Who likes CRZ? - Blue Tracker

#1 - Sept. 1, 2014, 10:08 p.m.

Honestly, I don't know anyone who has ever said "Golly, I'm sure glad that Blizz added CRZ to this game. It's made the leveling and farming experience all the better." That said it seems Blizz is intent on leaving the most reviled change to the game ever intact. Does anyone have any clue as to why? Because I sure don't. It didn't work the way they intended and makes questing in Hellfire, well... Hell. There always were [removed] gankers hanging out in hellfire, but since CrZ you see entire groups of them on both sides constantly starting problems for everyone by starting a war with every lvl 90 on every linked server who is anywhere near hellfire. This is even a problem on PvE realms now with lvl 90s wiping out entire quest hubs. They never had the courage to do it before unless they had a bunch of friends coming with them, but since the area is over saturated with 90s like it never was before they know that there's always going to be like minded anuses there. Does anyone know of anyone with Blizz who's in the slightest concerned with the dwindling quality of life for lowbies just trying to level?

Edit: Holy crap I seem to have struck a nerve within the community. This thread has taken off like I wouldn't have imagined. I've seen a lot of people weighing in on this topic who seem to be confused, however, so I'd like to clarify what CRZ is.

You grouping with players from other servers via your friends list: Not CRZ. This is Battle Tag and Real ID.

You grouping with random people from other servers for dungeon/raid finder and battlegrounds: Not CRZ. This is Dungeon/Raid/Battleground Finder.

You having guildies and seeing players in trade chat from another server: Not CRZ. This is coalesced realms.

You seeing random players from non-coalesced realms with whom you can not join guilds or trade items/gold: CRZ.

You having a player riding on your back as the Sandstone drake fall from your back between zones and die: CRZ.

You being engaged in world PvP combat only to have said combat be broken by the other player visably vanishing from your screen seemingly at random: CRZ.

You seeing a rare spawn, ore/herb node, or anything you're interested in interacting with vanishing when you get close: Not CRZ. This is regular phasing.

CRZ was meant to populate low level zones that tend to be more vacant than current content end game zones. This was achieved to a slight degree, but as I and many others believe it's an outdated system made irrelevant by coalesced realms. I still level without seeing anyone else in more obscure zones, like Badlands and Thousand Needles. On the same note I can't help but notice more bottom of the barrel max level wannabe PvP superstars hanging out in leveling bottleneck zones like Hellfire ganking lowbies than ever before. CRZ didn't work. It never worked as it was intended, and yet Blizz is intent on keeping this broken system intact without ever acknowledging the in game social and technical problems that plague the whole thing. I used to enjoy zones like Hellfire and Hyjal, but since CRZ they've been the zones I dread the most, even on PvE servers. Granted I can't be ganked, but entire quest hubs can be wiped out by one person, leaving myself and every other player at that hub waiting for the quest givers to respawn. Blizz's best answer to these issues is to just wait and hope the jerk who killed all of the questgivers is done being a jerk. I miss the pre CRZ leveling experience, and I know I'm very far from the only one. I still remember day one of CRZ in Blasted Lands by the Dark Portal. I'm sure everyone from PvP servers remembers it too. Low level zones shouldn't be high level characters' WPvP battlegrounds, but since so many people out there would rather gank lowbies than do anything that requires any degree of skill and Blizz is content with CRZ we will forever be plagued by bottom feeders halting the once amazing leveling experience that helped to make World of Warcraft the massive success it used to be.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#73 - Sept. 2, 2014, 5:51 a.m.

09/01/2014 03:26 PMPosted by Svenska
09/01/2014 03:12 PMPosted by Ifr
CRZ is an amazing feature and i'm sorry that you're too null to understand why

CRZ is an abysmal annoyance that makes doing old school rep grinds and even bigger pain in the butt than they were back in the day.

Seriously guys, step up the spawns in Skettis. One single person can monopolize the entire zone because one shotting + respawn time = pain in the butt.

SHAZAM-a-LAM! CRZ is gone, but it just so happens that the exact same number of people on your realm as were being coelesced to your realm from elsewhere have suddenly taken up interest in the activity you wanted less people to be doing, and so there is no noticeable change in the gameplay you're experiencing.

It's largely a psychological issue of perceiving others as invaders into your space and blaming the gate that allows them in, instead of what they are: other people in a massively multiplayer online game who belong there as much as anyone else. Which isn't to say it's not a legitimate or valid way to perceive others when vying for some of these sought after objects, but it's placing blame on a system that largely helps create and support the game's intended environment. Certainly if CRZ were gone you would probably have less competition for that object, and an easier time of obtaining it, but we're going to put effort into supporting the intended environment of the game (MMO's are full of people), and aren't going to avoid doing that because it makes intentionally difficult to obtain items actually difficult to obtain.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#462 - Sept. 2, 2014, 5:37 p.m.

09/02/2014 10:21 AMPosted by Skats
This is because CRZ was, always has been, and will be, a cost savings for them.

This is not about making your leveling experience more crowded, hell you can buy your way past that. This is about them being able to reduce the cost of data centers, CPU cycles, bandwidth and storage.

CRZ doesn't do any of those things. It requires additional time, engineering efforts, processing power and bandwidth to bring people together across realms, not less. A more populated game world is the way World of Warcraft is best experienced, and that's why we put additional effort into maintaining it as a feature.