Zarhym hints at cross-realm raiding
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 17th 2011 at 9:00AM
ZarhymWhat exactly these words mean is a little vague in some ways. Blizzard's already said that previous tier raids should be puggable, so perhaps Blizzard means to straight up provide a random LFR feature for lower-tier raids. Then again, it could be difficult trying to match groups of 10 to 25 people who have all defeated the exact same bosses in a specific dungeon. Maybe Blizzard'll just expand the Real ID cross-realm grouping feature to allow you to invite your Real ID friends to raid. That in itself brings up some interesting questions. Would we see raiding guilds with members on different realms, or would it mostly be a way to grab a friend when your usual tank is taking the night off to go to a concert or something?
Regardless of what Blizzard's plans are, it seems like we may see cross-realm raid grouping at some point in the future, maybe even in patch 4.3. Hopefully, Blizzard sees fit to elaborate on Zarhym's comment soon enough.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ozmodius Aug 17th 2011 9:07AM
This had better just be for Real ID.
I can barely get a PUG Baradin Hold raid to remain functional and not kill each other on my own server. Why would I want to bring in jerks I have never met from another realm just so they can screw up my raid, confident that they will never be held accountable for their actions after they leave group?
snowleopard233 Aug 17th 2011 9:14AM
Yeah I feel ya. I'd much rather have the occasional ability to invite my friends and coworkers to raid with me than have a new random LFG tool for raiding. By the time you coordinate everyone and deal with all the wipes you might as well have just gone and done something else.
edgeblade69 Aug 17th 2011 9:58AM
I'm fine with this feature if they implement a punishment system (which needs to include the LFD tool as well). There needs to be in-game player ratings similar to how Playerscore/Gearscore does that. Then after a player reaches some arbitrary number, like say -10, it would blacklist them and they would be unable to use either tool. Limits could be placed on it to prevent abuse, i.e. make it so players can only rate someone once or maybe once every 30 days or something. That way you won't run into a situation where someone gets pissed off at someone else for something unrelated to grouping and downrates that person out of spite. Or perhaps just make it so you can only rate people currently in your group, so anything that they would get downrated for would be related to that group.
This is the only real way to possibly deal with people being jerks in LFD and a possible LFR. People are going to be jerks regardless, yes, but as it stands right now, there's no punishment for it, so they're basically encouraged to be jerks.
Adam Aug 17th 2011 11:10AM
@edgeblade69
Blizzard doesn't encourage that kind of behavior, quit raging. People will be jerks because they can be. And you're right, something should be done about it. But saying they encourage doing it is false and you know it. They try to be fair most of the time; they're constantly changing the game so that it is more fair.
Smashbolt Aug 17th 2011 11:13AM
You know the horror stories of queuing into a group of four guildies who harass you the whole run, tell you how much you suck, try to make you die, and then kick you right before the end boss? Imagine giving them more incentive to grief by giving them power to downvote you to lock you out of random group content. Now imagine it's a raid of 9 or 24 jerk out to make your life suck. A few bad groups and you can't run dungeons for however long it takes your rating to reset.
No thanks.
Bynde Aug 17th 2011 11:37AM
If it only works for your RealID friends it's kinda useless. You can already invite those on your RealID list to raids.
(cutaia) Aug 17th 2011 11:56AM
"If it only works for your RealID friends it's kinda useless. You can already invite those on your RealID list to raids."
No, you can't.
Naphtali Aug 18th 2011 6:25PM
@Ozmodius
You have a right to be pissed off because Blizzard is totally going to FORCE you to do this if it goes through!
...wait.....no they aren't....
Why nerd rage over an optional feature you may not like?
Sleutel Aug 17th 2011 9:07AM
The main problem with having a permanent cross-realm raiding group is the ability to share consumables, gear, and other items. I'm sure a lot of friends would enjoy raiding together this way, but I doubt any guild other than a casual one would form a core raiding team from people on more than one server.
thepiratester Aug 17th 2011 9:23AM
I think it would be cool if they allowed individual boss attempts of lower tier raids VIA. LFR. Why would it hurt? I think it would help alts & others to catch up, and be able to raid new content having decent gear to do so. It wont be perfect, but it would give people more opportunities to experience the game.
Zuckerdachs Aug 17th 2011 9:09AM
Well.
There goes the last vestiges of server community.
*thumbs up*
Amrytale Aug 17th 2011 9:13AM
And nothing of value was lost.
snowleopard233 Aug 17th 2011 9:18AM
Yeah I'm sorry man. But I'd rather be more in touch with the larger WoW community than all the several thousand strangers on my server. Being able to play with my friends, coworkers, and other new WoW people I meet in real-life is more important to me than a community created by artificial technical limitations.
almoderate Aug 17th 2011 2:26PM
Not to mention the potential of using this feature as a guild to try out new recruits. Plop an app into your Real ID. Plop them into your raid. If they're bad, nobody has lost anything.
And as a hardcore raider looking to go casual but catch an occasional alt raid to stay current (because I might want to go back to raiding someday), I have several former guildies that I could raid with on occasion using this feature. I'd personally like to move to a more heavily populated server if I was going to go casual (for better economy, etc.) and this feature would allow me to still hang out and raid with my friends on the less populated server.
theoneunderwater Aug 17th 2011 9:16AM
as the posters said, i so agree.
I think raiding should be something you do with your server only, sure being able to pull in a real id friend might be nice in a tight spot it just doesnt make too much sense. "Hey guys are healer tonight is sick but ive got this budy in a parallel universe who can come help, it doesnt matter that we might be effecting our world economy by letting roll on our boes, or anything like that. These things always work well in movies right?"
I know im exaggerating just a bit, but i really dont like the idea. Im not going to go to the point of saying i wont play the game anymore, but if raiding ends up like dungeons.... well i really dont think blizzard will be getting my money much after that.
Angus Aug 17th 2011 10:34AM
And what about those servers with 100 people on one of the factions? They can either pay money to transfer or expect to so nothing. Server populations are dying in many cases. Unless they start consolidating servers, it is going to become pretty bad. And if they do that when they release an expansion those consolidated servers become overcrowded.
The entire server concept kind of sucks. If it wasn't necessary to remove lag, it would never have been a good thing. Get unlucky in a choice you have no real data to make and you either re-roll and start new or pay money to fix that choice.
Hob Aug 17th 2011 12:23PM
Your arguments really bring me back to early days of the dungeon finder... you know, that tool that killed all guilds, completely destroyed any sense of a realm community, and made people quit the game in droves.
Oh, wait. Guilds use it all the time. Realms are enriched by players who can actually run instances and obtain gear, and afford to buy stuff off the auction house. In fact, I'd say the dungeon finder has given more players an incentive to use the auction house. And please... just imagine the long, drawn out malaise between patch 3.3 in December 2009 and Cataclysm's release in December 2010. Now imagine it without the dungeon finder. At what point would you have cancelled the subscription on your account?
If there's a cross-realm raid finder implemented, it will keep players engaged, give them motivation to contribute, and keep people subscribing. Will there be problems? Yup. Throw 10 or 25 people together in any circumstances and there will be problems ~ even among people who like each other and hang out all the time. There's a reason WoW Insider has a column called "Drama Mamas", and it's not because of the dungeon (or raid) finder.
Arithin Aug 17th 2011 9:25AM
About time.
If its just for realID then I wonder why they bothered. If I have to leave another guild filled with cool people just to see some content then I'm probably done with this game.
Bynde Aug 17th 2011 11:34AM
If it's just for Real ID it'll be useless to me.
But, I do look forward to this. Kinda.
OTOH, it just means larger opportunity to PUG with asswipes. But, whatever. It's a step forward and maybe more people will actually try raiding.
Stefan Hayden Aug 17th 2011 9:41AM
The answer should be cross realm guilds. This would be good for everyone. Guilds have a hard cap so Bliz does not need to worry about that. There would be some guild achievement issues. But why settle for a 25$ transfer feee when they can bake in a monthly fee.
If the cross realm group invite was extended to raids and then guilds then suddenly that's a lot of value.