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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCross-realm Dungeon Finder premium service coming soon
by Mathew McCurley 
May 17th 2011 at 4:20PM
This new feature will be part of a premium package of WoW features requiring an extra fee to use. Blizzard says that only the person doing the invites and creating the cross-server party will need to have access to the premium feature for the system to work. Currently, there is no release date, and the service is being described as a complex one to develop. Blizzard is most likely getting out in front of the news sites and datamining sites now, since pieces of this new system will begin to hit the PTR soon and Blizzard doesn't want too much speculation.
I personally think that this system is really cool for players who have an already-established friends base on other servers but don't want to leave their current home or don't have the money to do so and pay for a premium server transfer. For instance, Sacco and I can finally run some dungeons together. You hear that, Sacco? It's dungeon time.
Premium services always receive some type of backlash in the WoW community, and this one will be no different, so for caution's sake, let's wait until pricing information is officially announced before we explode with indignation. This is, however, a feature that many players have been asking for and will be very popular.
With the continued popularity of the Dungeon Finder, many players have been asking for a way to group up with real-life friends who play on other realms to take on instances together. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about a new feature currently in development that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.
As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don't have a release date to share quite yet. It's important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.
As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don't have a release date to share quite yet. It's important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 13)
Udderpowered May 17th 2011 5:10PM
Being able to run dungeons with anybody you personally know in your continent (and therefore can attest to their ability/personality, making runs with them much easier than would otherwise be the case) doesn't give you an advantage over people being stuck with whatever the RNG gives them + people on their own realm?
It's not a direct advantage, I give you that, but it is one overall. And a worrying direction for Blizzard to head in.
jealouspirate May 17th 2011 5:43PM
Yes, the slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
You know what is logical? "Subscription fees + more premium services = more money".
I think that's really the logic we need to be concerned about. If Blizzard's previous microtransactions and premium services have been profitable, as it seems they have been, it is logical to expect more to come up in different aspects of the game. This won't be the last.
Iirdan May 17th 2011 5:46PM
Yes, I agree, microtransactions and premium services will continue to crop up. But I highly doubt that Blizzard will renege on their statement that they will never provide tangible advantages over other players.
jealouspirate May 17th 2011 5:50PM
The thing is, "advantage" is never really defined. Pets and mounts already give an "advantage" when pursuing pet/mount achievements.
If WoW is about playing with friends, something which makes that easier is an "advantage" in a way.
Blizzard seems to want to define "advantage" as something combat-related, but I think that's pretty disingenuous on their part. The game is about way more than combat at this point.
Spark May 17th 2011 7:01PM
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Iirdan May 17th 2011 4:43PM
They didn't say "it will only be cosmetic things". They said that premium services and microtransactions will never give players advantages over other players. Thus far, they've kept true to that.
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Yet they are delivering minor advantages.
Sparkle ponies - all characters and alts on all servers get a mount. That mount becomes a flying mount when appropriate. The lion's share of the cost of transport still goes to training by far. But the pony still provides convenience and a minor coin savings for cash.
Remote AH - time is money, friend. The ability to quickly pick up a few AH items or trump your competition without hauling out a fat WoW client is a much larger advantage. It also provides ways to stealthily work the AH without alerting your competition that you're active.
Again - these are relatively minor advantages. But the advantages are for sale. And the advantages are slowly increasing in effectiveness as we go along. I know you want to dismiss the concept of a slippery slope as a fallacy. But plot the points and the slope is there.
Neyssa May 18th 2011 5:08AM
@spark:
So you are suggesting that Blizzard is legally selling you gold? ooooOOOooo I love conspiration theories, lets see:
- Sparkle pony - I have no clue how much gold costs if you buy it, I have never done it. But if you have lots of alts, lets say 10, and each buys mounts for about 200g, thats 2000g for the 20$. Is that cheap or expensive? :)
- Remote AH: harder to calculate, but just as you said, buying and selling in special times can result in TONS of gold. I know when I was not working, being sick, logged in during morning times, I could make 10x the profit I usually did on an item.
- Pets dont really cover my conspiration theory, but lets say you dont have to buy that cross-faction tournament pet for 2000g to finish your achievment? :)
- This new dungeon finder idea has also a way of making money. If you can always go with some friends, the loot will be disenchanted sooner, and you get money :)
Mitawa May 18th 2011 11:40AM
"Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy."
I see.
So, if I go up to a veteran and say "Military intelligence is an oxymoron!!11!" and they get mad at me... I can tell them, "Hah! You can't get mad at me, that was just a figure of speech!"
The world doesn't live in nicely labeled boxes. Just because we can label something as a fallacy in an academic setting doesn't mean that it's always a fallacy, everywhere, and under every circumstance.
Think of it like this: They always say myths are based on truth. If the slippery slope didn't have grain of truth and merit, it wouldn't affect our psyches. "Poisoning the well" is a fallacy too, but I'm certain we'd all like to know the guy running for Department of Education is a registered offender. It's a fallacy, but we can still make valuable judgements from it.
Amaxe May 18th 2011 11:42AM
"The thing is, the slippery slope is a logical fallacy."
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think this needs to be clarified here. I hope you won't think this is an attack on you.
While Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy, not every cause-effect chain is a Slippery Slope.
So to say "If Blizz makes non-combat pets for sale soon we'll have pay for epics" that would be a slippery slope. Past actions don't guarantee a pre-determined outcome.
However to say "Once Blizz makes in game items for real money, it removes a reason for denying future RMT of whatever they decide" that is not a slippery slope.
Those who argued the latter when Blizz came out with their first RMT actually had a valid point. Once Blizz opened the gates to RMT it set a precedent in which they could justify whatever they wanted.
With this precedent, it depends entirely on the decision of the Blizz or Activision people (whomever) as to what limits they will stop at.
Kar On E May 17th 2011 4:30PM
As cool of an idea as this is and as nice as this sounds, I can't help but wonder how this will be done. One would assume something like this would almost have to be charged monthly, much like the mobile AH is. Some of my questions off-hand:
1. Will this be part of a set of premium services or just one of many that you can sign up for if you choose? (e.g. "Wow Plus for an extra $3.99 a month vs. just this feature for .99 a month)
2. In addition to being cross-realm, will this be cross-faction?
3. If this is truly a "premium" service, does that mean that users of this service will wind up with some sort of LFG priority (as tends to happen with premium services)?
4. What other services will fall under this? The character reorganization seems likely, but what else will and could?
Snuzzle May 17th 2011 4:32PM
It states in the article it will only be with same faction friends.
Kar On E May 17th 2011 4:34PM
My bad, I completely missed that part. Still though, I am curious on the other pieces how this will go...
Faith Trust May 17th 2011 4:39PM
If we are going to pay a premium for it and its for social sake.
I feel like it shouldn't be faction restricted.
I mean we are breaking some barriers already why not make the full jump?
Snuzzle May 17th 2011 4:31PM
I could see myself paying a one-time or annual fee of $10 to $25 for this easily. That would be well worth it. I've got friends scattered around realms so this would be great.
The most I would pay per month for this, though, is $5. $20/mo for WoW is still a pretty cheap hobby. $10/mo would have to come with some pretty spectacular extra "premium" features. More than that and they can stick it.
The Dewd May 17th 2011 5:25PM
I'm too cheap to pay an extra $5/month (my wife would be quite upset). I agree that a one-time fee to activate this feature would be acceptable as I could rationalize an extra $5-10 up front but I'd want more than just dungeon-finder access.
Eros May 17th 2011 4:31PM
Yeah... charging for this is BS. I shouldn't have to pay extra just to invite cross realm friends into the dungeon finder. Ive never had an issue with micro transaction and the like that don't effect game play but this is to far.
Plainswander May 17th 2011 4:41PM
*facepaw* It doesn't affect gameplay. You can still play. Everything in the game itself is still available to you. You just can't invite people from other realms.
You don't even know what it's going to cost yet anyway.
Eros May 17th 2011 5:13PM
It doesn't matter what it costs, its the fact that there charging for something that should have been part of the system in the first place. Also adding an extra fee so you can play with your friends sounds like game play to me.
ech May 17th 2011 5:27PM
Eros, you can play with your friends already without paying extra! Roll a character on their realm!
*Not available across all continents. YMMV OMG LSMFT AM&FM
joshua.l.miles May 18th 2011 4:14PM
I love how people keep saying roll a character on their realm. Well here is a news flash for all of you, some of us have real lives with jobs and bills and families and won't be playing at lvl 85 with pur friends 2 days after rolling a new toon. The fact of the matter is this feature gives people with the money to spend, actual price is irelevant...for those of you who have never had to live on any sort of budget even an extra $5 a month can be out of the question, a feature that is one of many solutions to a broken system that the WoW community as a whole has been begging for. The fact that blizzard didn't ignore our plees to do something to make using the RDF less of a torture test and give us at least some way to remove some of the anonimity that allows asshattery to go unchecked and rather than implementing the fix to ease some of the communities stress and instead are going to make it a paid premium feature is a testiment to the decline in how much blizzard cares about the player base as a whole. This makes me wonder if now they will give us an option to pay to block players from our dungeon groups...because playing with an asshole who tried to ruin your game experience doesn't actually stop you from playing...so no real advantage to a new dungeon block system right?
Kragragh May 17th 2011 4:31PM
Wow, and forums across the globe explode.
But as an adult with plenty of discretionary income, I say bring it on!