Realm

From WoWWiki

A realm is an instance of the World of Warcraft (WoW) game world. Realms are hosted on physical devices called servers (for this reason, the terms "realm" and "server" are often used interchangeably).

To play WoW, you must first choose a server (realm) to play on. You then connect to this realm over the Internet. Blizzard has servers in the US, Europe, China, and Korea (see Localization).

See the realms list for a list of realms kept up-to-date by WoWWikians.

Why have realms?

The WoW game world is duplicated (mirrored) across multiple realms to prevent any one realm from becoming too crowded (and thus overwhelming the server), to provide for better connection times (by having players connect to local servers), to allow for localized communities based on language (for example, French speakers on realms in France), and to appeal to different play-styles for different users.

To allow for different play-styles, realms come in four types:

• PvE (a.k.a. Normal) - Player vs. Environment
• PvP - Player vs. Player
• RP - Roleplaying version of a PvE realm. Additional behavior and naming rules apply.
• RP-PvP - Roleplaying version of a PvP realm. Additional behavior and naming rules apply.

For the adventurous, there is also a Test Realm that is periodically available in which players can try experimental features in development before they get released as general patches.

See also

• For a local list of realms by region, language, timezone, and type, see Realms List
• For a local list of articles about realms, see Category:Servers.
• For Pros and Cons of PvE (normal) realms, see Pros and Cons of PvE realms section of Player vs Environment article.
• For Pros and Cons of PvP realms, see Pros and Cons of PvP realms section of Player vs Player article.
• For information related to roleplaying, see Roleplaying.

External links

• Realms Q&A at WorldofWarcraft.com
• Realm Types Information
• World of Warcraft – Realm Status List of US Realms, including type and status
• US Servers' XML Status
• World of Warcraft Europe – Realm Status List of all European realms, including type and status
  • English, French, German, Russian, or Spanish lists of all European realms, including type and status
• European Servers' XML Status
• WarcraftRealms.com Useful realm info, based on user submitted data
• RealmWatcher.com Free realm status email alerts (with customizable alert criteria, e.g. "alert when <realm> is Queued for at least 5 minutes") and RSS feeds
• Realm Status Firefox Microsummary tool European Realms and Firefox 2.0+ required
• Realm Status Firefox Add-On US realms and Firefox 1.5 – 3.1b2 required — does not work with current versions of Firefox