Were CRZs added with future events in mind?

[Elegiac]

What does 'it' refer to?

Can't tell if trolling or serious. 'It' referring to CRZ.

[darkwarrior42]

Having read this thread, I still don't see a single benefit to PvE servers.

The only thing I"ve seen is "It's an MMO so there's supposed to be a lot of people, duh!" If that's the case, game mechanics at all levels should encourage group play. The fact that I level faster on my own than in a group encourages me to not work in a group. Combine that with the fact that people from other servers can't join my guild or trade with me, nor can I join their guild or trade with them, and there's really just no reason to work with them.

[Deleted]

Obviously you haven't experienced much RP, then.

Indeed, because there was jack all RP in public. The communication was about as shallow as business-type communication on non-RP realms. Before you scoff that of as my own fault: I easily adapt to the local culture, and studied the realm and guild culture before I opened my mouth and blended into it. I've also tried to increase RP in both my realm trade chat, as well as my guild chat. It didn't take long for me to figure out the rule that you have to RP on an RP realm wasn't followed by the population. Even though from what I remember the course of action to not following that rule is ban. The most RP I've seen is 1 on 1 conversations, and I actively pursued as well as engaged into it.

My RP-realm sample size is merely 2 though.

PS: If your comment is about me in general: I've played PnP pencil games in the past and you're talking to someone who occasionally engaged in RP during MtG games which, at least when I played, was rather rare, but in my circle of friends we just sometimes engaged into RP every once in a while. When we did this in public though (during tournaments and our weekly local meetings) people were like "oh, just cut the crap." DCI judges didn't appreciate it either (during tournaments).

[Deleted]

Its fascinating how people defend crz without talking about the obvious point showing that crz is just for show:
its not enabled in sw/org and in pandaria....

[Deleted]

Can't tell if trolling or serious. 'It' referring to CRZ.

RP and non-RP servers aren't merged together according to my experience so yeah its a strange remark you made. Maybe it is different in US.

[Protean]

Ignoring the fact that not every 'RP' realm actually has active RP, more often than not (in fact, there has never once been a case to the contrary in my experience) it pulls non-RPing trolls from the other 'RP' servers which disrupt events, to the point where we have had to stop RP to relocate because Blizzard ignores tickets as regards trolling of roleplay.

So your RP realm is the only realm that has real RP and all the other RP realms are fake RP realms..?


Not exactly contradicting the prejudices against roleplayers. You know how they're always snobby and looking for things that are "wrong" with other peoples RP?

[Elegiac]

So your RP realm is the only realm that has real RP and all the other RP realms are fake RP realms..?

Not exactly contradicting the prejudices against roleplayers. You know how they're always snobby and looking for things that are "wrong" with other peoples RP?

Elitism exists in every subculture, and I would hazard that in the RP community's case it is more the result of jading from every troll and his dog attempting to disrupt legitimate efforts to roleplay.

---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 10:18 AM ----------

RP and non-RP servers aren't merged together according to my experience so yeah its a strange remark you made. Maybe it is different in US.

Most RP realms have pretty much dead RP communities, meaning that CRZ is merging the few remaining RP realms with what are effectively PvE servers.

[BenBos]

Yes.

Because CRZ is just the next step in cross server play that Blizzard started in 2006 (BG's), 2009 Dungeons, 2011 Raids,...

The problem is simple: NO landcscape based single server in the world can populate all that content concurrently in WoW.



By making even the open world cross server, you lay the foundation of MMO's becoming independant from server limitations/populations.

That opens up a COMPLETE NEW game design ...... Hi there Mr Titan !

Since Blizzard introduced it in WoW now, a Legacy system, it will impact future content design in WoW too.

[shutupBurt]

Its fascinating how people defend crz without talking about the obvious point showing that crz is just for show:
its not enabled in sw/org and in pandaria....

look at the history of wow, how things are implemented and how they evolve.

your statement is just too flawed. there are so many other factors in that equation, its just too easy to say something like "it's just for show because it's not used in X or Y zones."

obviously, crz deals with population control... assuming major cities aren't typically under populated, it would only add to congestion.


the same could be said for pandaria.. and im sure at some point was said by some blue post somewhere..

[mysticx]

Its fascinating how people defend crz without talking about the obvious point showing that crz is just for show:
its not enabled in sw/org and in pandaria....

Pandaria doesn't need CRZ to have people in it, everybody at/near level cap is in Pandaria (or instanced content, but instances are irrelevant for CRZ), the levelling zones are the empty ones since you're done levelling in them so damn fast.

Now if only Blizz would make some changes so other people aren't just in the way on PvE-servers (Shared tags of mobs like MoP-questmobs or something), a lot of the complaining about CRZ stems from the fact that for PvE content other people are only competition for resources and not beneficial in any noticeable way...

[Deadite]

Fun.

What do you find fun about 5 realms of people hoovering up all the resource nodes and killing all your quest nps? I don't know any sane person who wants the leveling time extended. Blizzard agree as they removed the need to group for anything. The MM part if for when you are level 90. CRZ is just lazy design to avoid merging realms. Some people seem to see it as the next messiah buts it not. Its a very naughty boy.

[mvaliz]

Long answer: I believe CRZ was simply made as a way to keep the appearance of a populated world without actually doing anything about a populated world.

Short answer: To avoid using the MMO deathnail "server merging" terminology.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't see cross-realm zones as a feature as much as I see it as a game technology. As such, the thread topic might have it a bit backwards. Future events will suggest themselves as the technology expands in usefulness and reach. So it's entirely possible that a lot of people who are suggesting different things are all correct. They won't need to merge servers or shut down realms; they'll have leveling zones with the potential for more people in them, etc.

It's because of this--technology instead of feature--that people that call for opt-outs and the like miss the point. It's not like a scenario or anything. It's foundational technology (network infrastructure) that Blizzard will build on top of once they iterate it to the point where it's completely solid.

[BrerBear]

Its fascinating how people defend crz without talking about the obvious point showing that crz is just for show:
its not enabled in sw/org and in pandaria....

That's not fascinating or obvious. It's common sense.
Running CRZ costs resources: they end up shuttling character resources across remote data centers. Pandaria and SW/Org are generally populated enough, even on low pop servers, to not need it.

[MoanaLisa]

Running CRZ costs resources.

I wouldn't be overly surprised to find this to be mistaken. Take 100 theoretical realms in a datacenter running 100 theoretical Elwynn Forests. CRZ cuts that down to say 25 Elwynn Forests. Now multiply that for all the zones on all of the continents up to level 85. While CRZ may have some network overhead, the overhead saved by running fewer zones is very likely much greater.

The rest of your post is spot on.

[Komati]

It's more fun to quest when there's people around. ^^

I never had a problem with people killing "my" mobs or anything like that, the game is designed to have several people questing the same area, so it should be enough mobs for everyone.

[Deleted]

Running CRZ costs resources: they end up shuttling character resources across remote data centers.

Hmm at first I thought this was a really dumb statement but the more I think of it the more I find it likely to be truth.

First of all in 2013 running a VM costs virtually no overhead. So if you want to run multiple servers on one bare metal you can do so, but linking several servers together is a little bit harder because theres more overhead involved.

Second, the linked parts were mostly dead.

Lets draw the picture.

Numbers are hypothetical and very much simplified.

In Cata, 90% of all players on realm are in Org and SW. This discounts everyone in BGs, raids, dungeons; these people are instanced; not on realm.
The other 10% are spread around the rest of the world. 0,5% in Dalaran, 1% in Durotar and Elwynn and the rest just plain spread around.

Now lets say you got 9 servers in total (a low number to keep it simple). Instead of 9 servers running 9 realms, you got build a tenth server, put the 10% of each current server on this new server. You end up with 9x 10% of pop = 90% running on that 1 new server and the other 9 old servers can handle more load. The added benefit being those 10% of people meet each other whereas otherwise they'd play home alone. It really isn't that hard to make all of this scale as it is, and the example is without thinking about VMs and clusters. Anyway, in this sense I disagree with your post, but then I started to think more about it...

Now, if you scroll up, you can find some of the realm names linked. If you then cross reference those with the CRZ they're linked to (which location you can find with e.g. tracepath and whois) you can find support for your argument (shuttling character resources across remote data centers). But since the various data centers of realms are around Europe (Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Dusseldorf, etc) and since I know realms are not linked based on their physical location (based on the data I gathered which I linked in an earlier post) I'd say yes, your statement is true, and if the servers were physically close the lag could be minimized (e.g. with local network connection of 100 mbit or gigabit networking, or more advanced options like InfiniBand).

[Lilly32]

It's more fun to quest when there's people around. ^^

I never had a problem with people killing "my" mobs or anything like that, the game is designed to have several people questing the same area, so it should be enough mobs for everyone.

Try camping any of the good battle pets like Emerald Proto-Whelp or Flayer Youngling or being a hunter trying to tame rare pets just to have some asshole not even on your server come by and kill it just for lolz. Then come back and say how awesome CRZs are. Right now the only purpose they serve is to grief other people. Like someone said high levels on PvP realms just lowbie zone hopping and camping everyone they see. Or people purposely killing off rare pets even though they can see the hunter right in front of them. They serve ZERO purpose in helping you level so currently they have no use. Who cares if more people in zone thats just more competition.

Also how is it more fun with other people around? Are they your RL friends? Are they your guildies and ya'll are leveling some new alts together? No they are total strangers you will never ever see again. They might as well be of the opposite faction.

[ati87]

You contradicted yourself. You say people are needed then you admit Blizzard removed group quests because there was no one to do them. So then if theres no quest that require groups anymore then you dont need other people in the zones. Like I said earlier. How many people actually go out of their way to group with people from other servers? Im willing to bet not many because it wouldnt make sense to. If you have a quest to pick up 10 items on the ground or loot 10 items off some bears it now takes you twice as long if you group up. Therefore not efficient to do so. WoW from 1-90 is a solo game people need to stop kidding themselves if they think otherwise. Until you hit 90 this game might as well be a console FPS.

Their is no contridiction...

WoW is a MMO...the fact that you don't need people is irreleveant.

Having people in the world however makes a huge difference in terms of feeling.

Go to Ferales or another area which is dead and tell me if that area feels like if your playing a MMO compared to a starting zone.

[BrerBear]

I wouldn't be overly surprised to find this to be mistaken. Take 100 theoretical realms in a datacenter running 100 theoretical Elwynn Forests. CRZ cuts that down to say 25 Elwynn Forests. Now multiply that for all the zones on all of the continents up to level 85. While CRZ may have some network overhead, the overhead saved by running fewer zones is very likely much greater.

The rest of your post is spot on.

I suspect the non-active zones don't get shut down the way you are suggesting, for two reasons. First, many people have reported seeing mobs across zone boundaries which disappear when the player crosses over into CRZ. That would imply the local zone is still running, but unpopulated with players. Also, all evidence I've seen is that the granularity level of a server is at the continent, not the zone. Continents frequently go down (EK, Kalimdor, Outland, etc.) but individual zones do not. I haven't heard of any other evidence that zones get their own servers. Maybe zones are just game loop processes co-located on a continent server. While they could shut a zone process down, they might not have optimized that yet, or may have decided not to in order to keep the CRZ->non-CRZ transition smoother than if they were restarting zones all the time.

Anyways, this is all speculation on their since I haven't seen the code, but I have observed when and how it fails for many years and have coworkers with programming experience on other MMOs who have talked me through the basics of MMO architecture My "shuttling" cost comment was presuming that CRZ sharing can take place across battlegroups, which I know is true from experience. I haven't seen firsthand evidence of CRZ occurring across datacenters, though, so the network cost might be minimal if all the involved realms are in battlegroups physically located together.