Siege of Orgrimmar: Cross-realm Raids Enabled

We’ve recently implemented an often requested feature to enable cross-realm raiding for Siege of Orgrimmar. Cross-realm BattleTag™ and Real ID friends can now raid together and take the fight to Garrosh on Normal or Heroic difficulty. Players will be able to earn greater rewards such as Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf or the title of Conqueror/Liberator of Orgrimmar; both of which aren’t available to be earned within Flexible or Raid Finder difficulty.

This change is currently live for the NA region. For our friends reading this in other regions, the change requires a realm restart and will be live after maintenance/rolling restarts.

Updated the post with additional clarification below.

03/18/2014 01:05 PMPosted by Watcher

03/18/2014 01:01 PMPosted by Intrinsc

This is a change very late into a tier, which leads me to believe that when WoD comes out this change won't be live and will still require guilds on the same server to tackle Mythic raiding.

Correct -- current-tier Mythic raiding in Warlords will still be limited to players from a single server. In the meantime, though, this change may help guilds that are trying to recruit and grow in preparation for Mythic raiding.

As for realm firsts, realm firsts are guild achievements; you need to be in a guild group, which is by definition 8/10 or 20/25 members coming from a single guild on a single server. You could theoretically have a couple of guests from a different server and still claim the realm first, but ultimately 80% of the group still has to be from the same guild.

03/18/2014 01:24 PMPosted by Watcher

03/18/2014 01:17 PMPosted by Nodidi

With the Cross Realm Normal and Heroic raiding, is there any plans on allowing people to trade XRealm as well?!

Nope. Apologies if that torpedoes any hopes of selling Kor'kron Juggernauts to the entire continent.

As for loot and lockout questions above, nothing about this affects either of those. Loot is not personal in Normal/Heroic; the exact loot setting depends on the raid leader, as always. As for lockouts, Normal lockouts will continue to prevent you from entering a raid in which a boss is alive that you've already killed during a given week. Heroic still uses fixed lockouts, and once you're saved to one Heroic ID, you cannot zone into any different Heroic ID that week.

03/18/2014 01:28 PMPosted by Bravoman

Are the Cutting Edge achievements for Heroic Garrosh still obtainable with this change?

You'll still be able to obtain the Cutting Edge achievements associated with defeating Garrosh on Heroic difficulty. There have been no changes made aside from allowing players to form cross-realm raid groups for Normal or Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar.

As a sidenote, the "Ahead of the Curve" achievements are still obtainable with this change, which is what awards the Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf.

03/18/2014 01:01 PMPosted by Intrinsc

This is a change very late into a tier, which leads me to believe that when WoD comes out this change won't be live and will still require guilds on the same server to tackle Mythic raiding.

Correct -- current-tier Mythic raiding in Warlords will still be limited to players from a single server. In the meantime, though, this change may help guilds that are trying to recruit and grow in preparation for Mythic raiding.

As for realm firsts, realm firsts are guild achievements; you need to be in a guild group, which is by definition 8/10 or 20/25 members coming from a single guild on a single server. You could theoretically have a couple of guests from a different server and still claim the realm first, but ultimately 80% of the group still has to be from the same guild.

03/18/2014 01:17 PMPosted by Nodidi

With the Cross Realm Normal and Heroic raiding, is there any plans on allowing people to trade XRealm as well?!

Nope. Apologies if that torpedoes any hopes of selling Kor'kron Juggernauts to the entire continent.

As for loot and lockout questions above, nothing about this affects either of those. Loot is not personal in Normal/Heroic; the exact loot setting depends on the raid leader, as always. As for lockouts, Normal lockouts will continue to prevent you from entering a raid in which a boss is alive that you've already killed during a given week. Heroic still uses fixed lockouts, and once you're saved to one Heroic ID, you cannot zone into any different Heroic ID that week.

03/18/2014 01:28 PMPosted by Bravoman

Are the Cutting Edge achievements for Heroic Garrosh still obtainable with this change?

The "Ahead of the Curve" achievements are still obtainable with this change, which is what awards the Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf.

03/18/2014 01:33 PMPosted by Bravoman

Sorry but that wasn't my question. Are the Cutting Edge: Heroic Garrosh 10/25 achievements removed with this new feature or no?

You'll still be able to obtain the Cutting Edge achievements associated with defeating Garrosh on Heroic difficulty. There have been no changes made aside from allowing players to form cross-realm raid groups for Normal or Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar.

03/18/2014 04:07 PMPosted by Tiai

Thank you Rygarius and Watcher! Is it too soon to wonder if this will be applied to the other raid tiers, at least for Pandaria? We've been throwing around the idea of doing these alliance side as a guild, but our alliance alts are spread across multiple realms.

You can do that right now. Cross-realm raid groups have already been enabled for Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, Terrace of Endless Spring, and Throne of Thunder a while ago.

A reminder for players posting in the thread to please refrain from making personal attacks against other posters.