I feel it's a waste, since the only instance you do while leveling (Alliance side) is Uldaman, and most people have friends or can get someone locally if they wanted to run an instance.

Reply

I think that cross realm instances is a great idea--but make it for Raids also!
People are always complaining that AV is really PVE--why not turn all old lvl 60 raids into instanced -PUG-cross-realm-raids with allotted tank slots, healer slots and dps slots.
The bosses wouldn't have to drop loot, but could either drop tokens or you could be awarded "Raid Points" which you can then turn in at the "Raid Point Vendor" to buy yourself your raid armor.
You could keep the level 70 and level 80 raids for the uber guilds who are tearing through them, but this would give the rest of us non-raiders the chance to still see the rest of the content and there would still be enough incentive to do it because there would be some loot reward similar to the BGs.

Reply

For some servers where the majority of players are high-level and unwilling to redo lower level instances, yes, a cross-realm instanced dungeon feature would be a great help.

I don't know how Blizz would make it work though. Would you join a player from another realm only after entering the instance? How would we contact and whisper a player from another realm to see if they want to join a dungeon run?

Would there be abuse on cross realm trading, if players from different servers could simply 'meet up'in a dungeon to complete a trade?

I would love to see a cross-realm queue for instanced dungeons.

The cross-realm battlegrounds turned out nice. But joining a battle anonomously is different from joining a party. A dungeon run needs people to organize before going into the dungeon. That means players will need a way to communicate with other servers simply to prepare for the dungeon. This would be a great time to try out a new cross realm faction lfg chat.

Taverns have been the 'traditional' place of meeting other heroes. Perhaps limiting such a powerful cross realm lfg chat by keeping it zoned in certain buildings would help limit it's abuse and spamming, and at the same time makes old taverns and inns the next cool hangout for kids everywhere.

Reply

cross realm dungeons might cause more ninja looting.

Reply

Basically, then need to allow a "person" to setup a group with "spot preference".

Apply this to a karazhan raid.

Tank -> Warrior or Paladin

Tank 2 -> Druid

Healer 1 -> Shaman
Healer 2 -> Pally

DPS 1 -> Mage
DPS 2 -> Warlock
DPS 3 -> Hunter
DPS 3 -> Priest
DPS 4 -> Any
DPS 5 -> Any
DPS 6 -> Any

Leader declares a setup, people join, leader puts them into a slot, raid/group fills up, profit.

On the flip side, there needs to a be a "group lockout" scneario where if a leader kicks a player from a group, the LFG system doesn't put them right back into the same group.

The combination of those 2 things would make LFG a really useful tool.

Reply

@3 You can't cross-realm trade, period.

I found this out one AV when I ran out of Flash Powder and another Rogue was going to give me a stack.

Blizz doesn't allow it.

As far as the OP:

"He also mentions some improvements to the LFG system (setting aside slots for dedicated roles, so that if you need a tank you don't end up in a group with three mages and two priests, for example)..."

That's not an "improvement". That's a dangerous tool that should NEVER happen. You will begin to see classes that will NEVER get spots in an instance because "no one wants to run with ". Sure, every instance needs the following: Tank, Healer, DPS; but to segregate spots is just ASKING for trouble.

Reply

Cross-realm BGs only did one thing positive in my mind, lower wait times.

In my opinion, cross-realm BGs were the beginning of the downfall of PvP. Sure you got more games in but they took the personality out of them. Now instead of going up against people from the opposite faction you see all the time you fight people you don't even know.

Reply

Why even bother instancing after 2.3 anyway? Any gear you get is just going to be vendored/sharded that much quicker since the overall leveling speed will be so much faster. Just quest/grind race to 60, equip drops/quest rewards/AH gear, then do your instancing in Outlands, and later Northrend.

Reply

Well here's a simple solution to dungeoning, all blizzard has to do is that the trash mobs actually give a nice amount of xp (as seen in outlands). In other words if you can get a lot of xp from those lower level dungeons, more people will want to do them while leveling.

Reply

You don't ever need to set foot in an instance to level from 1 to 70. If you can't get a group, skip it...it's not worth the time.

Reply

This would effectively require a cross-realm LFG channel, since the auto-join part of the tool is inherently unreliable and pretty well impossible to fix. If you set aside a "tank" slot, how does it know what a tank is? Is it going to check specs? Does it know to warn your team that you only have 350 defense and thus will need a much stronger healer? Can it tell the difference between tanking Ferals and "Cat iz for fite" Druids?

Auto join has never worked out for me. Usually it results in something like an Arms Warrior who thinks he can 2h tank in zerker stance and DPS gear.

Reply

i'd like to see this implemented NOW...i always have trouble finding a group. i've missed out on a bunch of content that i'm trying to catch via alts and it's not happening. not a big deal...i wonder how complicated the technology would be to do that. and the whole "trading items across realms" thing. i can see how the loot tables could impact realms adversely though? dunno.

Reply

Cross-realm instances = Ninja loot every time.

Reply

I would love to be able to run an Instance with friends of mine who are on other servers from me. I am pretty sure the only way this would happen is within a Battlegroup, so I'd still be limited in who I could group with, but it'd make it more likely to be able to get together an AQ, Onyxia, UBRS/LBRS or Naxx raid (and right now, there's really no way to get a group together in a reasonable amount of time for that level of instance).

Reply

I for one love the idea, would welcome it with open arms!

I don't know about US servers, but here in the EU, 80% of players only speak basic english, and would always prefer to join a group of their own language, as I would, english.

But that just makes it harder to find people...

Bring it on blizzard!!

Reply

I think it is a hell of an idea.

You still run the same risk of ninja-looters when you pug on your own realm anyways. *shrug*

What'll happen? You'll report them... maybe QQ about it on their realm forum. Not much difference. *shrug*

Reply

The major problem would be loot. As @3 pointed out, you can't trade non-created items across realms. I.e, a mage can trade mage water, but you can't trade heal pots.

This seems to be to probably relate to how certain objects are instantiated on the character. Health Stones, Mage Water, etc are created on the char and expire, whereas healing pots and other 'permenant' items exist on a database server somewhere. I would guess that cross realm itemization would be a programmtic nightmare.

Couple that with the summoning stone, LFG chat, and coordination problems in general, I don't think this is feasible.

Reply

It's a great idea.

In fact, i'd love to see an entire game based around this idea. However, just like instances themselves were a nail in the coffin for Everquest, game changing/next gen ideas like this should be avoided in WoW.

Reply

Sounds good in theory, but I don't like it overall. Though, if there WERE a way to have like a cross realm "lfg bulletin board" in area/level appropriate towns, it might work out better.

And yeah, loot would pretty much have to become token based...

Reply

Byron, p3ngu11, it doesn't matter that you don't NEED to run instances when you're leveling. There are plenty of players who WANT to do so.

Reply