Cross Realm Zones: All the downsides of a high pop server with none of the benefits?

[Glorious Leader]

If Blizzard is moving to some new cloud-like server architecture, merging hardware servers at this point in time would just be wasted time, hassle and effort. That's one reason why I really think it's important to say what you dislike or like about it because I really doubt that they'll be going back on this. Perhaps delay it some to work out bugs and add things to assuage people's concerns, but abandoning it? I'd be surprised.

I see no evidence they are moving towards this though. Have they said as much? What I do see is the same practice that's more or less been going on for years now. Creating systems to alleviate the symptoms of lower population servers without getting to the root of the issue. We've had servers that have more or less been dead since Vanilla and nothing was done about them, or next to nothing at any rate. Why should I believe that NOW they've just developed this miracle tech that will fix all concerns and woes people have being on those servers (not to mention abandon the cash cow of realm xfer) over their standard practice that's been going on for ages. Look we can concoct fantasies about their high tech wizadry or we can accept it for what it is. More band aids.

[Deleted]

I'm a computer guy. I like fixing problems by getting at the root and source of the error. The problem is low population servers. CRZ isn't a solution to that. Consolidating servers is. I don't need them to make another work around for something that should have been done ages ago.

If this works you can be sure of it that we will be be getting a lot more cross realm features that will also adress a lot of problems that low population servers face, and while I do agree Consolidating servers is the fastest and easiest solution (which in my opinion would have also been fine), it isn't the only solution.

As I said, they are testing it on live realms now. If this system gets too much negative feedback they can and will not fully implement it. Just give it some time and see how it works out. It could get very interesting.

[Glorious Leader]

If this works you can be sure of it that we will be be getting a lot more cross realm features that will also adress a lot of problems of low population servers. .

It will address the SYMPTOMS of low pop servers but we've still avoided the root of the problem. Servers have low populations. Adding in every feature only further alleviates the symptoms but doesn't cure what's wrong. In fact in many cases it just goes to create more problems and issues.

[Quaero]

If they ever implement a cross-realm action house, it will be a fight to the death between every major AH-czar for the top-dog position.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Puri]

As I already stated several times, there is exactly 0 benefit of CRZ at all (at least on a PVE server).
I see only downsides: Waiting for quest mobs respawn and competing for node spawns.

There is not a single advantage. Sure - you will meet other people while leveling. But they are not "friends", they are competitors. There are no group quests anymore, leveling alone will always be faster. And unlike many people here claim, there is no social aspect. You will not talk to anyone you meet while leveling, the same way as you will hardly get a "hi" when you enter a much closer group in lfg or lfr.

I believe Blizzard uses this simply to save on servers. Nobody really knows what their server structure looks like, but they can now probably merge several world servers into a single one.

[braxx]

Its largely useless anyway and the only ones that do get any benefit are PvP'ers, there are no group quests left from 1-85 and i havent seen any in MoP yet, i dont really know why they added this feature to pve realms at all since they killed off any reason to need a group outside of dungeons.

Didn't they do it to cut servers and spare money?

[Quaero]

It will address the SYMPTOMS of low pop servers but we've still avoided the root of the problem. Servers have low populations. Adding in every feature only further alleviates the symptoms but doesn't cure what's wrong. In fact in many cases it just goes to create more problems and issues.

If Blizzard keeps pursuing it's current direction, servers will become irrelevant, and basically act like one one gigantic server.

[Austilias]

As I already stated several times, there is exactly 0 benefit of CRZ at all (at least on a PVE server).
I see only downsides: Waiting for quest mobs respawn and competing for node spawns.

There is not a single advantage. Sure - you will meet other people while leveling. But they are not "friends", they are competitors. There are no group quests anymore, leveling alone will always be faster. And unlike many people here claim, there is no social aspect. You will not talk to anyone you meet while leveling, the same way as you will hardly get a "hi" when you enter a much closer group in lfg or lfr.

I believe Blizzard uses this simply to save on servers. Nobody really knows what their server structure looks like, but they can now probably merge several world servers into a single one.

The MoP beta proved they can do much more; at the state it's at now, one server can deal with thousands if not a few tens of thousands online at any one time as we saw with the stress tests. I might even go as far as over the 100k mark, truth be told.

[force18]

But I thought there are 9million active wow players that Blizz keeps telling us, why do we need cross realm? Oh their numbers are not even near the truth and elimination of servers would be a very very bad image for them at least with cross realm they can say everyone is 85 and we are helping the low level people have more fun

[Atomsk69]

If Blizzard keeps pursuing it's current direction, servers will become irrelevant, and basically act like one one gigantic server.

that will never happen, unless they also include cross realm guilds

[Glorious Leader]

If Blizzard keeps pursuing it's current direction, servers will become irrelevant, and basically act like one one gigantic server.

Which would more or less be merging all the servers into one. That's fine. Makes total sense. The current implementation however doesn't do this. They're trying to have their cake and eat it to. Keeping server architecture viable in it's current form while implementing features that alleviate the symptoms of lower population servers.

[Melkandor]

I'd be happy if they merged or consolidated servers that have more or less been dead since vanilla. I'm looking at you Azshara. It just seems that they are really really trying to avoid doing exactly that for NA/EU servers for some reason.

So they can make all the $$$ from people paying for server transfers.

[banyentertainment]

So I logged on the other day to farm some frostweave for my alt, maybe check around for some rare spawns. I arrived in Icecrown and was a bit shocked to see nothing but piles of corpses, and players from different servers flying over head like vultures waiting to swoop down and steal kills(and I'm sure they were just as happy to see me). I was a bit upset as this was one of the few upsides to playing on a server that had been deserted. Instead of competing with one person for that rare mount, or the crafting materials I needed to level my professions, I now found myself competing with several.

There's the downside, but what about the upside? Sure I can do a few quests here and there with friends from another server, but that's about it. Honestly, it's not a trade-off I would make. It's not like I get access to a larger pool of guilds to choose from. Am I missing something? Is there more to it than what I'm seeing? If they did it just to make servers seem less empty, then they should just bite the bullet and merge a few.

That is an upside to me.
Maybe you should move to a pve server ?

[Dispersedshadow]

I general like the concept – but as it stands now, the OP is correct. I think they should aim at merging abandoned zones, but maybe tune down the numbers a bit. There's a happy medium between a handful of people in a zone and several hundreds.

[Glorious Leader]

So they can make all the $$$ from people paying for server transfers.

While I suspect that particular revenue stream is certainly a factor in their consideration, I don't think it's the only one. I'd love to be a fly on the wall. They had to have had the conversation about merging servers at one point or another and since they've been so reluctant to do it for NA/EU servers I wonder if they have some kind of overall policy or philosophy on the matter. Like I can think of a few other reasons why they don't but none of them are particularly good nor do I think they weigh THAT heavily on the developers mind when they try and decide something like this. Man I wish they would just say "look this is why we don't merge servers" because frankly as I've said their have been servers that have been more or less dead since Vanilla and people constantly bitch about it on the forums.

[Traknel]

It's really a pain. On my server, there's not a single person out in the world, but Goldshire is full to the brim with people from all different servers to the point some people can't hardly move for lag. And lack of people in Goldshire has NEVER been an issue. Whole thing just seems pointless to me.

[MoanaLisa]

I see no evidence they are moving towards this though. Have they said as much?

They've said something to the effect that CRZ's are a first step. That's vague and you can make out of it what you want. There have been other hints dropped here and there that their server architecture is being changed to be ready for Titan. I think that for D3, just about everyone in North America is hooked up to the same server and has been from the start for public games. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the details on that though and Blizzard isn't talking about it because it would be highly proprietary.

You shouldn't believe anything, not that you're inclined to. As to whether or not it's a fantasy, it's entirely doable with today's technology.

[otarma]

You may put some more faith in Blizz.
LFR received seas of negative criticism at the beginning of test, but later it was proved a successful feature.
They just need to test more and come up with more solutions and improvements.

[Glorious Leader]

They've said something to the effect that CRZ's are a first step. That's vague and you can make out of it what you want. There have been other hints dropped here and there that their server architecture is being changed to be ready for Titan. I think that for D3, just about everyone in North America is hooked up to the same server and has been from the start for public games. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the details on that though and Blizzard isn't talking about it because it would be highly proprietary.

You shouldn't believe anything, not that you're inclined to. As to whether or not it's a fantasy, it's entirely doable with today's technology.

It is possible but it represents something of an investment on their part and I'm not sure it's one they'd be willing to do. I rather think it's more likely they'll simply continue to keep server architecture as it is while widening the availability of cross realm functionality. Effectively trying to have their cake and eat it to. As always I remain the rational skeptic. Open minded but critical.

[MoanaLisa]

I wonder if they have some kind of overall policy or philosophy on the matter.

The policy is to refuse to do it as near as I can tell. They've done it once or twice in very rare cases but basically they simply don't do it. The revenue stream from transfers is probably part of that but if they can save more money by merging realms virtually and not limiting realm architecture to one box per realm which is really ancient technology by this time, they'll do that in a heartbeat.

I guess we'll see eventually what they're up to.

EDIT: Yeah, it's all about the money and the investment. I'm expecting that whatever they have planned for server architecture for Titan is what's driving this but I don't actually know anything more than you do. You look for clues and apply common sense. It can lead you down the wrong road easily enough.