I was quite excited the first time I saw someone pop a Blingtron4000, and then disappointed when Semblance here was too low to use it (80 and up, in case you’re curious). Fortunately someone had the tiger out as well so she happily bounced upon it for a little while. As she sat there rocking away, I was reading up on the latest on Cross-Realm Zones. Before I delve into them, let me just say how much fun it’s been to fly out of Stormwind 8 feet past the gates and then sit and wait while the new zone loads, allowing me to work on Hallow’s End stuff.
1. Time Zone Jumps
CRZ’s are currently capped where the realms that tie into the zone are no more than three hours apart. I honestly didn’t know that and while part of the reason is for day/night jump limitation and the handing in of timed events, three hours is still three hours. One solution being discussed is what sounds like a flatlining of the zone times. Not 100% on how that’ll succeed, but it could be better than the current setup, that’s for certain.
2. Lag And Tech Issues
Resources, NPC’s, buffs and more can occasionally be non-existant when you change zones. Blizzard admits this and is working on it. Well, that’s a start. As is finally acknowledging the horrid frame rate problem that many have reported (myself included) when hitting a CRZ. A few people have suggested the zones weren’t ready to go live and these issues show that. However, no one in their right mind should think this ever would have launched without any difficulty. If they can sort it out, bonus for the game.
3. “We’re Blindly Happy With It.”
Sorry, I don’t know how else to paraphrase it. The exact quote from Rygarius is as follows:
Despite a few lingering technical issues, we’re happy with how CRZ is populating the leveling areas with other players, and helping to once again foster MMO social experiences in the 1-85 content.
For the most part, I think some players would agree with this. In the grand scheme of things, I might be one of them. But the cynic in me can’t help but think node and mob stealing, npc pvp camping and more are not the MMO experiences I would want to be fostering.
In fact, just recently Cheetah Dave was questing in Theramore and a Horde Druid was just camping a pirate needed for a quest. He was doing nothing else, except sitting there at level 85 killing this pirate that anyone else in the zone would need. Fortunately he had someone like myself who invited him to my group so that he could visit the quest location, but was guaranteed to do it on my server -which the Druid wasn’t on. Not everyone has that option.
I’ve backed off the quasi “sky is falling” opinion I had when the Cross Realm Zones first came in, but that doesn’t mean I loathe them any less. They have their place in the game but until a number of issues are fixed, being able to turn them off should be an option and probably the most viable. Alas, that is the proverbial wishing on a star based on Rygarius’ latest (and still appreciated) comments.
I really like CRZ. They have allowed me to bring people to try to look for rare pets, and for me to go look for rare pets. I can see people like Ancient and Stubborn outside major cities. I have a healthy lot of people standing outside Org to duel with if I feel the need. The only bad thing is campers coz competition is fierce now, but I liked how you can just party with someone else in another realm and go quest in peace.
It has it’s merits. I truly believe that. It’s partly why I’ve gotten off the sky is falling soapbox that I foolishly touted before. But I think it still needs a lot of work.
I was willing to give CRZs a chance, but after what I’ve experienced with trolls and griefers I can’t report, high levels camping npcs for quests, people sitting en mass on quest givers on huge mounts, the technical issues and getting PvP flagged when I’m supposed to be on a PvE server I would just as soon turn off CRZ. The bad has outweighed the good and honestly with the jerks on my own server and those from others I will likely have to quit if they make Pandaria CRZ as well unless we get an option to turn it off (it’s been that bad).
I will say that I don’t mind there being other people around, it’s the behavior that not being able to report and the lack of consequences for that behavior has fostered that I have issues with.
This is what I feel they have a blind eye toward. Once again it’s been talked about until people are blue in the face and the only argument people even try to make is “zones are populated again.” Also I have yet to see Blizzard come out and openly admit to the issues you’ve mentioned and talk about possible solutions.
I do really like it for the same reason Navi does but when finding a mob of people camping pets in someplace like Silithus I do start muttering dirty words about it,
As Ishtla said, the bad currently outweighs the good and that needs to be fixed. Until they can even come close, players should have the option to turn it off.
And another thing, I’m not sure about this one but it appears if you have a character in a shared server area and any of those servers are down you will get “world server is down” when trying to login to that character. I can’t login to my bank alt right now but any character in Pandaria I can, same server.
Despite being the same realm, it’s actually a different server (unless I’m badly mistaken). In the past, Burning Crusade and Northrend had their own servers (I’ve lost track of how many times I couldn’t log into a Dalaran toon). So Pandaria is likely on its own server as well.
I still loathe the CRZ’s. When ‘out in the world’ I rarely see more than one person in leveling zones. The only places that are populated are places I’d rather be alone, and used to be. Silithus and the Argent Tourney come to mind. I do however, like the side of it that allows grouping with folks I know from other servers, I wish they had just left it at that like GW2.
Unfortunately, I think Blizzard’s Blind Hapiness stance is the only face they’re ever going to show on this. If they came out and said “you guys were right, this blows” to every fiasco they have (Real ID on the forums…) it would make them look pretty bad. People would start expecting them to bow to everything the players didn’t like ZOMG ATM and it would be a mess.
They could fix the issues simply by allowing us to choose if we want to use CRZ or not. By adding a toggle the feature is still there for those that like the feature, the rest don’t have to suffer and Blizz could spin it in a way where they save face. Sadly by ignoring their customers on this it could end up costing them as many annual passes expire; especially if CRZ gets added to Pandaria.
Oh I agree completely on the acknowledged fail…it’s just the force it on the populace and then pretend people are happy that gets frustrating. Ishtla is absolutely right in the toggle option being the perfect solution.
I love it when it’s choice: I ask someone to join me in a group; however, the random zoning sucks, and I hate it. (Tell us how you really feel Matty!)
I was using my RaF account and hitting candy baskets. RaF toon riding my main toon (Nightwing). Every zone I got dismounted and then had to wait until both “logged” into the same zone. I won’t even mention what my frame rate did…