World of Warcraft is slooooowly dying - the game is 9 years old, for Christ's sake - and it shows in Blizzard's comuniques. In the Patch 5.4 preview, they're talking about Connect Realms which will let servers share raids and stuff.

Building on our existing cross-realm technology, a Connected Realm is a set of two or more standard realms that have been permanently and seamlessly linked. "These linked realms will behave as if they were one cohesive realm, meaning you'll be able to join the same guilds, access a single Auction House, run the same Raids and Dungeons, and join other adventurers to complete quests."

Players not from your own realm will have a # next to their name. Also, they'll only connect realms of the same type, so that RP people wouldn't have to deal with PvP munchkins.

The exact date for the connect is still not known, but it will happen after 5.4.

Also, it's interesting to see the paradoxical situation with their language. On one side, they say that connect is being done because people naturally migrate towards more populous servers, thus depriving others - sidestepping the fact that susbscriptions are falling (as I mentioned earlier, 9 YEAR OLD GAME THAT IS STILL HAS 7 MILLION SUBSCRIPTIONS). On the other hand, you can't just say that "yep, we're screwed, we'll have to close the game in 3 years", since potentianl customers, people not well versed in how time works, would say "meh", and go play some other MMO, one that totally didn't flop at launch *cough* Old Secret Republic World *cough*.