July 23rd Realm Connections

Blizzard is kicking off the first of the recently announced realm connections by connecting the Drak’thul/Skywall connected realm to Silvermoon and Mok’Nathal realms, and the Cairne/Perenolde connected realms to Cenarius.

The realm connection will happen during the weekly scheduled maintenance period on Tuesday. This is the first week of what will likely be a multi-week effort to connect some of the least populated realms in the game to bolster their populations. There are many so-called “dead realms” that will benefit greatly from connection, as now players will be able to join guilds, groups, and participate in a unified auction house as if their realms are one, larger realm despite maintaining their separate names.

It will be interesting to see what happens economically to the realms Blizzard plans on connecting over the coming weeks, especially amid one of the most competitive periods in auction house history as thousands of players have taken up the challenge of earning 5 million gold to earn the Long Boi (Mighty Caravan Brutosaur) Mount before it is removed in a few months during the Shadowlands prepatch. Competition will suddenly be much higher than players are used to on these smaller servers, since their populations are being doubled or tripled overnight.