Aside from securing a name you want, there is no reason to even have realms or any restrictions. I can make a character on any US realm and aside from interacting with a random played from the opposite faction in the overworld, I can do anything else I want.
I can even place stuff in my warbank, swap servers, and use that on a different battle groups AH.
At this point they need to just allow everything.
The names are a big part of it… if they had based names on battle-tag (as a hidden extension) it would’ve been seamless to merge realms rather than “connect” them. @Mirasol (MVP forum user) had a good explanation for why this is difficult to untangle (and extends to the WoW forums where identifies are per character as opposed to every other Blizzard forum that uses bTag).
Also, the Game Director still is clinging to the idea of server identity for high-end crafters; that such crafters have a “server reputation” that he thinks is an important “social aspect” of that gameplay facet. I disagree… a region-wide AH & crafting system makes for a more efficient marketplace and eliminates the problem on low-population realms suffering extortionist pricing for high-end crafts.
I agree with your point that “they should just allow everything” to be region-wide. Being able to freely move gold across realms is a huge step, but the crafting and AH non-commodities are still a significant roadblock to better pricing for consumers.
I would love NA-wide work orders. If I’m on Aggramar, I should be able to get someone from Area 52 to do my workorder (that isn’t in the same guild I’m in).
on there is a good reason for servers… it’s called being lagged by having too many people in one place.
I wish they could introduce a new system for our character names.
Now that cross realm guilds and warbands are a thing I have some names I had to accent on my move to Stormrage 2 years ago saved on other servers. Will likely server change a few characters during the next sale to drop the bloody accents.
Shame we can’t introduce last names for characters. I doubt the naming system will ever change.
take a look at queue times for high pop realms during launches.
…now imagine how many people would walk away if they needed to wait 8+ hours to enter the world.
I like my RP realm thank you beary much. 
He said realms, not servers.
It’s 2024, we have cloud technology and auto-scaling.
One realm is not one single monolithic server, it’s split over many instances.
I hope Blizzard takes a hint from how Ashes of Creation is doing their server infrastructure to allow seamless instance scaling.
Aren’t realms Blizzard name for WoW servers .
Server, server blade, same thing dude, that’s the realms. You can even buy old blades with realm name on them, or you could.
It would not shock me if Blizzard’s goal is to eventually eliminate the need for most players to worry about servers/realms (RP would probably continue to be an exception).
Someday we might just login and get dropped in whatever shard has the lowest population, and then it can add or subtract shards are needed.
On paper it sounds neat.
In reality it’s probably a nightmare to build - especially when the game still has 20 years of assumptions that there’s a realm involved. They’ve made a lot of changes to tear down barriers. Just give it time.
It would utterly break the client to get rid of them… I believe blizzard would do away with server realms if they could. Its just to much of a backbone structure though wow would need a new engine
We still have two server types via Normal & RP, with RP servers supposed to have harsher naming policies than a Normal one, but I digress.
I find RP Servers a little (not a lot) friendlier than Normal servers.
Even then, we should just be one giant server per server type.
No. A realm is an array of virtualized servers.
These days, it could even be containers instead of virtual machines.
A server instance is a virtual machine/container instance that hosts an instanced part of the world, like Kalimdor, a dungeon/raid, a battleground etc.
And world instances are further divided in “shards”, which are yet another copy of an instance server.
People on the same realm are rarely on the same server instance if not grouped in the same zone, and often are separate even in the same in-game zone.
Also, the chat server is separate from the world servers.
Ten years ago, a single physical host (and likely many backup ones) held a realm and all its world instances, as seen here:
Realms are basically last names and a trade chat channel at this point.
The only reason I can see is to see what server you will be based from. IE I’m on Oceanic realm.
Really realm transfers should now be free (or even 1 or 2 a year) as I just put my NA characters in my OCE guild and only play it when in a group.
its a simple thing, they could just use our bliz account as a unique identifier. So you could be Legolas-soandso#1919 and your buddy could be Legolas-soandso#2918,
the only problem with that is if in a raid and someone says legolas - you have x and wonder which legolas is tasked with that if everyone is named legolas lol
Dude, when someone in WoW says server, they mean Realm and vice versa.
Not sure why you had to drop a Ted talk on me.
Some people trying too hard these days.
Not everyone, and I was just clearing it up for anyone who reads, despite being a reply to your post.
So not you, but then probably a vast majority say server they mean the realm .
I’m pretty sure if you were to poll people if they think Servers and Realms are the same or if they are not , most will say the same.