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The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar reveals; we analyze
We've gotten some substantial updates about WildStar over the last two weeks. Not as substantial as we might necessarily want, but I don't think anyone realistically expected this much news. Frankly, after an extended drought of worthwhile information, I'm happy to get as much as we have. Some of it has been hinted at before, some of it's completely new, and some of it is both unexpected and highly welcome. And then we've gotten some hints worth speculating upon, even if we haven't been told what's happening outright. So in the grand tradition of this column guessing at things only to be proven wrong not long thereafter, it's time to analyze and speculate a whole mess of things, starting with the biggest element that I didn't expect from WildStar at all, and that's all the cross-realm features. That's way more intriguing than mere class speculation.
WildStar offers cross-realm play
Don't stress too much about what server you initially pick for WildStar, since the game will feature several cross-realm options to keep the larger community in touch with each other. Carbine Studios revealed a few details as to how this will work in this week's WildStar Wednesday. In the post, the studio talks about how it's supporting cross-realm play through three primary features. Players will have the ability to talk to anyone on any realm using the chat system, they'll be able to group up with friends through the party system, and they'll be able to meet random strangers through the group finder. The cross-realm play does have a big limitation, however. Cross-realm parties will not be able to hang out on the landscape, but can only enter instances, battlegrounds, or arenas, and these parties will not be able to trade items between each other. Players who are not interested in cross-realm play will also have the option to toggle their account to group with only members of their server.
Do we need a cross-realm Auction House?
I live on a dying server. It's not quite dead, but it's slowly withering away. I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I have an idea of when -- at the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, Dalaran was packed. By the end of the expansion, there were far fewer people running around. Orgrimmar in Cataclysm was a quiet place to be, and in Mists, the Horde shrine is populated by a few handful of players. As I said, I don't know what happened, but for some reason the masses that were on my server when I rolled there in Burning Crusade have all but evaporated. On the one hand, it makes Pandaria a pretty quiet, idyllic place to be. There's hardly any competition for rare spawns, and you don't really have to compete with anyone for quest mobs or ore nodes or herbs, either. There's hardly any drama on the server, by and large because there really aren't enough people around to generate it. Sure, there are a few jerks, but it seems like everyone on the realm is generally relaxed and well-behaved -- as long as you stay out of Trade Chat. On the other hand, it makes trying to buy or sell anything on the auction house an absolute nightmare.
Cross-realm Dungeon Finder premium service coming soon
Blizzard has just announced a premium cross-realm Dungeon Finder feature, allowing players from the same faction to invite Real ID friends from different servers into 5-man regular and heroic dungeons. The popularity of the Dungeon Finder is well-known at this point, and expounding on the feature has been in the cards according to Blizzard for some time now. This new feature will be part of a premium package of WoW features requiring an extra fee to use. Blizzard says that only the person doing the invites and creating the cross-server party will need to have access to the premium feature for the system to work. Currently, there is no release date, and the service is being described as a complex one to develop. Blizzard is most likely getting out in front of the news sites and datamining sites now, since pieces of this new system will begin to hit the PTR soon and Blizzard doesn't want too much speculation. I personally think that this system is really cool for players who have an already-established friends base on other servers but don't want to leave their current home or don't have the money to do so and pay for a premium server transfer. For instance, Sacco and I can finally run some dungeons together. You hear that, Sacco? It's dungeon time. Premium services always receive some type of backlash in the WoW community, and this one will be no different, so for caution's sake, let's wait until pricing information is officially announced before we explode with indignation. This is, however, a feature that many players have been asking for and will be very popular.
Battle.net integration before Cataclysm
Do you want to talk to your friends even if they're on other servers, or the opposite faction on your server? Well, Blizzard aims to make that possible via Battle.net, and it's coming before Cataclysm. Zarhym - Re: Cataclysm Friends List Idea This is exactly what we are working on implementing with Battle.net and real-life friends. You'll be able to add friends at the Battle.net account level and talk to them while in-game whether they're on the opposing faction, a different realm, or another Blizzard game entirely. This is coming prior to Cataclysm. Q u o t e: Please tell me that people will not be able to "friend" me without my consent. I don't care to be tracked across servers and factions except by a couple people I know IRL. This is correct. No one outside of your faction on your realm will be able to communicate with you unless you accept their friend request, or they accept yours. You will still have your normal World of Warcraft Friends list, but we'll be adding in the ability to have Battle.net players on your Friends list as well. The characters on your Friends list will allow the same communication functionality which exists today. It's only when you've confirmed someone as a Battle.net friend that you can take advantage of the additional communication features. source The real surprise for me is that people playing, say, StarCraft II or Diablo III will be able to chat with people playing World of Warcraft via their Battle.net accounts. It's a definite extension of their Real ID program mentioned during the StarCraft II preview, and I'm even more surprised that it's going to be out before Cataclysm ships. I know that even if I don't play Diablo III (which is unlikely, how will I be able to resist the barbarian?), being able to talk to the various friends I have across six servers will be a positive boon for me.
Advancing the battlegrounds
With all of the hubbub around the new LFG interface coming in patch 3.3, we haven't done much thinking lately about that other form of group play in the game, battleground PvP. But Cassandri at HoTs and DoTs has, and she has some interesting insight about what players are doing in the battlegrounds and why. She notes that some people dive off on their own, like Lone Rangers. And she hints that maybe, if these people were so persuaded, things would go better if they fought together, rather than on their own. An interesting thought, for sure, and probably true -- while there are situations where I aim to be by myself in the battlegrounds (if I'm on my rogue and just want to hunt down some clothies), things almost always go better in there when you work as a team. So here's an idea: why not take the rewards implemented in the LFG system and apply them to better behavior in the battlegrounds?
Patch 3.3: Stone Keeper's Shards tied to your realm
Blizzard's new Dungeon System (with built-in cross-server LFG) coming in patch 3.3 seems to have all of its bases covered, even tiny niggling details that are not yet covered in the patch notes, as this post by Zarhym proves. What happens with Stone Keeper's Shards when you're in a PUG that takes advantage of cross-server LFG? Well, that's easy, kiddo. The system will check to see if your home realm's Wintergrasp is captured by your faction. If it is, voila! Stone Keeper's Shards for you. If not, well, you can figure it out. As for everyone else in the group, the same check is made, and if someone else doesn't have WG captured on their server and you do, they won't even see the Shards on the corpse, so no "Hey, what about MY shards?!" loot confusion should come up. If it does, well, you'll probably never see that person again anyway, so say what you must! Just bear in mind that parties in patch 3.3 do have that new Vote Kick option. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
The Queue: My Gimp
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today. Yesterday Alex posted a pretty picture. So I thought I'd retort with my Gimp. Now I need to go talk to Mr. Wallace... Bonc asked... "When we get cross server LFG, what will happen to VoA, for example if I dont have it on my server, can I go to another and get in there, does it go by raid leaders server?"
Atlantica Online opens first cross-server PvP battle area: Titan Server
Massively has noted that the quality of some of the free-to-play MMOs on the market is improving, with a few standout titles poised to break the stigma of low-quality associated with F2P titles. Atlantica Online from NDOORS Interactive is one of the free-to-play titles Massively has taken a look at in recent months. They've just announced that Atlantica Online's first cross-server PvP battle area, the Titan Server, is now open. The official release states: "The independent game server will enable interaction between all players from all Atlantica servers, creating the first true test of who is the best of the best. Players can now board a designated Titan ship and journey to and from the Titan Server to access new content, chat with other players, and compete against each other in massive PvP tournaments."
WAR's cross-server scenario queues akin to socialism
Warhammer Online, despite a very smooth launch, has a few nagging problems that have cropped up in its first weeks of life. Chief among its growing pains is the problem of scenario queuing issues, both on barren servers and the ones that are practically choking on players. Snafzg over at The Greenskin asks if creating a better situation for all Warhammer Online players must entail some degree of sacrifice made by all through cross-server scenario queues, likening the solution to socialism. A situation where the 'good servers' sacrifice for the benefit of 'problem servers'. Snafzg writes, "I'm not saying socialism is bad... but I wonder if there are alternative solutions that don't punish (too strong a word?) people on good servers for the benefit of those on bad servers. I don't envy Mythic here... Make one crowd happy only to piss off another?" He also points out that the core issues of server population imbalance impact the game on many levels, and suggests some potential solutions for both overpopulation and underpopulation issues. If you're not happy with the scenario frequency in Warhammer Online, give Snafzg's "Cross-Server Scenario Socialism..." post a read, and let him know if you agree with his views on the issue. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
SOE provides handy guide to cross-game communication in EQ
Sony Online Entertainment is responsible for quite a number of MMOs, and they've got a useful system in place to allow communication with people across their game worlds. However, many people either don't know about this system, or simply don't know how to wrangle it into doing what they want. To help with this, SOE has written a guide illustrating how EverQuest players can chat to their friends in other games.The games that EQ players can send both private messages and in-game mail to are EverQuest II, Planetside, Vanguard, The Matrix Online, and Star Wars: Galaxies. It's also possible to communicate with players on different EQ servers, but many of the servers have abbreviations that must be used in the commands -- these can be found in the guide. Now don't go acting all surprised when you're hiding from a guild raid on another server and your guild master sends you a tell!
