Picked this up on the news wire this morning before I went to bed (late nights and early mornings a plenty).
We previously introduced the ability to form cross-realm parties with Real ID friends, and now with Patch 4.3.2, we’re adding the ability for players to use that same functionality to form raids to run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds!
This will allow you to join up with your Real ID friends from other realms and:
- Form a cross-realm raid and use Raid Finder
- Jump in to any classic dungeon or raid and be automatically placed in the same instance
- Join forces and dominate the Battlegrounds
Please note, you will not yet be able to run normal or Heroic Dragon Soul with cross-realm Real ID raids.
As we look forward to the BattleTag system, it’s a very exciting time for World of Warcraft. No matter what realm you and your friends are on you’ll be able to team up and take on group content throughout the game.
I’ll bet you my Benediction that everyone is thinking this question right now. “When will we able to run normal mode or hard mode instances over cross-realm Real ID raids?”
I doubt it’ll be anytime soon. If anything, not until way later when the launch of Mists of Pandaria becomes imminent. I suspect players who are looking to join guilds for progression content will still be asked to play the requisite transfer and faction fees.
And no, I don’t think this feature is going to kill guilds anytime soon. I think we’ll eventually get to a point where raid globalization becomes a possibility for progression. Guild levels are tracked on a server by server basis. Conquest on Ner’zhul would be different then Conquest on another server. There might even come a day where I can ginvite a player from Proudmoore into my guild on Ner’zhul. They can see Gchat from across servers, participate in raids, and kill Horde players in battlegrounds. But they’d have access to a different economy and wouldn’t be able to help us kill Hogger.
Overall, I’m a fan of this feature. It’s hard to find people who want to do old world raids sometimes on the same server. At least with the benefit of cross realm raid groups, we can set up some transmog runs on a Friday night. Completing Legendary staves would be easier because you can draw on the pool of expertise from players outside your realm.
Here are some other questions for you.
“What’s the point of having separate realms then?”
That’s an easy question to answer. They need multiple servers to help with population distribution. Can you imagine what a globally centralized auction house would look like? Good luck trying to load into any major city. Or navigate through thousands pages and pages of Embersilk Cloth single listings?
“What is the point of server transferring to join a guild?”
For now, so that any activities can be conducted on the same realm. You can level up and quest together on alts for example. If you’re being attacked out in the world on a PvP server, you can breathe easier knowing that reinforcements are minutes away from exacting revenge.
Anyway, who is up for some cross realm 25 man Sinestra?
I’ll totally run some cross-realm transmog or old hard mode stuff with you guys. And prove once and for all enhancement > all.
Bwah!
Nevar!
Yaknow that last question is the funkiest one. Will we see raids being organized through blogs and websites? Cause that would be pretty interesting.
I would love a cross server Sinestra kill. Or drake run, or whatever. I’d go in a second.