Flayer Youngling got a little harder to find

[Ranok]

Don't know when but Blizz made change to Outland that's a pain for players farming the harder-to-find pets and mounts.

I've been helping a friend work on rep with Netherwing so she can buy some of their drake mounts. Has always been a chore as fastest way to do it is farming eggs, of which there aren't many, don't respawn too fast, and always other players working them too. If you were on high-pop realm was advisable to get an invite from someone on lower population server. Tried this but it never seemed to switch us to another realm. And 3 eggs in a week of farming, used to find half dozen eggs at least in an hour.

Got curious and started making note of other players' realms throughout Outland. After 20 different ones, realized it's not the usual combined-realm situation, appears they're now cramming whole bunch of different realms onto one server. And of the 20 I'd seen, 6 are high-population. So we were competing with whole lot more people now.

Does make sense for Blizzard, the relatively few players working Outland can be seamlessly switched to alternate servers while they're there, taking strain off overloaded home servers. Kind of annoying for us players though.

Wouldn't be surprised if it now takes longer to find that perfect Flayer Youngling.

[Gahtmilch]

The source of your complaint is also the source of your remedy. Simply realm-hop to a lower population realm and you'll find those uncommon-spawn type pets all over the place, usually in two or three hops.

It's a good way to get Flayer Younglings, Jade Oozelings, Shadow Sporebats, Scourged Whelplings, Infinite Whelplings, etc.. You can even realm-hop to find weather-specific spawns like Baby Apes and Silithid Hatchlings. You can even use this ability to find the infernal Minfernal (though it will generally take quite a few hops).

Cross-realm hopping is definitely a huge help for those people still hunting the harder to find wild spawns.

Good hunting!

-Gaht

[Ranok]

The source of your complaint is also the source of your remedy. Simply realm-hop to a lower population realm and you'll find those uncommon-spawn type pets all over the place, usually in two or three hops.

I think you missed my point. Realm-hopping has become less useful in Outland because Blizzard has changed how it's set up on their servers. There's no longer any such thing there as low population, you'll always be sharing it with players from dozens of other realms.

[Sibi]

It isn't just Outlands.
Any zone not considered current content has been cross-realm-ed with many different servers for a couple of years (or more) now, it isn't a new change. The only places you aren't likely to run in to players from other servers are Orgrimmar, Stormwind and WoD zones, unless you are on a merged server (different than cross-realm). Blizzard did this because new players were going extended periods of time on low pop servers without running in to another player character while out in the open world if it wasn't a current zone. I'm thinking this was something that started at the end of Cata/beginning of MoP.
I farmed Netherwing Reputation via egg grinding after this was all instituted and still had a rather easy time of farming eggs assuming no one else was in the mine with me. And I even did it on a high population server. As with most farming, time of day really matters when working on these things.

[Jerebear]

To add on to what Sibi said:

This is normal. It was the original realm combining tech they implemented called CRZ (cross realm zoning). This has been around for a long time. It's different from the realm mergers they implemented in MoP, which is a separate tech.

[Karn]

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think you can only be CRZ'd to the same server types.

So while you might be on a regular PVE or PVP server and finding yourself linked to masses of other similar types (with varying populations) the easiest way might be to get an invite to a RP-PVE or RP-PVP server

I'm on Earthen Ring so will only be CRZ'd with the other RP-PVE servers (of which only one - Argent Dawn is high pop. All the others are low so probably not as bad as it could be)

Another thing might be to try and get an invite to a non-english server (Portuguese would be my choice i think) to see how they are CRZ'd?

[Kel]

I'm just happy that I grabbed my 3 rare S/S Flayers when I did!

[Aurae]

Cross-realm zones have been active since Patch 5.0.4 (August 8th, 2012) - the Mists of Pandaria pre-expansion patch.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/5-0

In other words, nothing has changed in the hunt for pets.

What you are most likely experiencing is that lull that happens at the end of every expansion where people start "checking boxes" they haven't otherwise had time for. Working on reputations, clearing out achievements, running old content, etc.

[Ranok]

Cross-realm zones have been active since Patch 5.0.4 (August 8th, 2012) - the Mists of Pandaria pre-expansion patch.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/5-0

In other words, nothing has changed in the hunt for pets.

What you are most likely experiencing is that lull that happens at the end of every expansion where people start "checking boxes" they haven't otherwise had time for. Working on reputations, clearing out achievements, running old content, etc.

Actually I did the Netherwing rep grind myself killing time when Pandaria was winding down and remember cursing having to compete with guys from several other realms. It was nothing like I've been seeing this past couple weeks. Keeping track of realms I'm sharing the place with, have so far seen 48 ! And this includes all 3 of the Full PvE Normals and 4 of the 6 High-Pop ones. Basically, pretty much anytime day or night you stand in line to complete quests.

One of my guys apparently is in a different cross-realm grouping. He's seen, so far, 38 different realms. So Blizz must have to have split the 106 PvE Normal realms into two groups, meaning always going to be lots and lots of people doing the same stuff. Just seems a bit unfair to me.

[Aurae]

Mists wind-down was nothing compared to what we are seeing now. Warlords has pretty much been winding down almost since its release. Lackluster content has sent folks back to clear other facets of the game sooner than they would have previously.

Cross-realm zones only seem to have two specific limitations. Firstly, they will not be connected to anything more than three timezones apart, according to the hotfix they implemented shortly after it went live. Secondly, PvP and PvE servers will not connect to each other (we already knew that, but yeah). Outside of that, I have not noticed anything else that would stand out as a limitation to what servers you would see.

My only other guess as to who we see in cross-realm zones would be related to the datacenters. I have never bothered to keep track of who I see when I am out running around older content. If you have, by chance, you could compare that list with the datacenter listing: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Americas_region_realm_list_by_datacenter

[Ranok]

My only other guess as to who we see in cross-realm zones would be related to the datacenters. I have never bothered to keep track of who I see when I am out running around older content. If you have, by chance, you could compare that list with the datacenter listing: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Americas_region_realm_list_by_datacenter

That's it! Realms in the two groups I've been seeing correspond exactly. So if you're on a Chicago datacenter, you're sharing Outland with every other realm from that center. Unfortunate that they are hosting almost all the high-population realms.

Makes sense, I guess. Optical links between servers in same room much faster than fiber between Chicago and L.A.

[Sibi]

Keeping track of realms I'm sharing the place with, have so far seen 48 ! And this includes all 3 of the Full PvE Normals and 4 of the 6 High-Pop ones. Basically, pretty much anytime day or night you stand in line to complete quests.

One of my guys apparently is in a different cross-realm grouping. He's seen, so far, 38 different realms. So Blizz must have to have split the 106 PvE Normal realms into two groups, meaning always going to be lots and lots of people doing the same stuff. Just seems a bit unfair to me.

That isn't Blizzard splitting the realms up and making large CRZ that's people using LFG tool and coming to your CRZ. PvP only CRZ PVP RP-PVP with RP-PVP PVE with PVE RP-PVE with RP-PVE, ect. Anyone you are are seeing that isn't from your same type of server is using the LFG tool to realm hop or has been invited over by a Btag friend. While this is "technically" Blizzards doing, it isn't exactly Blizzard merging all the servers together on purpose. And I'm fairly certain, but not positive, that every single relam of a particular type doesn't mix every other one of that type. Meaning all 106 pve servers are not smooshed in to the same "two" CRZs. On my low pop PVE server I mainly see the same handful of servers (by handful I mean 5 maybe 6) while AFK'ing in town that has CRZ implemented, anyone not from that handful is someone that has been cross realm invited over which is different than being CRZ'd.