Just as a disclaimer, since there isn’t a sub-forum for PvP-specific WOTLK topics… This post has nothing to do with anything other than cross-realm arena queueing. Not dungeon finder, not raid finder, not any other “change/feature”. Queueing Arena with team mates from different realms. That’s it.
If you want to find arena partners in WOTLK are very limited. The vast majority of arena players are on:
Benediction: Alliance
Faerlina: Horde
Both come with 4+ hour queue times, even weeks prior to launch day, even with free transfers available. If you’re already here, you’re stuck, and not just in queue.
With the removal of Arena teams and the existence of pseudo-cross servers already (layering), I can’t think of a reason to keep queue partners server-bound. It forces everyone to consolidate, increases queue times, and contributes a PvP server balance like this: imgur .com/a/cPClqle
I can assure you, Benediction does not have thousands of people flocking to the gates of orgrimmar to fight 50 horde. There is nothing further from a PvP server than playing on the two largest PvP servers Bene/Faerlina, with the exception of Arena. However, arena queues are instanced and cross-server, just like battegrounds, but team mates are not. If you can queue into players on other servers, why can’t you queue with players on other servers? There aren’t any battlegroups on classic servers.
This won’t fix the queue time issue entirely by any means; arena players want to be with arena players, even when we don’t need to be on the same server to play with each other (Tich on retail). Personally I’d be happy to see both Faer/Bene cut in half and splitting the factions 50/50 (an actual PvP server), but this would require cross-server arena to exist beforehand to work out. Open to hearing any objections, crossing my fingers for this potential change. It will probably happen eventually anyways.
Why? Hope. Just like any other suggestion, and it gave me something to do while I sat in queue for 5 hours. I tried to make this more focused on cross-realm queueing than CRZ/layering/server stuff since they’ve already made changes to arena like this: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/bringing-arena-pvp-to-wrath-classic/1290891
Perhaps the PvP team, if there is one, could handle this instead of it being thrown into the other server-related issues. Idk.
In retail, you can just find people in lfg listed looking for partners. You read what they’re looking for, right click their post, click message or invite or request to join party. Then you queue.
Also, I don’t know what you mean by blindly following FOTM. I wasn’t Originally on Bene. I made a fresh Hunt on Bene in TBC because 10+ of my friends are here and friends from my old server quit. I cannot queue arena with my friends cross-realm, understand?
They would not do something that FOMO then deems an outside program becoming necessary to be the best. Because people immediately would.
Your claim in the original post was that “If you want to play arena in WOTLK, you have two server options” so what I meant was, that’s Bene mindset. No, you really do not have to be there. I was on a dead realm and my guild said alright, Bene time. Off they went. I did not follow them because I knew I would be miserable on that non-wPvP server.
I queue BGs and see Sulfuras Alliance now, a group I had thought was totally dead.
But here it is making a comeback.
There’s always more options. I am SO happy here on Grobb.
Wanna be with your friends more than you want to be on Bene? Go join em.
Ah I misread that entirely.
So you do want to be off Bene but still arena with your friends still on Bene?
Sounds neat but yeah, CRZ is a retail thing.
Yeah man. Had to make a fresh hunter/gear it just to queue arena on top of adding to the server population issue. Never would have had to come here if I could queue cross realm. Like I said, it already exists in retail. I’m just asking for literally any downsides.
Hell yeah man, after leveling a fresh hunter and not having a vault of honor to buy gear with early I charged in with my PvE gear and 3 second lifespan only to find out the only way to climb as a Hunt in BC is to sit behind a pillar and press viper sting. It was sad. Ended up quitting for like a year… Hunters really didn’t get their kit until wrath unfortunately.
It will not fix the problem of server stacking. It has not worked in retail other than if you know someone or a group on another server… Sure there are connections you can make on discord and the forums, but the server stacking monster is still a thing.