Videos
(124)Screenshots
(278)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(24)Screenshots
(27)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(5)Screenshots
Cheats and Walkthroughs
(50)
Videos
(88)Screenshots
(167)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(29)
Blizzard Entertainment's massively multiplayer role playing game World of Warcraft will be implementing a "cross realm Real ID party system" that will allow players from the same faction but on different servers to run instances together but of course, you're going to have to pay extra to do it. WoW uses microtransactions already for cosmetic things like pets, mounts, name changes, and faction changes, but this is the first time that players will have to pay for something that seems like it should be part of a "massively multiplayer" game.
According to World of Warcraft U.S. community manager Nethaera, "With the continued popularity of the Dungeon Finder, many players have been asking for a way to group up with real-life friends who play on other realms to take on instances together. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about a new feature currently in development that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon."
She goes on to say that, "as with some of the other convenience and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service."
I have to admit the prospect of being able to group up with cross-realm Real ID friends is extremely intriguing and something that I have been dying to do for years now, but I'm not thrilled at the thought of a price tag being attached to it. You won't be able to run raids with your friends, only 5-man instances and Heroic dungeons. Still fun, but not as epic as a raid.
What worries me the most about the news is the prospect of what's going to come next. There has been a lot of speculation over the years of the potential of World of Warcraft going with a free-to-play model like Vindictus or Guild Wars and this is a step in that direction.
Blizzard announced that WoW, while still ridiculously popular, had started to see a slump in subscribers from 12 million down to 11.4 million during their financial call earlier this month. Along with pumping out faster free content patches it seems the developer is also trying to implement more premium content and microtransactions to help spur sales.
Nethaera didn't give players a time frame on when to expect the cross-realm service to be implemented, saying that's it's a fairly complex service to develop and that the feature will appear on the World of Warcraft Public Test Realm (PTR) in the future.
I'm so torn about this. Once again I feel like this is Activision stepping on Blizzard's toes and that doesn't bode well. On the other hand I like the idea that they're innovating to add features like this because let's face it, Real ID chat is awesome. Being on StarCraft and talking to your friends on World of Warcraft is really neat.
But enough about me, how do you feel about the prospect of being able to play with your friends in World of Warcraft but having to pay for it? I guess it depends on the price too. A $10 one-time price tag to play with friends, while still annoying, would be worth it I think. Although knowing World of Warcraft's price points for similar transactions I'd bet on a $15-25 price tag on this sort of thing.
Have something to share? You can find me on Twitter!
Comments are Closed
Comments
Displaying 1–20 of 24
122
Daika
I blame wow for making all mmos after it to be p2p but I still subscribe and enjoy it, but really everything of wow turn to crap after the expansion wotlk because of many reasons: 1st raid contents being release super duper fast (not to mention only no lifes can stay update with their gear and others with some exeption) 2nd tier and season pvp gears are just tier 9 -> tier 10 = hey designer add a little spike or patch on them (they all look the same) where is the gear designer team for burning crusade...I miss them especially the priest one 3rd 15 bucks a month is a lot for me since I dont have a job and I am pretty sure it's a rated teen game :( 5-10 would be reasonable and fourth, this one is just barely update (I was planning to return to wow but this is just plain out sadness) premium content? Isn't paying 15 bucks a month make the game pretty much already premium? I mean free to play require to pay for premium...and I don't like those since it's very unbalance since some ppl with extra bucks could get a same weapon looking weapon with better stats and special effect etc(except for league of legend seriously this game has an exceptional balance system of free to play and microtransaction) and for the upcoming guildwars 2 a perfect game, graphic perfect, combat animation and system = out of this world, and subscription...l33t sauce none!! I hope blizzard read this and I hope this comment could change a little bit.
hoof_hearted4
i was under the impression that WoW players didnt have friends (outside of their guild) because they didnt have lives?
Morgueman369
anytime I see Blizzard talking about WoW I am reminded how the core members of blizzard left when the companies motto went from "Never release a game til it is the best it can be" to "Take all the customers cash and put out as much total donkey dung as fast as you can!!"
Thank god I left this game long ago. Blizzard you have one chance to redeem yourselves in my eye's Diablo 3 and I'll wait before I even think of shelling out any cash for that until I know for sure it's a decent game.
prechrchet
Question: does anyone know if it would be a one-time fee, or would it be a small amount added to your monthly subscription?
Flying_Peanut
I guess Im glad I dont have friends.......*sometimes wishes he had friends* /kill self
Embryal
I have been playing wow on and off since it came out and I am bored with it.. the last expansion was a whole 5 levels.. really?? that took all of a day to achieve. All that is left are some dailies and achievements that you get points for doing, and what do you get with these points?? NOTHING!!! lol the content is stale.. At least the last two expansions were interesting a little longer. I am bored to tears and have cancelled my subscription. I would never pay the premium to play with my friends cross server.. I pay enough, seriously!! Are they even planning on coming out with any more expansions? I heard they werent.. if that is the case and even if it isnt they are just begging for people to cancel their subscriptions. They might as well pull the plug on it now and call it a day. They are making 180 million dollars a year off of their subscribers.. is that not enough?? guess not
uberman3000
Really Blizzard?? Really?? You know what gets me is that if you wanted to play WoW and never had you would have to pay over $80 to get all the races and content. Then sure they are nice enough to give a month free but you still have to pay that sub. Then they want people to pay extra to pay to play with your R/L friends? Really?? Really?? I guess there are some people so lost in their addiction that they will pay it with out blinking an eye. I played from 04 to 08 Ive popped back in to play a trial they toss my way to try get me back. Its all ways the same thing just with much better paint job. I've learned since I quit that there are a lot of games out there that are just as good or far far better. Weather those games are PC or console there are better games to spend you money on. If I was able to pay a sub I would play RIFT. However, I think I will wait till The Old Republic comes out. Hopefully by then I will be able to pay a sub. /crossfinggers
ShinjiEx
Thank god for DCUO ^__^
WOW is a mess
prechrchet
Would I pay money to play with RL friends? If I had more RL friends that played, I might if it wasn't too expensive.
However, if WoW moves to a free to play, micro transaction model then I will quit. Period. One of the things that has drawn me to WoW is that everyone is on an equal footing, with those that play more get the most good stuff. If you have the option of paying money to get the next tier gearset, it will ruin the game.
Raisinbman
Want this to be free. I don't understand why this is only group/dungeons though, seems really limited.
rethael
I don't believe that this article correctly stresses how great being able to play with your Real ID friends cross-realm in any instance is, or how innovative it is compared to other MMOs.
There are generally two type of 'server' setups with MMOs:
You have your dedicated server for a group of people, everyone currently in town A at any given time sees everyone else in town A. This is how Vanilla WoW started out, as have many before it and after it.
There's also the servers which is really an instanced out world. There are 5-12 instances of Town A, B, and C, and depending on which instance you are in, you can only see people in that same instance. Although, you can move from one instance to another. This type is common in free to plays.
Of course, there is also the hybrid of these two.
With the first setup, no one on server A can talk to server B. It's not going to happen. This is widely accepted as a normal standard among MMOs, not a deficient characteristic of one.
Not only is this widely accepted from MMOs, it's accepted this way from almost all online multiplayer games. You're expected to be connected to the same server as the person you're trying to talk to.
While there are some services which provide an overlay to your games which allow you to chat with others, such as Steam, this service is being built into the MMO itself.
Blizzard already seperated themselves from the competition with Real ID. Not only did it allow you to communicate Cross Realm (Server.) with friends of yours, utilizing the much debated e-mail address & real name system, but it allowed someone playing World of Warcraft to speak to their friend playing Starcraft II.
Will someone playing the new upcoming The Old Republic chat with a friend of theirs getting down with some Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2? I don't think so.
But what I'm hearing from this, is I can stay on my server as an elitist according and compared to my friends and family and raid with my guild, because I really don't want to go to their server and raid with their guild, it would give me nightmares, and then when I'm done, or before, I can group with them for some heroics and chat with them like there aren't these widely accepted barriers that would prevent all of these from ever happening in the way?
I can play with my old friends from my old servers, my coworkers, and my family in some premade 5mans and PvP with the server name and battlegroup name be damned.
This is an awesome feature and should have been reported for what it's doing for the MMO community as a whole as far as innovation goes, and what it does for the World of Warcraft community itself.
mikegonzalez2k
Blizzard is getting more desperate every day... what will they do next... I'm glad there are other MMO's because WoW has become dead to me.
ZyloWolfBane
Nope, I wont pay for that crap. This is the sort of thing that we pay a monthly fee to be entitled to in content patches.
They are out of their freakin minds if they think they can refuse to release things we've been asking for years in advance just so they can release it as "Premium" content, wtf do we pay a monthly fee for then?
I just renewed my sub because of the new instances but between several new issues that poppped up post patch and this crap Im probably going to cancel it again.
Rift was a disappointment and WoW is circling the drain, they should focus more on free to play titles like Starcraft and Diablo like they used to and leave the MMOs to better developers.
jjfan1
Can't you already play random dungeons cross realm with the dungeon finder? I know that this feature is free but like everyone has stated playing with friends cross realm should be free also. But then again I stopped playing game right after Ca-tack-a-lism was relased
MuppetPastor
I think for anyone who's said that Blizzard is its own company in spirit, that they are far removed from Activision ... I think you only have to read articles like this to see how much the Activision way of thinking has affected them.
leper1983
Paying monthly to only pay more.. AWESOME
Why not just go Free to Play and rape everyone with these fees instead
Drop_Six
Looks like Bobby Kottick is influencing Blizzard more and more. I wish WoW players wouldn't put up with this kind of crap. Its crap like this that keeps me from play MMORPGs.
urvalic
I will not pay for this. My $15 a month is supposed to go to development and features so that we aren't charged for anything else.
vaajtswv
If this allows me to do cross realm raid invites, I'd pay for it.
cwbys21
Unless this is going to be a small fee, I think this could be a jumping the shark moment for the game. Guild Wars has a feature that allows you to play with anyone in the world at any time, but most MMOs like WoW still restrict you to just one server and with Guild Wars 2 incoming I think Blizzard is starting to get a bit worried about the damage it could do.
Displaying 1–20 of 24
122