World of Warcraft®

Ok this is getting insane. CC and SoE aren't even on the list of pending connections. So unless I'm blind along with my browsers word search its just stupid. All I can say is that I hope they give us another update soon on that.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/11393305/connected-realms-update-66-6-6-2014

That is frustrating. I specifically created this character (as well as a couple others) on SoE in anticipation of the connection between our realms.

If this is the case I am going to be putting a ticket in. Nothing against SoE, but I did use my 90 boost there with the expectation that I would be able to join that character to a guild on CC.

You know, it is kind of sad. I've been looking forward to merging with Sisters of Elune for some time, because then I can finally have a home for my army of Horde alts that's in the same place as my Alliance alts.

That said, though, I can understand why they aren't telling us. The Connected Realms are a nice-to-have feature, but they were probably taking development time away from Warlords of Draenor. It's no real secret that Blizzard isn't as far along on the new expansion as they'd like to be (after all, they only sent out the first round of "public" alpha invites yesterday), so it makes absolute sense that they would shelf a "nice-to-have" for something that's higher priority (i.e. the expansion that will let everyone keep their jobs).

And they haven't given us an exact reason why it isn't working, because why should they? Why would they tell the world why their system is broken, and how it doesn't work? That'd be a PR nightmare, and would be revealing industry secrets to competitors. There's been a lot of issues with the rollouts of these, and my guess is that instead of just pushing forward and producing a really buggy product, they want to devote a lot more dev time to making sure it's done right.

I'm guessing that we'll start to hear more about Connected Realms again once the Warlords buzz dies down - so 4-5 months after the expansion is released, when the server populations have settled back to their normal size.

Screw the raid tier! This "nice-to-have" feature is not some crappy mount or neat little doodad. We're talking about making an entire server less dead and, thereby, allowing people on that server to better participate in the MMO part of an MMORPG.

This is a big deal and a problem that Blizzard has taken way too long to fix. We, as paying customers, should not have to pay Blizzard again to transfer off of SoE because of their mismanagement of a chronic issue since Cata. We also should not be told a merge was going to happen only to let it fall to the wayside without so much as an explanation. That's just bad customer service.

So what now? 4-5 months after WoD hits is a freaking year away. There are a plethora of other, poorer, MMOs out there who over a short span of time flat out merged realms en mass when it became necessary to do so. This connected realms thing is garbage and no one should be white knighting a multi-billion dollar company like Blizzard-Activision anyway.

I have to agree with Mormel, I would say this is more than just a "nice-to-have" feature. This is something that affects whole servers rather than something a couple players can get if they sink a lot of gold or clear a raid. Blizzard is worried about creating an amazing Endgame for us, which is great and I'm all for that. However, they sort of push away the smaller realms which are always losing people to the big servers. I know we lost a couple raiding guilds recently and if we kept losing them to where we didn't really have anymore. Then the only real way we would see current content is through LFR and that isn't all of it, for example the War Wolf off of Normal Garrosh is going away next Expansion so without a raiding group that wouldn't be easy to get.

For those not interested in raiding, but are looking for people to either just be around or to RP with, would have problems when you check how many people are in Stormwind and you see it is only 9 people. My experience of SoE is only on Alliance side and I haven't hit 90 yet so I can't say how things are over Horde side or in Pandaria but where on CC I have to keep trade on another window so I don't get spammed by it sometimes. On SoE, I haven't really needed to do that yet. And when I am walking around Stormwind I am lucky if I see more than two people together outside the Trade District. It feels like I am not playing an MMO at all.

While I understand the Blizzard is worried about merging servers because usually it is a sign that an MMO is dying, however if things are like how they are on SoE... I think it is time to merge or *at least* connect them to another server like they were going to with us. People play WoW to play an MMORPG, they don't play WoW to play an RPG. Other players are a key part of a server and so is seeing the games content. Without other players, a player will need to multibox ten characters to see current content, or they will need to wait until they can solo it.

Waiting until 4-5 months after WoD hits is a long time away, and a lot can happen. And I don't think it is the right thing to do. However, sadly the only thing we can do is wait and complain on the forums, and hope Blizzard will do something. And if it was up to me, I would prefer to be connected over merged just for the extra character slots, but I do think something should happen.

I'm not in their pocket book, nor am I involved behind the scenes so I understand that its rather easy for me to armchair the situation. I don't know -how- they should do it, only that they should get it done.

-Or- at the very least keep us in their loops. Tell us why we're waiting. Give us something of substance. There is nothing worse for a consumer than being kept in the dark.

The realm connection isn't a nice-to-have feature. It's a way for this company to retain more of their player base and possibly entice older players to renew their subscription. I would think that an expansion cash flow would be good to help people keep their jobs, but that's only a temporary fix if people keep leaving due to low server population. In 4-5 months they'll be out of a job anyway.

Fix the server connections all around, then push out that expansion. I would think they'd retain more subscribers if they did this.

IMO, delaying an expansion, a full game, a movie, a book, comic book, whatever, isn't a sign of weakness or even bad PR (unless they have history of delaying and then producing doody... which Blizz does not). It shows me that they're taking initiative to deliver the best quality product possible. I would much rather they delay WoD a few months to get this server connection issue solved.

I'm praying it's just an oversight and that Cenarion Circle and Sisters of Elune will still get to join up for some fun times before too much longer.

Looking at the most recent list, with the exception of the one Oceanic pair, all the merges involve a New York or Phoenix realm joining to one that is already in LA or Chicago. I don't think we're going to see a merge until one or the other of us has been moved.

This close to the end they aren't going to just abandon the project.
They departments are compartmentalized, the expansion has nothing to do with the server hardware, one doesn't take away from the other.

I've been keeping spreadsheets since merges started, in 164 merges they have never changed their mind on a pairing after announcing it. As fickle and as craptastic as they are in terms of transparency I would be seriously shocked if they changed their mind about pairing CC and SoE.

Excluding Brazil, Latin America and high pop realms they are down to roughly 56 realms left to merge, 17 are on the current list. If they get back to the same rhythm they had, this should all be done in 6-8 weeks.

Rumor in the data wholesaling community is that their provider wasn't able to supply the infrastructure in the time frame they'd agreed to (but that doesn't explain why the EU merges went on hold at about the same time).

You've been keeping spreadsheets? That's very... dedicated of you.

Anyway, 6-8 weeks huh? I hope you're correct.

The irritating thing is that they announced the SoE/CC merger back in January and it was scheduled to go live in February, then the delay and no comment from Blizz in four months about it. Meanwhile SoE is a wasteland.

06/19/2014 10:02 AMPosted by Jesper

The irritating thing is that they announced the SoE/CC merger back in January and it was scheduled to go live in February, then the delay and no comment from Blizz in four months about it. Meanwhile SoE is a wasteland.

To be fair they DID tell us it was because of backend work. But...that was after months of people getting more and more irritated.

06/19/2014 05:47 PMPosted by Kordrion

To be fair they DID tell us it was because of backend work. But...that was after months of people getting more and more irritated.

True, thought it wouldn't hurt for them to gives servers periodic updates (say once a month) for once that have been "pushed back."

Found this:
Blizzard's ongoing Connected Realms process not only connects realms together, but is also consolidating the 4 datacenters down into just 2. As New York datacenter realms get connected, they get moved to the Chicago datacenter. As Phoenix dc realms get connected, they get moved to Los Angeles dc. IPs, battlegroups, and even some timezones get changed.

So this realm won't be connected to Sister of Elune as they are still in Phoenix. My guess is that we will be connected to Blackwater Raiders/Shadow Council OR Farstriders/Silver Hand/Thorium Brotherhood as they are both in the Los Angeles DC.

06/06/2014 03:14 PMPosted by Noikona

If this is the case I am going to be putting a ticket in. Nothing against SoE, but I did use my 90 boost there with the expectation that I would be able to join that character to a guild on CC.

This is a valid argument....good point

Hello! Stopping by to say hello, as another bit of possible news about CC and realm Merges.

As of 6PM PDST on 7/23/2014, the Launcher for WoW states in breaking news that Cenarion Circle and Moon Guard will be merging on 7/24/2014 at 5 AM PDT.

Update: The above Breaking News in the WoW/BattleNet launcher has since been removed.

However, several posts on the website and forums have not been updated to corroborate this news, so it is most likely another error and this merge is NOT occuring.

Repeat: There is NOT going to be a merge of CC and MG.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13568366934

We will be performing maintenance on the realms listed below on Thursday, July 24th from 5:00 AM PDT until approximately 11:00 AM PDT.

Area 52
Cenarion Circle
Garrosh
Moon Guard
Thrall

Realm Connections:
Gilneas and Elune
Deathwing and Executus, Kalecgos, and Shattered Halls

Furthermore, neither of the updates to the realm merges have mentioned CC or MG.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/11393305/connected-realms-update-707-7-7-2014
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/11393305/connected-realms-update-718-7-18-2014

Repeat: There is NOT going to be a merge of CC and MG anytime in the near future.

...
So instead of CC getting merged with SoE... it's getting merged with MG?

...

Why?

It is not. Quit panicking.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13568366934?utm_source=Internal-CSForum&utm_medium=Posting&utm_campaign=BlizzardCS&utm_content=solution

The launcher did a bad job of formatting.

Take another look at the launcher...the announcement has been re-written to clarify that only the realms listed in the blog and thread in General are being merged.
All the rest (in the announcement) are getting "maintenance" and are currently in Phoenix or New York.
I got $5 that says we're getting moved to LA and SoE will be merging with us within a couple of weeks.

As I posted pre-maintenance (which turned out to be for "hardware upgrades")...make sure your mailboxes are empty and I'd pull any high value items you may have in the AH.

Thanks for fully clearing this confusion up. Someone should tell the folks on CC since when I logged a few minutes ago there was... "unease".