Patch 5.4 Feature Preview: Connected Realms

[Deleted]

I find it incredibly ridiculous how they advertise it as a Patch 5.4 Feature and yet in small text at the end of the advertisement include that it is EXPECTED TO ARRIVE some time after 5.4. Similarly how Diablo 3 PvP arrived shortly after the game launch?

[Azrile]

No, if they merged them, then they would have the PR nightmare to deal with "WOW MERGES SERVERS GAME IS DYING GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN" and so on.

What PR nightmare. Are you dense? they release subscription numbers every 3 months! If there is a PR nightmare, they dish it up every 3 months. But anyone with half a brain can also look at their revenues and realize they are still earning as much money from WOW as ever.

[iggie]

*sniff* so long chance of seeing Poseidus/Camel/TLPD

The drake from Deepholm is the worst. Poseidus is at least within a 24 hour window. I found four poseidus on my low pop realm pre cross realm, afterwards there were 5+ L1's at each spawn point. I don't even bother now.

Rares can go piss off. I'll just keep raiding until the game dies/a better one comes out finally.

[Tharkkun]

I like the language dance around the fact that they have so many dead/dying servers. I wish they cared enough for the player base when they still had the player base.. instead of the money they got for transfers. Throw the bone before the dog bites your hand, save the hand.

Did you see that EQNext preview?

I hate to say it but the hemorrhaging of players has only been going on for a little over a year now and it started near the end of Cata. It takes time to develop new tech and no company has done this yet. Why aren't all the competitors with ground breaking tech who have less than a million subs doing this? Because they don't care about their players.

I'll believe EQNext is good when SOE decides to be a good company again. When they took over for Verant the EQ franchise was never the same.

[Donner]

I don't get people who are against this. Def. a reason for me to re-sub, this is a Massive Multiplayer Game after all.
Only downside is the "some time after 5.4" part.... i thought it would come with 5.4 at the end of august or something like that.

[Azrile]

I wonder if they will merge those "PvP" realms with 10:1 Horde:Alliance with the 1:10 Horde:Alliance. So you know, people will actually PvP in PvP realms and not just gank the underpopulated faction.

Yeah, that would be nice, but the problem is that most of those 10:1 pvp servers also have login queues.. especially the big 3 servers

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or maybe they are doing it this way to avoid thousands of people being forced to change character names and the drama that would unfold surrounding who gets what name? As well as what to do with the multitude of inactive characters associated with each realm, allowing them to avoid a Age of conan style deletion of characters that are innactive.

personally, i'm glad they are doing it this way, i have a hard enough time as it is coming up with names for new alts nvm potentially losing names i've been known as for years and having to come up with new ones

Anyone who cannot see the benefits of connected servers over merged servers just needs to ask Warhammer or AOC players (from launch), what they think. There was so much anger and guild breakups because of server mergers. Blizzard is very smart, they learned from the mistakes of others.

[Kazuchika]

"connected realms" is what CRZ should have been to begin with.

[KCguy]

This is awesome. So cool that Blizzard is able to actually make this happen. Merging servers would have upset more people than what they're currently going to be implementing now. Servers can now feel full inside a capital, people can keep their character and guild names and most importantly, guilds and AH's can grow again. So many servers have next to nothing on their respective AH's and guilds are so dead, this will address both. Can't wait. Some are against it, I love it. Farming for rares will be even more of a pain, but that is the only drawback in my eyes. JMO and I stand by it.

[kamuimac]

all im reading between the line is that they will "connect" few dead realms with low pop one to another - which will change next to nothing - they wont touch high pop servers cause then they woul lose incom from realm transfers - it same "illusion" population chance as CRZ are -_-

[nekobaka]

I find it incredibly ridiculous how they advertise it as a Patch 5.4 Feature and yet in small text at the end of the advertisement include that it is EXPECTED TO ARRIVE some time after 5.4. Similarly how Diablo 3 PvP arrived shortly after the game launch?

Which would only further delay how long it takes players to get into the groove of the changes and its impact on features like Flex mode which should benefit from this change. It is still a new thing and has the potential to cause issues so I understand not wanting to roll it out the same time as everything else. It sucks being hit with realm stability issues and not being able to play the new patch and even more so when it is only a few select realms that are impacted. Personally this feature should have hit live a bit before the patch when realms are less busy and gives more live data to go forward with into the new patch.

[Azrile]

How they could have simply merged the servers in a few easy steps.

1. Implement a surname system like many other games have. This would allow you to keep your current name, and even spice it up a bit more. Give people a week to choose new names.
2. Begin server merging process. Select one medium population realm and several low ones.
3. Disallow new AH posts and new mail on the low population realms for a period of 3-7 days, letting people on that realm know they must empty the AH and mailbox before merges
4. At the end of that period, merge the low population realms into the medium one. Doing it this way will allow for less guild name clashes.
5. In the event of a duplicate guild name, the guild with more members will win the rights to the name. The other will receive a free guild name change.

So there's no real point in using fancy terms like "connected" realms. Just merge the damn things.

And what is the benefit of doing it your way over the their way? Your way causes a lot more headaches for players without any noticeable benefits. And your way doesn´t solve the problem of returning players suddenly not seeing their server name on the list anymore. So you failed to fix one of the major things they wanted to avoid, and your other ´fixes´ cause more headaches then connected realms do.

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

No, that was Flex raiding

[Deleted]

sounds like a good solution to the dying realm problem, lets see how it plays out in practice.

[Taylus]

So now low population realms get all the benefit without a 1500 login queue.

[TheMeII]

Finally. This gives a good reason to re-sub again. Previously on my realm I couldn't even find gems for my characters on AH.

Do you know how that could've been solved? By starting to sell the stuff that was missing from ah. I did that on my dead server and I have amassed few millions after that. my Daily salary is from 0 -5k averaging to 2-900g (summer is always quite quiet). My prices are stupid high but my clients very rarely complain, since there is no one else to buy from.

[Azrile]

Which would only further delay how long it takes players to get into the groove of the changes and its impact on features like Flex mode which should benefit from this change. It is still a new thing and has the potential to cause issues so I understand not wanting to roll it out the same time as everything else. It sucks being hit with realm stability issues and not being able to play the new patch and even more so when it is only a few select realms that are impacted. Personally this feature should have hit live a bit before the patch when realms are less busy and gives more live data to go forward with into the new patch.

Flex raids are RealID invite, you will be able to do them cross-realm when 5.4 launches.

I think they learned from the bugs with CRZ that it is better to get the content stable, then launch the big technology change.

[Kadivex]

This is great news AWEZUM!

[strues]

I will cry if they give Sargeras players from Ragnaros or other servers where English is few and far between

[TheTaurenOrc]

Well speaking from a low population realm I think the most significant change will be in the economy. At the moment there are a handful of tycoons who control certain parts of the AH. The ToT pets for example go for 4 times the amount on my realm as the highest populated. I personally can't wait to see them battle it out. And if they merge the BMAH it will be a much more effective as a gold sink.

As for the raiding scene, well we will have to see. My realm already has enough 'raiding' guilds, most of them 10 man start ups that will go nowhere. Sure the merging will probably get them further into the content, the old 25mans might have an easier time with their roster but I don't think it will revive anything.

I see this as a quality of life change in the economy (or a kick depending on what side you're on :P).

[nekobaka]

Flex raids are RealID invite, you will be able to do them cross-realm when 5.4 launches.

I think they learned from the bugs with CRZ that it is better to get the content stable, then launch the big technology change.

Yes RealID is an option for those who want to spend time and search for groups on a third party website. Then there are players who would rather search within their own realms and be an active part of their realm community.

[Amerissis]

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.

Except that you can join crossrealm guilds and it would cause a huge problem when you then separate the realms again