Cross-realm is the best
Once upon a time it was a royal pain in the ass to group up with friends in World of Warcraft, especially friends who you just met and had already started playing. With so many different servers to choose from many people were separated, and were forced to make the choice as to whether or not they’d abandon their life on their server and pay to swap.
Cross-realm parties have made life so much easier in recent years, and as of this week, new cross-realm features make playing with friends that much easier. As part of the Battle for Azerothpre-patch, you can now engage in “War Mode” in Stormwind or Orgrimarr and toggle on world PVP — cross-realm (the newest experiment in a timeless attempt to appease people who both love and hate world PVP). If you’re so inclined you can also go for cross-realm communities, which are basically enhanced social features that will work across all of World of Warcraftseparately from guilds (integrated with the general purpose launcher), on top of voice chat.
Whether you’re a solo or group player you can also enjoy the retaking ofLordaeron (Undercity) and the Teldrassil incident next week, which sets the stage for the Alliance vs. Horde conflict in the upcoming expansion. Personal loot by default (an existing system that’s fully replacing other famous systems like master loot) is also a hugechange in that all players earn their own loot from encounters — no DKP flowchart or spreadsheet needed. It remains to be seen how the community takes to this change but as someone who’s lost a lotof rolls over the years I appreciate cutting out the anxiety. Oh, and all the class changes are live now so you can experiment.
It’s a hefty patch!
The Battle for Azeroth Pre-Patch is Now Live! [Blizzard]