Patch 5.4 Feature Preview: Connected Realms

[Shudder]

That's funny, I called it being delayed. They said it was a 5.4 feature not awhile after.

[dewd]

is this the "we dont wanna overhype it" 5.4 feature they kept secret?

[Arrowstormen]

I wonder how low the pop has to be for the server to be a part of it.

[ComputerNerd]

So they get to merge realms.... without having to say they are shutting down any realms,... meaning they dodge the bad PR from that. lol.

hey blizzard you fools should have done this YEARS AGO. except ACTUAILLY MERGE REALMS instead of waiting for "new technology" to do it you know... back when you started hemorraging subs because people diddnt want to pay to play on a server thats not stupid dead? yeah...

Did you bother to actually read ?
This avoids name clashes, and being non-permanant allows them to be shuffled around again should a faction representation or population go screwy.
A big assumption that the low population realms were THE primary reason people left.

What about bind on account items?

As far as I can tell, connected realms should effectively function as one, allowing mail to be sent between those characters whichever traditional realm they came from.
Therefore if your characters on separate traditional realms form part of the same connected realm, then mailing items between them should be possible.
Given how interaction like auction houses, guilds etc are intended to be possible, it makes sense for mail to be included and I would say pretty essential that it is.

is this the "we dont wanna overhype it" 5.4 feature they kept secret?

Blizzard hinted there were many big features in 5.4, and you could pick and choose your favourite.

I would say that Connected Realms, Flex Raiding, Proving Grounds and the Arena Team changes are the bigger changes coming with the patch.
Functionally it is Connected Realms and Flex Raiding that are the biggest imo.

[Deleted]

Does this mean that, if someone already has 11 chars on one realm, they can make an alt on another realm connected together, and send the hierlooms across?

[Prokne]

I wish they would just allow current tier cross realm raiding. Being in the same guild or having the same auction house really doesnt matter, what matters is having as large a pool of people to play with as possible. And this connected realms will probably only merge medium to low pop servers which may or may not want to be merged or benefit from it. What about people who are purposefully on a low pop realm because they like it but might want some opportunities to do specific group activities? Of course they probably think the number of people like that that they will lose is smaller than the number that will like it and either keep playing or come back.

[Ethas]

Wouldn't it be better to allow duplicate names on the single realm and then merge them together with the future possibility of merging all realms into single big world?

[wow2011]

I only have one question:

Will connected Realms share 'realm population', or ever be split apart if one realm gets too large?

Virutal Realm will have no population limit (this is not a merge). Each individual server will have population limit (aka log in queues).

Short answer is no, the connected realms will never be split apart because of population issues.

[Ecwfrk]

For low population servers, this might be a good idea, for everyone else it's just further destroying the community.

For "everyone else" it's presumably irrelevant as it should only affect the low pop servers that are already lacking in community. Of course, if this complaint is based on the same logic as the "I don't like LFR but those who do like it enjoying it destroys the game!!!" complaints then yes, this will horribly and irrevocably destroy something; just like every other thing they don't like/care about/want/need does.

For those on low pop realms that have been wanting a solution other than dropping $25 for each character they have, this will will be great. For those on realms with an already healthy population, it will be meaningless as those realms are unlikely to be connected to other realms.
Other than the previously mentioned illogical complainers, the only ones who don't seem like they'll get much from this is those on high pop realms who are on the wrong side of a massive faction imbalance that makes it feel like a low pop realm. Only those who want to be on a low pop realm have anything to complain about because they're gonna be screwed.

Short answer is no, the connected realms will never be split apart because of population issues.

I doubt that's entirely true. This is a server merge. People from more than one server will now be sharing the same space. They could also say they're merging servers, giving each player the surname of their former server, but only making the surnames visible to people with a different surname. It's just PR semantics.

5000 people in Vale of Eternal Blossoms will still cause performance issues for the players there no matter what virtual realm they rolled their character on. Population limits are implemented for performance reasons. So it's likely connected servers will have a shared queue. Although they'll likely connect servers so that it would take a massive population explosion in one or more of the connected realms for queues to ever be necessary. So shared queues or splits should be highly unlikely, but not unlikely enough to say they'll never happen. I wouldn't be totally surprised to one day see an offer for free transfers from one connected cluster to another.

[Illuminance]

Server mergers without having to call it a server merge. Blizzard is trying to save face while getting close to halving their subscription base. Interesting.

[Shudder]

I am on a super populated realm, hopefully this will not be for populated realms or at least limit it lol.

Yeah, cause that's the whole goal of this, to give high pop realms large queue times...

I suppose this method, as apposed to merging the realms would allow blizz (should they ver need to) un-link the realms back into single ones again, or if population decreases further, add more into the mixup.

At the touch of a button the can theoretically combine or split as many as they like without ever having to worry about identity and naming consequences.

Yeah, another awesome idea, let's tear guilds apart one day.

[Deleted]

Why some people are bashing such positive feature is beyond my understanding.

[Balir]

As long as its faction based too, it will be great. I really don't want a 70% Alliance realm connecting to another one with a similar ratio. If they can balance Horde/Alliance population ratios at the same time it will be sweeeeeeet.

[ganush]

I'm crushed this isn't dropping with 5.4. We need it right now, not months into the raid tier. If we can't plug a couple of holes in our raid group, I sense we're going to fall apart sooner than later, and once people quit, they aren't coming back.

[Wilhelm137]

It's amazing that one of the biggest features and probably the one thing that would bring more life back to the game gets pushed back to 5.5+. People aren't leaving in droves due to lack of content(this expac has had the most so far), they're leaving because no ones like being on a dead server which there's more than several handfuls of them. You want people back? merge their dead servers together with this feature and now what were once dead servers now have life on them again so it's more than a few hundred on at prime time.

[Aerisot]

Won't this allow players to multibox again?

Just create seperate accounts with characters on each different server that is connected..

[wow2011]

Server mergers without having to call it a server merge. Blizzard is trying to save face while getting close to halving their subscription base. Interesting.

So many stupid threads like this -_- Do you think ESO is pre-merging their realms even before the game launches?

Server merges and virtual realm solve 2 different set of problems. Low population is only 1 of the many problems that have plagued MMO games. All in all, virtual realm is vastly superior to server merges.

[ComputerNerd]

Won't this allow players to multibox again?

Just create seperate accounts with characters on each different server that is connected..

Multiboxing hasn't stopped.

Why some people are bashing such positive feature is beyond my understanding.

Because some people are attention seekers and the best way to get that attention is to join the latest popular discussion and fabricate some negative points of view.

[Risale]

I play horde on a realm that is alliance dominated (0.4-1) will this connected realm stuff mean that our connected realm will be horde dominated to balance us both out?

[Deleted]

It's amazing that one of the biggest features and probably the one thing that would bring more life back to the game gets pushed back to 5.5+.

It isn't.
They add technology in 5.4 and will start connecting realms some time after patch day.