New Real ID Party Feature Now Live, Remains Free

[Boubouille]

New Real ID Party Feature Now Live, Remains Free
The Real ID Party feature is now officially live and remains free, hurray!

We’re happy to announce that the testing period for World of Warcraft's new Real ID Party system is now complete, and the feature is now officially live! We received a lot of great feedback from the community throughout the course of our testing, and we appreciate everyone taking the time to share their thoughts and experiences with us.

For those who haven't yet had a chance to try it out, the Real ID Party system allows players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a 5-player normal or Heroic dungeon, regardless of what realm their friends are on. This new feature makes it easier than ever for real-life friends to play together, and it's available to all World of Warcraft players at no additional charge -- all you need to do is have Real ID enabled.

To learn more about Real ID, visit the Real ID web page and read the FAQ.

For more information about how the Real ID Party system works, check out the FAQ below, updated with a couple new questions that came up during the testing period.

Q: How do I invite Real ID friends to a Real ID Party?
A: Inviting a Real ID friend to a Real ID Party is simple. Just open up your friends list to see which Real ID friends are online. Click on the “Plus” button to send an invitation to a Real ID friend to join your group. You can continue to add Real ID friends to your party until the group is complete. If you cannot complete the group with Real ID friends, you are free to join the Dungeon Finder to fill in the missing roles.

Q: Does a player need to have Real ID enabled to accept a Real ID group invite?
A: Yes, a player must have Real ID enabled, and both players must be Real ID friends to accept or initiate Real ID party invitations.

Q: Can a party leader invite a mix of Real ID friends, character-level friends, guildmates, or random players to the same party?
A: A party leader can invite any combination of Real ID friends from any realm, guildmates from the same realm, or other characters from the same realm to the same party. If the party leader isn’t able to fill up the entire party, the Dungeon Finder can fill in the missing roles.

Q: Can I invite someone who is not a Real ID friend?
A: You can only invite members to a party if they are on your Real ID friends list or if they are on the same realm as you are.

Q: Can I invite a friend of a Real ID friend?
A: No, you can only invite your own Real ID friends the party.

Q. Are you considering expanding the system to work with raids, Battlegrounds, Arenas, or to allow cross-faction play?
A: We're always looking into ways to improve features like this to make it more convenient for real-life friends to play together. However, we don't have any further announcements to share at this time.

Q: Will any future aspects of the Real ID Party system be premium-based?
A: It's always possible that we'll add features and functionality that could have a premium component, but we don't have any specific details to share at this time.

[VitesseEOD]

free? I missed that! Thats a nice change of heart from Blizzard then I guess!

[Strafer]

Great.Nice to see it free.

[slappy102]

Awesome change from "premium"

[Grimbold21]

Patch notes please, instead of this garbage

[Zaroxen]

Blizzard aren't afraid of making controversial announcements, nor are they afraid to admit they were wrong. Both are indicators of a strong company.

[Deleted]

Another victory for the united powers of all them QQ'ers, a good one indeed.

[Aeriscats]

Really Grimbold21? What do you just want them to make up their own set of patch notes?

[Deleted]

This is how it should be in a subscription based game. Don't even start to praise Blizzard for keeping it free. Instead, thank them for using your money to add a good feature to the game.

Also, such decisions may in the long run actually get me to play again, even if I never wanted to, if I get interested in the game in general once again. Adding premium stuff besides cosmetic crap will keep me away though.

[Rixis]

aww, what are the whiners gonna whine about now?

[lokithor]

Patch notes please, instead of this garbage

What patch notes are you talking about?

And freaking awesome news Now if only it worked for raids as well lol, and could invite yourself on another account

[Fraza]

I guess the additional 300k subscription drop got them to think.

[Skullchukka]

Some people will now complain about the system being free.

[Crummy]

Ye. Good game.
A now, a slap on the wrist, a good hard slap on the wrist, to anyone who was bitching about having to pay for it. It was all for nothing you baddie bad scrubs....

[Vayshan]

TY Blizzard for keeping it free!

[Deleted]

Some people will now complain about the system being free.

I don't think so. No one QQs about free T-Shirts.

[Thundurr]

Take THAT Kotick!!!

[schippie]

Some people will now complain about the system being free.

^/this times a million lol

Anyways nice to see blizz atleast for now with the current features the system will be free.

[Neganova]

Community - 1 Activision - 0

Community - 2, actually. Or have we forgotten the "real names on the forums" scare.

[Culexus]

Nice that the feature is free. Lets see what people find to QQ about this news. Cant wait to see.