Connected Realms

Most people on PvP realms like having a faction advantage and choose their server or move to servers specifically for that reason, which makes evening it out fairly difficult. There also tends to be a faction imbalance on PvP vs. PvE realms, where PvP realms tend to be Horde heavy and PvE tend to be Alliance heavy. So when we connect a few low-pop PvP realms together it's somewhat likely to only be able to be matching imbalanced realms with imbalanced realms. Considering the desire for a faction advantage, even if we did achieve a balance I'm honestly not sure how long it would last. In any case, with Connected Realms both sides will be getting more players, and bringing up the amount of people on each realm is the goal.

Connected Realms are a complex process, we have a lot of data, we're taking our time, and we're taking a lot of factors into account to provide the best possible end-result we can. Faction balance is one of those factors, but it's definitely far more nuanced a problem.

09/13/2013 03:47 PMPosted by Fujisan

Most people on PvP realms like having a faction advantage and choose their server or move to servers specifically for that reason, which makes evening it out fairly difficult.

What about the people that chose their server based on a small population, only to have CRZ shoved down our throats?

World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. While you and I can disagree and discuss that being on a PvP realm with more of one faction or the other vs. a balanced realm is more or less fun for each of us, the game world being full of people is the definition of the type of game this is (MMO) and arguing it's more fun to have less people in it just doesn't align with the basic intentions of the game. It may be the way you prefer to play, and that's fine, but it's the opposite of what the game is defined as, and therefore isn't going to be something that we're specifically taking care to preserve.

09/13/2013 04:04 PMPosted by Ralphplsgo

Where were all the blues when there were tons of threads by people on dead realms complaining that their MMO experience wasn't really an MMO experience and more of a single player game?

Reassuring them we were aware it was an issue, working on Connected Realms, waiting until most of the engineering work had been completed so we were sure it could be done, and then announcing it.

09/13/2013 04:04 PMPosted by Ralphplsgo

I can only speak for myself but I feel like a lot of the connected realms information is just really vague. For example, why not have a list of exactly which realms are connected to which other realms? That just seems logical to me.

That is logical, but there are no Connected Realms at this time and no list to share. We've announced the first ones we'll be using the process on, but don't yet have a date when that will be done. Once that's done though we'll certainly let everyone know what the plans are moving forward.