make it harder for me to actually meet people in the 90 PUG raids.

Well, CRZ was obviously not designed for you. CRZ was designed for people who actually do enjoy meeting others while leveling and seeing people out in the world (like me). I think it was especially implemented to help newer players see that WoW is actually populated. If a new player starts playing the game, and doesn't see another person until he hits level 90.......kinda lame. With CRZ, that person will now see more people.

As a side note, Blizz is obviously making a lot of changes to try and help bring new people into the game. WoW is not a new game, and can not compete with new games when it comes to leveling zone population. Newer games will have more people in leveling zones because the game is "new", and many people are not at max level yet. WoW does not have that luxury. So when a new person starts playing this MMO, and they see no one around.....lame. They try the next MMO, and see lots of people....yay!

[Olianda]

The only issue I have with it is now instead of two 85-90s farming Fel Iron in each zone, I get two from each server. I've got two blacksmiths and a JC stuck at Fel Iron atm, because even while leveling I was finding practically none.

[Mormolyce]

Why do people even bother calling for removal of CRZ? They will never remove it. It's highly successful and popular. Blizzard doesn't do drastic things like remove important gameplay concepts just because mindless haters spam up forums. If you have complaints try to make them rational and put them on the official forums and they might do something to address them.

Isn't it LESS of an imposition on PVE realms anyway?

What I don't like: Sharing rarespawns and nodes.

Then your problem is WoW, not CRZ. Cos that's how it was always designed to be.

[Rhodair]

I think the people who hate it for gathering reasons forget the zones were designed with a high population in mind. Even with CRZ implemented, the zones are still more dead than their glory days.

[Nigeldruid]

http://elderscrollsonline.info/mega-server

Instead of CRZ, yes please!

[Ealyssa]

http://elderscrollsonline.info/mega-server

Instead of CRZ, yes please!

Yeah korean zone shard style... Do not want in wow, kthxbye.