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Cross-realm grouping with friends coming for Warcraft

Blizzard announces its working towards Real ID-based, cross-realm grouping for mega-giant MMO World of Warcraft.

Remember the whole Real ID fallout from mid last year, when Blizzard had to back down from linking real names to Warcraft gamer's accounts? Well, seems the gaming giant is still looking for some interesting ways to use the Real ID functionality, but - again - not quite getting it right with its customers.

This time, Blizzard's announced it's looking to tackle cross-realm grouping with actual friends, based on Real ID friends. Currently, cross-realm grouping to tackle Dungeons dumps you with a random selection of players; the proposed Real ID system would let you actively invite friends as if they were on the same server.

It's a neat solution, and one that handily gets around the problems of discovering a new friend is also a WoW player, but on a different server. However, Blizzard's also proposing to make the service a paid one - and that's not floating well with the community at the moment. Many users feel it should be part of the sub they already pay for.

Blizz, on the other hand, states that it's a very complex thing to manage.

What do our local WoW or MMO players think?

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7 Comments

Opy May 18, 2011 11:27 AM	Similar to WoT where you need to buy the gold to spend on making yours a premium account before you can invite people to your group. It seems like these companies are promoting anti-social gaming. You have to pay to play with friends. I don't like that fact. But if people will pay for the function then there is a market for it. Stakeholders of these companies are after a dollar figure, having a happy crowd of users is a secondary desire.
Ekythump May 18, 2011 12:05 PM	I'm not paying for it that's for sure. I pay a monthly sub I'm not paying more.
pinecoffin May 18, 2011 1:47 PM	That's pathetic hey. I'm not paying to play with my friends when I'm already paying monthly to play the game with strangers.
alexdtree May 19, 2011 11:19 AM	what a load of BS they are rolling in cash, this feature would be awesome and welcomed but charge for it? when blizzard should give it to us as a reward for loyalty for the past 6 years!
Nan0_Seconds May 19, 2011 2:29 PM	I stopped playing about a month ago, this is bs to play with friends on other realms and pay, then the iphone app so u can talk in game for a dollar a month, they making so much money this is way out of context.
Ghoullees May 19, 2011 3:44 PM	I read recently ( was it on Atomic? ) that Wow subscriptions have declined by 5% in the past few months. In dollars and cents terms, that is conservatively a loss of $4.8 million in subscriptions. One would think that using the RealID feature to pro-actively encourage people back to game with friends would be a great way to stem the flow. Common sense 0 / Blizzard 1
Twents May 19, 2011 5:19 PM	they need to bloody quit making things like the mobile auction house app that you need to pay for. Like lord of the rings, yeah you can play free but you can only do this and do that, the rest you need to pay for. I was a wow player since the beginning and after lvl'ing 6 85's with 3 of them geared to the hilt, i got bored, bored with the noobs in heroics and raids. wotlk was the best expac they brought out. now they want to charge more to play with friends. fuck that

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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 137 | June, 2012

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

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