A post on Battle.net mentions that patch 4.3.2 for World of Warcraft will give players the ability to form raid groups using the Real ID party feature . Whatever realm you and your friends are on, you'll be able to invite each other into a single cross-realm group and then take on any classic dungeon or raid together. This'll work with the raid finder, but you won't be able to run Dragon Soul on normal or heroic yet.
These updates should help to take some of the admin out of getting a raid together, making WoW's most exciting zones easier to access. The move signals a gradual break-up of the borders between Realms as group activities become less and less tied to server restrictions.
They also act as a weird microcosm of Blizzard's wider strategy. The BattleTag system hopes to offer a more advanced form of Real ID, in which players can create a single identity that they can use in-game, as well as in the Blizzard store and across all of their game forums. The Battle.Net balance looks to create a currency of 'Blizzard bucks' in which funds earned in Diablo 3 can be used to buy mounts and game time in World of Warcraft, and could be extended to mods featured in the upcoming Blizzard Arcade . Blizzard are looking to connect their games into one unified Battle.Net universe from which there will be no escape.
We'll get to see how that all unfolds over the next year or so, but for now, to celebrate the new year, Blizzard also announce a permanent price drop for WoW's expansions in the store.
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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
