cross-realm-mail
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Cross-realm account-bound mail now live, mailing rules
It's time to roll that new alt! Those of you playing on multiple realms -- or those of you who want to -- have reason to rejoice today, because with patch 5.4.2 you can now mail account-bound items between realms. This is at least true on North American realms and Oceanic realms -- European realms can expect the feature to pop up tomorrow after the patch. The process isn't much more complicated than sending items on a single server: just send your mail to "charactername-servername" -- without the quotation marks, of course. If your server name has spaces in it, skip the spaces. (So "The Venture Co" server would be "theventureco" for mailing purposes.) Bashiok explains the syntax: 5.4.2 is live and brings true account-bound items. Cross-realm mailing syntax is name-nospaceserver. Ex.: joeyjoejoeshabadujr-theventureco - Bashiok (@Bashiok) December 10, 2013 Like any mail you send to yourself, once you've clicked "send," the item immediately appears in your mailbox. And though heirlooms are the most obvious items to mail from character to character, there are a number of items that fall into the account bound category, including archeology items, Timeless Isle armor tokens, and more. However, you still can't send cash or non account-bound items, so your gold stash is tied to your server.
Patch 5.4.2 hits live realms this week
The realms will be coming down for an extended maintenance on the morning of December 10 to apply patch 5.4.2. The major new features of this patch are the cross-realm raid browser and cross-realm mailing of account-bound items. Also added in this patch is the jet-powered Iron Skyreaver mount, the source of which remains a mystery. You will find the cross-realm raid browser in the raid tab of your social screen by clicking the "Other Raids" button. Here you will be able to list yourself as looking for a group for Siege of Orgrimmar flexible raids or Pandaria world bosses. Cross-realm mailing works for account-bound items only and won't work for gold or other items. To mail something to a character of yours on another realm, simply send the mail in the following format: CharacterName-RealmName. Hit the break for the latest version of the patch notes.
Patch 5.4.2 PTR Patch notes
Patch notes for patch 5.4.2 have finally been released, confirming at least some of the new features we can expect to see in the next Mists patch. Keep in mind that 5.4.2 is not a content patch -- there will be no new content to play through, no new raids, scenarios or dungeons added. However, 5.4.2 is adding several new features that players have been clamoring for for quite some time. The Cross-realm raid browser now has new categories for Mists of Pandaria world bosses -- the Celestials and Ordos, as well as Flexible raid difficulty for the Siege of Orgrimmar. Players will finally be able to mail account-bound items to characters on different realms. At the moment, the official list of patch notes is pretty short. Follow after the break for the list, which will likely get more updates as the patch nears completion.
Weekly news roundup with Panser of TradeChat
Panser of TradeChat is back with this week's WoW Insider Weekly News Recap. We take a look at last week's most interesting news and tidbits of information including WoW's 9th anniversary and some new features available on the PTR such as cross-realm mailing. The full list of topics covered this week include: World of Warcraft turns 9 Enchanted Fey Dragon and Alterac Brew Pup Karazhan lore Karazhan revamp Cross-server mail for account-bound items Improved raid finder Blizzard's answer to oQueue If you like the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave comments, and tune in next week for a new episode!
Patch 5.4.2 PTR: Cross-realm Account-Bound mail being tested
Cross-realm zones have been in place for quite some time now, but players have been consistently requesting that the ability to mail cross-realm heirlooms and account-bound items be added as well. While Warlords of Draenor's feature list includes an heirloom tab that should negate the need for mailing heirlooms between servers, that does little to address the feature as it stands right now -- and with many players leveling alts, it's still something players would like to see. Today Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas announced that the patch 5.4.2 PTR is beginning testing for exactly that feature. This process should allow players to move heirlooms between servers, in advance of the changes already planned for Warlords. The feature should work like any other cross-server communication, in that instead of simply mailing to a character name, you would be mailing to "Charactername-Servername." Note that this feature is only for account-bound items like heirlooms -- mailing gold or other items won't work. Players wanting to test this feature should hop on the patch 5.4.2 PTR and mail account-bound items across servers, reporting any hiccups by bug reports or feedback. For more information, check out the official thread on the forums -- and look forward to being able to chuck your heirlooms to your alts in patch 5.4.2.
Cross-realm raids and mail are a work in progress
Blizzard's recent developer chat over Twitter revealed a few interesting tidbits, and this one might have gotten lost in the shuffle of good things. Several of the questions throughout the chat pertained to cross-realm issues, and Cory Stockton and Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street were more than game to answer each one, starting with a question about cross-realm mail (e.g. for BoA items) to which the answer was, "we have cross-faction mail for BoA items now; cross-realm is a work in progress, but we hope to have it done "soon."" This means that it should be possible to send your alts in other realms your heirloom items in the future, which should help along leveling through multiple realms. That said, it might take a while longer before Blizzard implements cross-realm raiding although they said that they were looking into it. Aside from considerable technical issues, the developers were also concerned about group dynamics, such as how to get groups back together through those long raids that require more than one session. Another concern was keeping the sense of community alive in native realms. On the other hand, the growing culture of PUGs that has bloomed through easier content and the new Dungeon Finder has already diluted the sense of community in individual realms, so we should probably expect Blizzard to allow cross-realm cooperation sooner rather than later.
