An official Blizzard spokesperson announced on the EU World of Warcraft forums that the company plans to introduce a premium service to World of Warcraft to enable cross-realm gaming for players signed onto Real ID.
The service is assumed to be similar in functionality to the existing "Dungeon Finder" that allows players to group up with others across servers.
The new system will allow players to form 5-man dungeon parties with their Real ID friends, and players are expected to pay for the service.
It is questionable as to whether enabling the service for free would cost Activision-Blizzard a single penny, but the company obviously sees money to be made, and the company's experience with premium services shows that players are willing to pay for the service.
No release date for the service has been announced, but the post by the Blizzard employee hints at plans to roll out a public test on the Public Test Realms in the near future.
"With the continued popularity of the Dungeon Finder, many players have been asking for a way to group up with real-life friends who play on other realms to take on instances together. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about a new feature currently in development that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon. "As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don't have a release date to share quite yet. It's important to note that as with some of the other convenience – and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses — in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft [Public Test Realm]."
