realm connections, what if queue happens?

[Tokas]

I like connected realms, having played on dead realm myself, I really do notice the difference.
But what is going to happen once WoD (or even expansion after WoD) ships and those realms become well populated again?
They won't be able to split realms anymore, since people in your guild will be from those realms... Would those realms be doomed to have queue for ever?
I guess Blizzard is going to keep those connected realms on a low side (like connecting 5 low pop realms, instead of 10) to avoid queue, either way, seems like a loss.

[MerinPally]

I would be surprised if they kept server capacities the same when merging them. Or if there wasn't some way to free up more space on 1 server now it's connected to another.

[Deleted]

Already happening. Ravencrest was a high server before it got connected. Now it's full and it has queues on wednesday (and some other days)... something that generally didn't happen anymore except for when a new raid patch is released.

[Tokas]

I hope that some day Blizzard will invent some...thing, and connect super high population servers to very low ones, and that way if you get queue on your super high server, you're somehow "transfered" to the low one, which is essentially the same server, but with no queue. I hope it makes sense.
Basically, your server name might change, but you're still in the same guild etc etc.

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Already happening. Ravencrest was a high server before it got connected. Now it's full and it has queues on wednesday (and some other days)... something that generally didn't happen anymore except for when a new raid patch is released.

I have some alts on Ravencrest-EU, didn't know it was connected... You sure?
I know they allowed transfers from some other servers to Ravencrest for a while, maybe that's what causing queue.

[Asmekiel]

I would imagine there being load balancing between the connected realms. If not it would just be a waste of server power available.

[Deleted]

I hope that some day Blizzard will invent some...thing, and connect super high population servers to very low ones, and that way if you get queue on your super high server, you're somehow "transfered" to the low one, which is essentially the same server, but with no queue. I hope it makes sense.
Basically, your server name might change, but you're still in the same guild etc etc.

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I have some alts on Ravencrest-EU, didn't know it was connected... You sure?
I know they allowed transfers from some other servers to Ravencrest for a while, maybe that's what causing queue.

Ugh, they indeed didn't. They merged the US ravencrest... (with so many names available why even use duplicate names for servers Blizz). Still the queues are annoying but luckily relatively short compared to Kazzak during peak times.

[Shrouded]

I would imagine there being load balancing between the connected realms. If not it would just be a waste of server power available.

Pretty sure "connected" realms aren't actually "connected", despite what Blizzard has implied - they are merged. That is to say, they're actually the same realm on the same server so there is no load balancing to be done. All realms that are connected to each other share the same IP address now.

[Asmekiel]

Pretty sure "connected" realms aren't actually "connected", despite what Blizzard has implied - they are merged. That is to say, they're actually the same realm on the same server so there is no load balancing to be done. All realms that are connected to each other share the same IP address now.

Talk about waste of resources :/

[Tokas]

it is such a mess, that I think having servers merged (old fashion way) would have been a lesser evil (people losing their nicknames).

[MoanaLisa]

For now, you still log onto your realm just like normal. The 'connected' part happens after you enter the world. Perhaps they'll do something in the future. Login servers and their queues aren't the same thing as world servers.

[rjparker1]

I like connected realms, having played on dead realm myself, I really do notice the difference.
But what is going to happen once WoD (or even expansion after WoD) ships and those realms become well populated again?
They won't be able to split realms anymore, since people in your guild will be from those realms... Would those realms be doomed to have queue for ever?
I guess Blizzard is going to keep those connected realms on a low side (like connecting 5 low pop realms, instead of 10) to avoid queue, either way, seems like a loss.

Well you know a connected realm is really nothing more than 2 or more realms that share data. If a realm (or connected realm) becomes populated they are still separate realms.. they are just SHARING a database. Besides they offer free to transfer for cases such as these, it won't change a thing. They will simple offer people on those realms a free realm transfer.

This will be a moot point anyway. WoW was designed before virtual machines and before cloud technology was mature. WoW could be a HUGE realm cohesive with replicated points in different parts of the world. Some of you will say what about lag and latency well Enterprise servers have been doing this same thing for years if you work in a large company they replicate your login server all over the world, email is done this way, file servers.. why not WoW? It's just a windows based product, not big deal.

Some aspects of the code needs a LOT of work like mail to increase or change capacity, which is why the bank is static its hard coded to basically only allow a certain number of slots. So they changed which items take up slots as a result.. which increases capacity.

I think if WoD is released as is there will be a VERY immediate patch to just make WoW one singular realm.. all of things Blizzard has done in the past year or two is contributing to this, cross realm zones (could be load balanced), queue from different realm, and now connected realms.. this all leads to building a giant server that simple puts you at the closest server and simply "synchronizes" with the rest of the world.

If you are thinking that this would cause unbalanced populate areas, no it will not. 200 realms now logged into separately, 200 realms in the near future will be split EVENLY among ALL logged in players.. what we will end up with is better lag and latency since we won't have some servers with 100K people and some with 10K, it will simply average out ALL realms.. if you move to a new zone you will simply be load balanced with that zone on another realm.. they are using the technology now.

an LFR queue, dungeon or any other instance is a "realm" in reality, it just has 25, or 10 or 5 people on it.. then when it's over you are sent back dynamically to your originating realm... It's not all that complicated.

[Leefa]

You still og onto your old server, think of it as phasing between realms. Doesn't affect the login process.