Right now the #1 issue with Classic is easily the Mega Server culture.
You have too many people isolated into a couple servers and the rest are spread out between medium to low pop and most of these servers are dominated by one faction too.
If we had Cross Realm Server Groups then people can freely move to servers with less players to avoid queue times while still being a part of a bigger community in order to find raid spots or groups, which is currently not possible hence why people just stick to Mega Servers.
Aside from solving server queues, it would also lead to more balanced servers instead of 95% of them being one sided due to Cross Realm groups strengthening faction numbers.
I think Cross Realm would be ideal for the future health of Classic.
29 Likes
It would, but classic players seem to like server identity even if it causes a million problems.
33 Likes
I don’t really understand the server identity problem that people will bring up, I’m on Grobb and have been here for a year and aside from the 2 or 3 guilds spamming GDKPs all year long I can’t name a single person or character I met.
Everyone kinda blends together in these massive servers.
15 Likes
They like to say server identity. Thats all it is is words though.
5 Likes
They dont care. Most of them just repeat what they see someine else post.
8 Likes
Yeah that makes more sense, I just haven’t seen a lot of critical arguments against Cross Realm. It seems like either people bury these threads or no one wants to have that conversation on classic forums lol.
5 Likes
No, people mindlessly following everyone else to the same server, causes the problems. Blizzard contributed by not aggressively locking servers much earlier.
They should have had some system where account creation, and transfers got cut off much earlier, with exceptions for some “invite process” where max level characters on the server can invite small numbers of friends to bypass the lockout.
Then a final lockout with no exceptions.
They allowed too many people chasing mega servers to crowd into one spot. Their only fix is to stick to their guns and make the lemmings endure their hours of queues, or accept transfers.
6 Likes
Or hear me out here, start doing Cross Realm since that tech is over a decade old now and they have done it on Retail so people can go to whatever server they want and still be able to connect to their friends and the greater community.
6 Likes
A feature you can enjoy in retail.
11 Likes
What’s your argument for it not existing in Classic? It literally solves the issue you just described.
4 Likes
But muh server identityrino!! stomps ground crying meme
4 Likes
So does forcing mega server drones to transfer, or endure their queues. But with none of the negatives of cross realm. Cross realm is even worse than RDF, in terms of destroying social interactions.
4 Likes
Explain why it’s a good thing that I cannot group with you in game. I think it would be fun to do a dungeon with you, you seem really cool.
Cross Realm Battlegroups launched in the original game at 3.3.0 the same patch as LFD, technically by your logic of preserving Classic both things should be in the game.
And you can’t just force mega server players to transfer, the people taking free transfers will just drop that server once queues die down on their main server and it will kill off the old one.
Mega Servers exist due to safety in numbers, you can’t break that apart unless you give people an option like Cross Realm so they can connect to all the players without having to be in the same realm.
8 Likes
It’s a macro problem. On small scales, it looks like a good idea, being able to group with anyone you want.
The problem is that on the grander scale, people instinctively start to realize that they’ll never see the same people again. There’s no reason to be nice to nameless rogue number 3654625, because you will never see them again. Slowly but surely, that creates a caustic community that is only interested in personal gratification.
Compare group experience on a non mega realm(which have become large enough to experience the same degradation), with retail. Retail group experience is ultra toxic, but I’ve had numerous good experiences in classic. I run into people I’ve met before as I wander around the map doing other things.
5 Likes
How does something that creates MORE social interactions via people coming back, grouping with friends on a different server, creating new communities etc?
I don’t understand the thought process here, you truly believe the better social experience is a ton of small servers where people are limited to grouping with the same couple thousand people than being able to group with anyone?
It’s a mmo you shouldn’t feel lonely or secluded ever IMO
3 Likes
This is literally the current Classic community, out of the last 30 groups I can’t name a single person because everyone felt like they were just there for the dungeon and then dipped.
GDKP culture also made the game incredibly anti social and guilds are not that fun if you weren’t with them from the start as they all formed their own little cliques.
Clsssic suffers a lot of the same problems as Retail even without Cross Realm.
6 Likes
I disagree I feel like that degradation of social experience just changed from content being too easy thus not requiring people to interact with each other.
The fact is the queues and ability for new players to play with friends on locked server is a more important situation than the idea that grouping with someone on another server destroys social interaction.
3 Likes
There is already a solution. The friend transfers off the mega servers and the new player joins them.
2 Likes
I run a guild, I have arena partners, I have 4 characters committed to raids that fit my schedule perfectly.
I lose too much by transferring to a server I know nobody but my couple friends coming back*.
3 Likes