The RP vibe of each server is pretty distinct so it’ll either be a good thing or cause some kind of all out RP culture war. Either way, things are going to get interesting.
I had friends beg me to transfer to MG but I just don’t jive with the server, too busy for my taste and I prefer the Wyrmrest community.
I feel like this is probably more of a boon for offrealm non-rp folks to want to join up with rp guilds. And a curse because the mega-guilds on every server will probably be even more aggressive with spam recruiting/invites if allowed to do that across servers.
I’m curious what else this entails. Like are we going to get cross-server listings in guild finder now, like the communities have? Will we a get drop down for searching specific servers’ guilds? It almost feels like moving towards a “join world type #” like osrs does.
No they wouldn’t, they would do the same thing they do in classic era when they merged servers. They’re not going to create a new server with a merge they would just connect them to the same network.
If someone is named Axiann on MG they would be Axiann-MoonGuard to you and every person with a WrA character, it’s just that they would now be sharing the same world space with you everywhere instead of having to group up or be in war mode. They’ve done server merges before for retail and that’s what the names look like.
But anyways, I doubt they will server merge MG or WrA ever though, we’re kind of in a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation here with that. I could see them merging the smaller RP servers but yeah not MG or WrA anytime soon unless population severely dips. Faction imbalance isn’t really a huge issue to Blizz in retail because they’ve already created a bunch of different solutions for it.
If Blizzard was worried about realm faction disparity WrA and MG would not be their top priority, large servers like Illidan and Area 52 have like 20-30 Horde for every Alliance and blizz doesn’t do anything about that (I think the ratio is like 4 or 5 to 1 for MG Alliance and the reverse on WrA).
Yeah exactly, they’ve already built in solutions for cross-realm play (and even more with this upcoming guilds change) so faction balance isn’t really a concern at all for them.
I don’t ever see MG and WrA merging unless pops decline so I doubt Blizzard will ever consider it anyways. I know there is a contingent of people that want them combined but it is a controversial topic and many people (including me) don’t want it so I don’t think Blizzard is ever really going to push for it.
MG and WrA have different server cultures and vibes. I think it’s healthy for the RP community to have an alternative for people that want it.
You don’t have to change names when servers merge, so that’s good at least.
Source: Have characters on several “server cluster” things or whatever.
I am going to go out on a limb here, and say the best thing for WoW for cross-realm guilds is legit just give us the ability to control our own server hopping without having to join a group from that other server. Kind of the way FFXIV lets you travel to other servers.
Doing this is the only way I can really see this working, and I will explain why.
If I recruit someone to my guild from MG, and they want to come RP on WrA they currently would have to group with my WrA toon in order to be put into our instance.
What happens though if I am questing? Doing Mythic Plus? Get logged out?
If this happens that person’s RP gets interrupted potentially and they get sent back to their realm.
It might be a small possibility that Blizzard might not just allow people to recruit to their guilds across servers, but WHAT IF they allow you to legit go to some sort of like place or on a UI button or something and just phase into other servers and visit them. Do WQs there, PvP, RP, or whatever. That could be a HUGE win for Blizzard. Probably the only way I can really see that cross-realm RPer on MG really stick with an WrA server based guild unless the FOMO finally sets in and they just ultimately transfer to not be curbed by necessities of having to be in a group to visit here.
Thats my two cents.
Manual control over these features would be awesome. Same goes for shards, we always get that annoying period of a couple months after an expansion launch where cities are sharded, if we had the ability to manually select “ok I wanna be in shard 1, the laggy but populated one” it’d be a non-issue.
Merge all the rp servers and factions. Let there be chaos.
Yeah again to that point as well. In FFXIV you can select which shard/instance you are in too at anytime from those like flightpoint crystals they have. So being able to control that ourselves IMO again just further solidifies this new stance of “let the players play how they want to play” mentality that the Dev team talks about being devoted to.
We won’t know anything until it happens though, so here is to hoping.
Wooo!
Boooo!
I know, I am honestly not a fan of the idea either.
I’m excited to add my WRA characters into the Vigil 
A lot of us still have characters on WRA so it’ll be nice to have them all together.
Wish more people played their WrA alts on WrA but I understand the draw to MG \o/
Honestly I think the servers just need to be combined at this point. Some people still think the “culture” is too different but as someone who plays on both servers… nah, they’re very similar-- one just has more Alliance and one has more Horde. But people switch between the two already so it’s…a lot of the same folks on both servers just playing either their Horde or Alliance alts at the moment.
Just mash 'em together and we’ll have one huge RP server.
Oh look it’s this conversation again.
Not to be a doomer, but I am firmly in the “thanks but no thanks” camp of merging RP servers. I do not think it would serve anyone, because as I’ve said before, it may look nice on the outside, but in reality it just deprives people of options. Inevitably, something will be lost if you force the cultures to combine. Some people (like myself) choose to play on WRA because they actively prefer the culture here to MG.
As for why that culture difference is significant to me, I will simply say that for me it boils down to a desire for independence and identity. Maybe others have had different experiences, but from what I have seen, MG places a strong emphasis on being “part of something bigger” in that many large guilds, communities, and community events are hosted, led, and attended by the same people. This is great. This is also not my preference in RP.
I prefer smaller communities where I can get to know a handful of people, and their characters, more personally and much better than I ever could by attending massive server-wide events. And while I’m sure people will argue that the two can co-exist just fine, I do think there’s something to be said about the “we were here first” dilemma that might occur when two or more groups try to inhabit the same space, host the same event, etc. when previously it was completely valid to view them as separate entities altogether.
That’s about as much as I want to say without going into any specifics.
I don’t think cross-realm guilds are going to cause this exactly, but I will admit that I’m not thrilled about it either.
i dont really want the servers to combine, i just want to poop post in guild chat on my characters i dont want to spend 25$ to move to MG to poop post in guld chat. We RP wherever, if the host is WRA then we RP on WRA if the host is on ED we RP on ED it doesnt really matter anymore to any of us.
This is a giant question mark I have as well.
Are you going to be sharded into your “home” realm at all times unless grouped, and even then, would you be anchored into the party/raid leader’s realm?
What about guilds? If I join a MG guild on my WRA character, am I technically going to be on MG because of the guild I’m on, or will I still be in WRA while hanging out in Stormwind? These is especially a concern on mine for a character on a non-RP realm that I put into a MG/WRA guild, am I still playing the game on my dead low pop realm, or do I now get to enjoy the benefits of a populated server thanks to my guild? I hope this gets cleared up.
This would likely be the end of me. I wouldn’t stop playing this game, but I’d probably give up RP entirely and go hide on another server somewhere.
There are (2) things that will get me to finally quit WoW -
1 - Allow people to switch classes at max level. Oh, you rolled a rogue but you want a warrior? Great, just pay $20 and you can change your max level’s class.
2 - Take away the name Norman.
I’m looking forward to it. It would be nice to see a full SW but I have irl friends here on this server, so I’m not gonna Xfer anywhere. I came from MG a long time ago and when I switched to WRA, there wasn’t a huge difference. Towns were still full, had lots of rp. Now I just slow mo walk by myself. 