Cross-Realm Zones.

[Araela]

I haven't read through all the comments on this thread yet, but my initial worry about this is camping for rare pets. I'm assuming that there will end up being a lot of competition with hunters from across realms, and it really concerns me.

[Worba]

I doubt it will have a big impact on rare camping since, as others have noted, they'll only be pooling the lower density servers.

But either way, the gradual zone slowdown to the point where nothing is heard but cricket chirping, is an artificial and unintended situation - one that we've all capitalized on, but nonetheless it was never intended for these zones to be ghost towns.

[Slickrock]

The other thing to consider is they they are likely slowly going towards merged servers. The names will still be there, but on the back-end this is likely the start of virtualized servers. they'll be able to load balance and do other modern things.

[Ziarre]

I miss the time in Vanilla when you could travel the world, and no matter which zone you trekked through, you could always find other people questing or journeying the roads. I loved it, it made the world feel expansive and populated. I'm very excited for this idea since I love the thought that it could bring some of that back, just the sense of encountering people out in the world, the reason that this game is an MMO and not a solo exploration game.

I'm not saying I constantly want people everywhere, I like solitude sometimes as well, but for the past couple of expansions the majority of the world has grown less and less busy as people reach the level cap and stay clustered in the major cities, and most of the time when you're on an alt you're practically by yourself in a zone.

My thoughts exactly.
I got pulled into WoW by how the world actually feel like a world, and other players really contribute to that. I love seeing other people in zones, even if I don't talk to them.

Also, I love active general chats. XD

This! While a funeral-quiet zone is great for camping a rare, it's pretty terrible for almost anything else. Even resource nodes spawn quicker if there's other people competing with you.

...Also, while competition may not be a welcome thing for rares, striking up conversations with fellow campers and having those develop into friendships can be awesome - and productive, as I wouldn't have gotten my Karoma when I did if my camp-friend hadn't had his spawn on top of him while I was (unwillingly) afk for a solid hour.