Regarding CRZ: Blizzard Just Doesn't Get It

From the Sticky.

Just to recap, cross-realm zones are meant to improve the leveling experience by increasing the amount of people in the same zone together...

Stuff like this makes me wince in agony.

As a frequent forum comer from a High Population server, CRZ doesn't impact me nearly as much as if I were from a low pop server. I mean, some parts of CRZ are great. Grouping with friends who aren't on the server... phenomenal. It's not all bad.

However, after leveling a monk these last few weeks, arriving to more spawn sites than I care to count containing nothing but Dead mobs with some toon with a Brazilian name grinding happily away, I can't help but read this quote and want to slap my head.

Let me address this by asking Blizz a single question: Why do you believe that increasing the amount of people in the same zone together improves the leveling system? For God sakes, there's no sharing of most mobs, quest objectives, nodes, rare mobs. Seeing another player means seeing a competitor. And it's funny: on a PvP server, I rather see Horde than members of my own faction because if things get too slow, I can at least KILL THE OTHER GUY and maybe finish up before he returns.

When a community building addition like CRZ is implemented, and I'm wishing every player I saw was a member of the other faction so I could kill them, I venture to say you've failed to have the desired effect.

I've heard the argument from Blizzard: we design our zones to have numerous players in the same area as the optimal experience. Well, let me tell you right now, your design couldn't be further from the mark. Often, when as little as one other person is in the same area as me, my EXP drops by about half as I need to wait for mobs to respawn before finishing.

To sum up, before thinking it's a good idea to fill the world up with other players to improve the leveling experience, you need to remove the fact that when I see other players, my leveling experience becomes worse. I really don't see why Blizz is so surprised about why CRZ is going over so poorly.