Returning to retail wow from vanilla then the new classic. Old toons from Legion are on lightninghoof. Are all RPPVP servers equal? Does server membership matter anymore for guild mates and trades.
I want to make sure before I pre-purchase shadowlands and make an effort on lightninghoof that my old friends on other servers can join me in the same guild, quests, instances etc
Any difference? Does it matter anymore?
Guilds, trading (and the AH) are still restricted to servers.
The only exception are connected realms, which share and AH and function as one realm for trading and guilds. Lightninghoof is connected to Maelstrom and The Venture Co.
Groups, however, are not server restricted. So, you can group with friends on different servers. The only activity that can’t be done cross-realm is cutting edge Mythic raiding. (Mythic raids open up cross-server once 100 guilds on each Alliance and Horde have killed the end boss.)
Ok so, wow’s answer to a shrinking playerbase, and thus shuttering servers over the years (but without the bad press of actually closing and merging servers), was to “link” realms together.
Another solution for making the world feel alive on low population realms (and to alleviate zone population on high pop realms) was to phase players from high pop realms TO low pop realms so everyone is happy.
So currently, Lightninghoof is linked with Maelstrom and The Venture Co, meaning that essentially all 3 realms are one realm. You can interact with on every level and invite people to your guild from any of these 3 realms. Your trade chat and AH are also linked.
Groups, both out in the world and instanced (with a couple exceptions) can be from any realm. You will also see people from many realms in a zone’s General chat.
There are RP servers and non-RP servers but there are no longer any PVP servers. if you want to do wpvp you must turn on Warmode and then you will get moved into a virtual server (sharding) that only has other warmode players. Generally, just like playing in regular (non-warmode) you will get sharded other players from other realms. Players from RP servers with warmode on will only shard with other RP warmode players. Non-RP shards with other non-RP warmode players. Its also my understanding that players from OCE servers only shard with other OCE players…
There will be a really large faction imbalance in warmode. On non-RP servers, Horde vastly outnumbers alliance warmode. But on RP servers, its the opposite: Alliance vastly outnumbers horde players. Its just how players have chosen to opt in.
I’m on Illidan Horde the highest pop non RP Horde server. The server is dominated by Horde with warmode off. I strictly play In warmode now, and It seems the factions are usually somewhat balanced. There are many times where there are way more alliance around me.
I assumed they took all the warmode people and put them on balanced shards. Like fill up one shard 50/50 horde/alliance, then another, etc. until they run out of Alliance and the imbalances start. This is all just speculation on my part.