Posts with tag Cross-realm

It was a massive multiplayer success for this massively multiplayer game: On March 20, the Thundering Hammer Clan of Feathermoon (US-Horde) successfully brought together more than 120 players from multiple roleplay realms in what might have been WoW's first large-scale, player-run cross-realm event. In bringing together three full raid groups from half a dozen realms, the Kosh'harg roleplay gathering of Horde clans helped demonstrate how to pull off a major cross-realm event and explore the possibilities and limitations of CRZ (cross-realm zone) mechanics.

What can other players learn from the Kosh'harg about organizing a CRZ event? We went behind the scenes with Kosh'harg organizer Thorgrun (GM of the Thundering Hammer Clan).

WoW Insider: It sounds like the event was a smash success. Congratulations!

Thorgrun: The Kosh'harg was an amazing success. At the peak of the event we had three full raid groups and a number of ungrouped local attendees, bringing us up over 120 players from a dozen different realms who joined us in Nagrand for the festivities.

How much did you and other organizers know beforehand about realm and zone loads with regard to cross-realm mechanics?

We only knew what has been published and widely publicized, namely that the CRZ mechanic is designed to populate low-pop zones with players from associated realms and when population grows to a certain point to split those players off into separate zones. We also knew that players from any North American realm could be brought into any zone on a host realm just by being grouped with a majority of members from that realm – i.e., two Feathermoon players can host a third player from say, Farstriders, in their version of the zone, or alternatively a 5-man group of Feathermoon players could host an entire raid of CRZ players, provided no more than four of them were from the same realm in that particular raid. This is the mechanic that we used to "anchor" our event firmly on one server's seed of the Nagrand zone.

Horde players from multiple roleplay realms will gather on Feathermoon (US-RP) next week for what may be the game's first major cross-realm, multi-realm roleplay event. On Wednesday, March 20, Feathermoon's Thundering Hammer Clan and the realm's Horde roleplaying community will present the Kosh'harg, a gathering of the clans of the Horde.

WoW players have historically not been happy with the implementation of cross-realm zones, with some players going so far as to transfer realms to escape them completely. The Kosh'harg will attempt to blaze a positive new path for CRZ play, bringing together players from different RP realms to participate in what could be an event of some magnitude.

Activities for the tribal-themed spring equinox event include a ceremonial processional of the clans, a great feast, a bracketed 1v1 PvP tournament, and a Spirit Walk storytelling competition. "It is part spiritual pilgrimage, part tournament, and part raucous feast," writes THC's Thorgrun, "and if you are a Horde player who respects Horde culture and lore, we want to see you there!"

Organizers have assembled an array of prizes, with consideration for items that cannot be traded across realms. The Kosh'harg is open to both individual players and groups or guilds, but sign-ups are strongly encouraged. Keep reading for more details about how to sign up to attend or volunteer.

Patch 5.2 is only a couple of weeks away, so you'd better start prepping for all that it will bring. Although many things can change during PTR testing, it's nice to receive confirmed news. We've assumed for some time now that 5.0 raids would become cross-realm accessible once patch 5.2 hit, and now we don't have to wonder any longer. Ghostcrawler confirmed via Twitter that we will indeed get cross-realm 5.0 raid content in 5.2:

@reliqeu @cm_zarhym @bashiok Yes.

- Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 8, 2013

The community has embraced cross-realm raiding since it was introduced in patch 4.3.2, and it remains a great way to catch up on old achievements. With new cross-realm content, players will be given more opportunity to experience MoP raiding -- be sure to revisit the cross-realm resources out there as patch 5.2 gets ready to drop! Are you looking forward to slaying all the things with new and old friends?

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When I first started playing World of Warcraft, in late 2004 on the server Azjol-Nerub, I knew the people in the guild my wife introduced me to and that was about it. Via that guild, I eventually met people who brought me to another guild, one that raided fairly heavily. That guild moved to Norgannon, becoming one of its top raiding guilds up until the end of Wrath of the Lich King when it moved servers and factions, and I didn't go along for the ride. I instead moved to Cenarion Circle, then Sisters of Elune. In all of this, my sense of community in the game has always been very heavily guild focused.

This means that when people talk about having developed a sense of server community via pugging Stratholme or Shadow Labyrinth back in the day, they're talking about a game I never played. When I was pugging in early BC, before I started raiding again, I was miserable dealing with non-guildmates who often wouldn't listen, demanded a tank with more AoE than a warrior, refused to CC or refused to do so on the targets I asked, and were otherwise often awful. This isn't to say I didn't have any good pick up groups in those days, but if I wanted to get anything done I often had to wait for guild groups. One of the reasons I heralded the advent of the Dungeon Finder was that instead of bothering my guildies so I could get some runs in, I just queued up. No more "LF Tank and 2 CC for Shattered Halls, Paladin tank preferred" or whatever the flavor of the month is. Not that we were running Shattered Halls anymore by that point, of course.

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Whether you love, hate, or have absolutely no opinion on Cross-Realm Zones (I'm in that third group, I just plain don't care about them) you're hopefully aware of them by now. Rygarius has been the CM working to keep us all informed about the feature, originally created to help lower level zones have more players to interact with when questing and leveling up since the majority of players tends to be in the higher level zones.

Now Rygarius has updated us on CRZ, explaining what's being done on various issues players have with the feature. Discussed is the range of time zones the servers can pull from and ways to address the discrepancy (including wholly redesigning how the servers tell time), players being dismounted and seeing nodes disappear as they cross zones, and framerate/transition lag. If you're interested in any of these CRZ issues, you should read the full announcement after the jump.

When I read Matt Rossi's piece about the future of cross-realm play, I agreed that the possibilities are exciting. But I do see what could be a major problem: funsuckers.

We do have funsuckers in heavily quested zones right now. (Granted, this usually only happens after a new expansion or during holidays.) They spawn camp us on PvP servers. They steal our gathering nodes, even though they are in the same faction. (Stealing nodes from the opposite faction is fair play. We don't want to help them support their side of the battle.) They take their huge mounts and sit on NPCs everyone needs to interact with.

They suck our fun.

I have seen dozens of forum posts, Twitter conversations, and even a knitted wool hat that argued for the concept of cross-faction Real ID grouping, so I thought why not throw my own hat into this contentious debate? I'm old, I'm grumpy -- it's what I do.

First, to be up front, I think cross-faction Real ID is a fabulous idea. This is motivated by pure selfishness on my part. Half of my Real ID friends are Horde, the other half are Alliance. To a degree, this is ameliorated because we have a lot of alts on both factions, but it's not totally addressed. Some of my friends have no alts; others only have alts on the same faction; and still others have one main they dedicate 90% of their playtime to and a host of alts who barely make level 20. We'd easily be able to put together a raid for any of the content in the game, save for that faction wall. We can talk to each other and put together smaller groups fairly easily to steamroll old raids, but doing content like Blackwing Descent or Firelands is arduous.

I do understand that not everyone would be on board with this, and there are good reasons to be discussed. Cross-faction Real ID raiding would not only be a huge change, but it would also cross a line Blizzard has managed never to deliberately cross in all its time of allowing new services like faction and server transfers and character customization. Sure, your Alliance warrior can join a Horde raiding group now, but in order to do so, he or she must become a Horde character. There are no humans raiding with orcs. It's been the case in the game since launch (to the point that Forsaken players lost the ability to speak with human players to preserve it) that the two factions are separate and cannot group together at all. To change that, even for just Real ID friends, would be a huge change in the game.

That being said, here are my reasons for cross-faction Real ID raiding.

Cross-realm RealID raiding has taken World of Warcraft by storm ever since the ability to enter old raids with RealID friends was introduced in patch 4.3.2. Fearing the end of server communities and the collapse of civilization, players were instead greeted with a quickly mobilizing mass of players on Twitter, Reddit, and other social media to form cross-server communities for raiding. Without server boundaries, these groups can recruit from a larger pool and have more time flexibility. BattleTags will make this all easier.

Over the last few weeks, many cross-realm raiding websites and resources have popped up. If you're looking to get into a cross-realm raid, here's a handy list of many places out there that are putting together old raids without the hindrance of those pesky servers.

• Twitterland Raiding http://twitterlandraiding.com/
• LFRaid.com www.lfraid.com
• Cross Raid www.cross-raid.com
• OpenRaid US http://www.openraid.us/
• OpenRaid EU http://www.openraid.eu/