X-Realming is Good for the game.

[bwdaWAR]

What I don't get is where that 8 or even 24 hours is coming from. Its purpose is to prevent people from relogging into the same battle on the other side, is it not? 1-2 hours of this (for now) theoretical lockout would be enough for that. So why the third to one day long lockout timer?

My suggestion came from the origins and philosophy of the WAR that Mark Jacobs put into place from the beginning of its development. That was the two server system. Players could only play one realm per server. We have only one here.

What WAR live had during development and at launch regarding crossrealming has no relevance whatsoever here. Even WAR live did not want to limit people to a single realm, just to a single realm on one server - when they had quite a lot of servers. I highly doubt they planned for the gradual decline of the game and reduction of the number of players and servers at that point.

As a lot of pips love playing both of realm chars and there is real threat of xrealming, some compromise is needed. If you put 24h time lock, that would mean that people would be only able to play one realm per day and that could be a bit frustrating. On the other hand big actions a cross the tiers usually lasts few hours and period of 1-2h dont mean a lot in this case. Its still in boundaries of what xrealmers do (jumps back and forth in few hour time period for a quick harvest). This way, in 8h period people that like to play both realms chars whould be able to do so in a period of one day, however those big actions wouldnt be jeopardize by quick back and forth strategy of some xrealmers just for farming purposes. Lets be honest here, no one likes leachers and/or their quick harvesting techniques and xrealming is for many people quick and easy way to level their chars, putting both realms in bad and inbalaced situations.

Could you explain how the xrealmers can do this supposed jumping back and forth and farming/leeching if they have to spend 1-2 hours outside the game if they want to switch? As opposed to the proposed 8h which, according to you, would solve the problem that the 1-2 hours wouldn't? Because what they are doing NOW is switching right away, in situations they know perfectly well what to expect when they leave and get back on the other side. You used the word "quick" there several times yourself.

Or is this about, well, actually about the first part of the post only. "The original WAR devs have decreed there shall be no crossrealming on a server." The crossrealming is bad, people should play the one realm only - mentality that you can often see accompanying suggestions of very high lockout timers and harsh lockout implementations.

[VMblast]

@bwdaWAR
Very simple, its all about fluid dynamic in a rocking container. In majority of time AAO of around 100% is present in ether realm (when destro have it ordies dont and vice versa).

When live, WAR had one server per realm, that meant that you can play ether order or destro on that particular server. If you wanted to play other realm, you had to switch servers to play other char. So in any given time your server realm population was locked.

Longer period of 8h (or at least 6h) would discourage people to play tennis with them selves. You take a keep as order, then switch to destro to retake it again and so on, just to level alts. Or just see that odds are too great and with a quick switch can play other realm and get quick and easy XP and RR.

Thats not fair to all those people who dont have fluid mentality and like to play one realm in certain time, what ever odds and situation are.

[bwdaWAR]

@bwdaWAR
Very simple, its all about fluid dynamic in a rocking container. In majority of time AAO of around 100% is present in ether realm (when destro have it ordies dont and vice versa).

When live, WAR had one server per realm, that meant that you can play ether order or destro on that particular server. If you wanted to play other realm, you had to switch servers to play other char. So in any given time your server realm population was locked.

Longer period of 8h (or at least 6h) would discourage people to play tennis with them selves. You take a keep as order, then switch to destro to retake it again and so on, just to level alts. Or just see that odds are too great and with a quick switch can play other realm and get quick and easy XP and RR.

Thats not fair to all those people who dont have fluid mentality and like to play one realm in certain time, what ever odds and situation are.

Once again, you reach back to the completely different conditions on the multi-server live. (Which was not a good thing on a side note. As someone in an earlier discussion pointed out, what that lead to on a long term was one realm becoming dominant permanently on a server and the majority of players playing that realm on there, rerolling if necessary. The realm populations were locked indeed, which resulted in a permanent imbalance.)

More importantly, you still failed to explain why a 1-2 hour lockout wouldn't discourage people "to play tennis with them selves" but a 8 hour lockout would. This :" Or just see that odds are too great and with a quick switch can play other realm and get quick and easy XP and RR. ", just does not happen, because you have to wait before you can come back - you can't "quick switch" even with a few hours lockout. Your theory about taking a keep on one side then relogging on the other later to retake it doesn't work simply because you can't be certain all the other people you grouped up with will be logging in the same way with you, and that you will be able to take that keep on the other side (and won't, for example, log in with the weaker side). Players still have lives and log on and off all the time, plus won't necessarily spend more than a few hours actively playing a day - something which will ensure variation in the forces present in the lakes.
But let us suppose there is this player, or guild party, or even warband that leaves so they return in an hour or two to take that keep on the other side. But likely, plenty of other players have the time to play that day there and then, plus something is happening in the lakes which isn't guaranteed later, so they'll stay. The action will carry on, with that side still likely dominant (since they just took a keep). Can you predict with certainty what will happen in the next 1-2 hours? I think not. But what is certain that the action is missed by those planning to do something like this and they won't know what they're logging back into even when the lockout time has passed.
Everything considered, I am sure very few people will leave with the specific intention of crossrealming and taking advantage of the current situation in the lakes. So there is very little difference between 1-2 hours and 8 hours regarding crossrealming: it's the unknown you're logging out for if you do. But it does mean a difference for the more acceptable forms of switching. If you're in the mood to play the other side, you basically have to wait for an different time of the day to do so. You can miss not only the peak, but the high population hours entirely. Management of your characters will become worse. If you have a life, your RL time constraints won't enable you to play the other side that day at all. Basically, a lot of inconvenience for nothing.

When players complain about crossrealming, it's always for the same reason: things start to go bad for your side and suddenly you find yourself with lots of your allies now on the enemy side. That's instant switching, and it would be eliminated by even a 30 minutes lockout. Maybe even as low as 10 minutes, all due to the lack of certainty that the instant switching allows (and the play time missed). Does the 8-24 hour lockout serve any other purpose than to satisfy people who feel that in this computer game you must have a blind loyalty to the arbitrarily designed (just how much does all this make sense lore-wise anyways?) fictional faction you're playing?

[VMblast]

@bwdaWAR
Oh, sry I thought I did explain. Ok let me just repeat this.

On the other hand big actions a cross the tiers usually lasts few hours and period of 1-2h dont mean a lot in this case. Its still in boundaries of what xrealmers do (jumps back and forth in few hour time period for a quick harvest).

[bwdaWAR]

@bwdaWAR
Oh, sry I thought I did explain. Ok let me just repeat this.

On the other hand big actions a cross the tiers usually lasts few hours and period of 1-2h dont mean a lot in this case. Its still in boundaries of what xrealmers do (jumps back and forth in few hour time period for a quick harvest).

That is no explanation because that statement you made there is simply unrelated to the topic and the second half of the sentence. Whether action lasts for hours or not doesn't matter; what does is if the power balance between the two realms stays the same, because that is what people crossrealm for: to be in the stronger position. The power balance in the lake changes just as often as it lasts for hours without change. So yes, a time period of 1-2h can mean quite a lot.
And one more important thing to note here. That is with instant switching possible. What you wrote here and I agree it is happening, I'm sure it's a major contributor to when the power balance doesn't change:

Or just see that odds are too great and with a quick switch can play other realm and get quick and easy XP and RR.

But with any lockout at all, that would no longer be possible. People can either stay on the faction they logged in with, or not play for another x hours.
I will refer to this part being reliably there, instant switching or no:

Players still have lives and log on and off all the time, plus won't necessarily spend more than a few hours actively playing a day - something which will ensure variation in the forces present in the lakes.

What seems the same warband is not actually the same for hours. A core of 5-10 people of the 24 may stick around for a long while, but after 1-3 hours, regardless of crashes, zone locks or anything, the composition of warbands and generally players active in the lakes will be very different. Players leave, new players join on that side, why? Because they can take a look and see who's winning before joining in.

[Ainianu]

On the topic of Xrealming, is it possible to add a 10min cooldown between changing characters to a different faction? (and somehow tie it to ip to catch those who have an account for each faction)

The best solution!
but maybe =>20min

Too little. My suggestion was 8h. This needs to discurage any thought of potential xrealmer for quick harvest fest. But also give opportunity to people who love playing both realms chars, to play them during one day.

The problem with that is that it is too punitive to those who actually enjoy playing both realms, i have 2 accounts (1 for destruction and 1 for order) which is why i suggested the cooldown to be tied to ip rather than account, as i am sure i am not the only one and i have no interest in xrealming for RvR.

I tend to stick to 1 character for quite some time and 90% of the time it is just on Order, my brother however plays primarily destruction and if he comes home and wants to play a bit with me, one of us having to be locked out for 8hrs would make it unplayable for us. 10mins should be enough to discourage a good number of Xrealmers imo, 20mins could indeed be better and i can probably cope with 20mins waiting to play with my brother and 20mins again to swap back to order when he has finished.. but 8hrs would be far too much. We only have 1 server and not everyone only wants to experience 1 faction

[Khrum]

Bebuff preventing gain of xp or Renown for 1h would fix problem with xrealming to join wining zerg just to farm but will not block players to switch side and play with friends ect so in my opinion better solution like realm lock

[Ainianu]

Bebuff preventing gain of xp or Renown for 1h would fix problem with xrealming to join wining zerg just to farm but will not block players to switch side and play with friends ect so in my opinion better solution like realm lock

That would be a solution i would be happy with, as long as the 1h debuff thing was applied only to RvR lakes

[YUKO]

I believe it has been talked about many many times before... Stopping X-realming is one thing, halting it for 30min is another, especially during prime time.

[Genisaurus]

1. A lockout timer fails to prevent people from sabotaging the opposite realm's campaign, it only stops them from sabotaging twice. In T3, this doesn't really matter. But in T4, if Order breaking down the doors at Zimmerman's and my guild doesn't want to go to the city so we switch over to Destro and manage to repel Order, I've still caused a problem.

2. Removing XP or Renown means nothing to people who are already at cap. Removing item rewards like medallions means nothing to people who already have their gear. As time goes on, the ratio of players in both categories increases, so debuffs and disincentives mean less and less over time.

No matter how you frame it or design it, a lockout timer is almost as bad a decision as freely-open realms, and will not be considered. There are, so far, only two options on the table that don't suffer from the above two issues.