That may be your personal take on it, but there are names of people in here that are very much advocates for exactly what you’re claiming people here aren’t advocating for. I’ve argued with more than a few of them in other threads.
You can already play with everyone in your region in almost all content. Sure the trade restrictions can be a pain, whether it’s something as simple as “hey have a flask friend! oh wait…can’t give it to you” or “I have an extra battle pet that you need, aw…can’t trade it”. But they’re understandable due to potential abuse.
But if you’re actually simply suggesting merge everyone to one megaserver (well, one rp and one non rp per region) and have layering segregate players…I’m not certain I would have any issue with that. People can warmode or not as they choose. That didn’t seem to be my initial impression of what the OP was suggesting though but that outcome also wouldn’t put us on the path to re-create a classic style community either. Consolidate all AH’s, allow everyone to guild with everyone. It would effectively destroy server communities because it would just be a community. LFR/LFD wouldn’t change. Utilize the layering they’ve been tinkering with in Classic, clean up some of the abusive elements. I could potentially be talked into that pending details.
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I say merge, as for name issues, just add last names to data and even if someone has same first name chances are last name would not be
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Yep. One shot one kill here.
you keep your first name and now its “fight” for a last name you never had before so no blood no foul here really if you don’t get first pick.
Exactly. Just connect more realms. Doesn’t really seem like it should be that big of a deal.
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Yes. Just one mega realm.
For crying out loud, JUST MERGE AS MANY SERVERS AS POSSIBLE, ALLOW CROSS REALM TRADE/AH, AND ADD OPTIONAL LAST NAMES!!!
Apologies for caps but holy crap is this long overdue for how dead the game is becoming.
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You have marginalised a very large portion of the game by saying guilds are “very very niche”. Guilds are a large part of the game at least the way I play it. In my opinion the reason guilds are struggling so much is precisely because of the lack on players that a server merger would address. For me this is THE reason to merge servers as it allows connections between players in a way that cross realm play doesn’t.
To me the problem with names is solved by adding a surname or keeping your characters original server as a Suffix if there are multiples along with offering free name changes if they would prefer.
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I don’t see why we need to merge servers in a way that causes people to have to name change when connected realms as it is now allows you to keep your current name, so rather than mergers, why not just connect more and do away with the sharding and what not except when it’s needed, like during peak times and mass amounts of people are gathered at a single point like Rustfeather’s spawn etc.
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Exactly.
More Connected Realms. Trash CRZ completely. Add in layering and trash sharding. Problems solved.
How difficult that would be to do, I don’t know. But it’s still the best option.
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This is a most interesting topic but it’s sadly, useless.
Unless something is done about sharding and CRZ, no amount of connected realm will help out. Those are the core issues whether this fixes anything or none at all.
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Connected realms would work fine too but as a player that took a break and came back I wasn’t really sure who I was connected with since I could group with everyone but not trade with some and could trade with others. It was messy.
Connecting more realms leads to healthier realm populations and less need of things like sharding and crz except during times of high traffic in certain areas.
Exactly my point, first you would need to tune sharding and CRZ to see if connecting the realm did something(since Blizzard seem to have the numbers, is hard to say how many players CRZ forces in a specific layer to be considered “balanced”).
The experience might improve or get worse if not tested properly.
That is the sole reason I worry about server consolidation.
I changed my name multiple times because it always felt off somehow, until I finally sniped Sithis after Blizzard refreshed the names of inactive characters. To lose it would be like a huge stone in my shoe going forward.
Player name fidelity is definitely important. I’d wager even more important for RP realms.
One poster suggested Connecting more realms together would solve the naming issue. Sharding and CRZs would be the other things that would stand out, although these could be minimized if connected realm populations were adequate.
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I’m sure Blizzard could come up with a way to display what realms are connected on the realm select screen, even if it is a mouse over thing, could then say, mouse over to see which realms are connected to the one you are looking to make a play on.
They wouldn’t need to alter the toon names, just add the original server name after them they have done before and yes, they should consolidate servers and get rid of CRZ.
Semper Fi! 
No-- I’ll support more Connected Realms.
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