Originally Posted by
GhostSkull
I like having other toons around. We're not quite friends yet, but that may grow with time.
As for the farming competition, there is a problem beyond not wanting to share with people who won't be able to become permanent friends.
Zone resources are being shared, but the auction houses are not. This will rapidly lead to domination of the resources by the largest of the realms sharing the zone.
Without zone sharing an active farmer sells her excess on the AH and others get another chance at acquiring it. Lets say she consumes half to level her profession and then sells the other half. When sharing zones the active farmer's surplus gets smaller, and less per capita on her realm's AH. The smallest realms will produce the least amount of surplus per farmer and prices will rise. High price and low supply attracts AH kingpins who will also inflate the price. Crafters on the smaller realms will have to pay more, or work harder, than those on larger realms. That will discourage participation in the profession, lower demand, and discourage collection of that resource. In short order, the largest realms will come dominate that resource as the smaller realms lose discouraged crafters and farmers.
It seems to me that resource nodes have to be realm dependent, or the auction houses have to be merged. Otherwise, the already struggling realms will have even more troubles.