Why does WoW not have Inter-Regional Realms?

[Deleted]

So I've recently been playing with a friend who lives in Canada, and he plays on the US realms. I, myself, play on the EU realms.

We've accepted that we can't play the game together because our servers are separated via our regions. Which is something I've never questioned until a few weeks ago, when we discovered we could meet up in-game on the Public Test Realms. The realm choice there includes both EU and US realms. Not only that, but we could actually add each other on Battle.Tag on there!

Why do we not have the choice of playing on other regional servers, if it works on the Public Test Realm? I used to think it was a technical issue, but evidently it isn't the case. Not only that, but other modern MMO's give you the freedom to choose which region you play in (Like Guild Wars 2, The Elder Scrolls Online, etc). Is it because that kind of technology didn't exist when WoW was launched, and Blizzard has never felt the need to implement it? Are there legal issues with it? But if so, then how come other MMO's can get away it?

TL;R; If I, an EU player, can meet up with and have a US playing friend on B.tag on the Public Test Realms, why isn't that an option on Live WoW?

I'd love somebody to answer me, because I'm genuinely puzzled as to why this isn't a feature.

[Socialhealer]

you can.

im an EU player i first installed and played on US realms, trying to find friends, then explain lol dude try EU realms.

i know EU players have US accounts, and the other way around.

it would be a completely new account with no characters though, not sure about BoA things, this was 9-10 years ago.

[Deleted]

I would love this as a feature. And I would escape Europe forever with that.

Seriously, Europeans are grouped together and Blizzard doesn't realize since Italian/French/German/other? languages have their own clients, we can't discuss things in party chats because people literally wont know what the other person is talking about - the game translates too much and if the people dont have good language skills outside their native language, there is no way to communicate. And hey, why should they know English since they have clients of WoW in their own language? I mean, its fun to see a guy from Pozzowhatever, some Italian realm I am in the same dungeon queue pool with, run into a wall for 5mins and watch him type random words that sound vaguely like Latin but thats not really fun the 9th time. I mean, right now, in 750 gear, I don't need to care about those idiots but come Legion, I might have to communicate with them ---

[LilSaihah]

you can.

im an EU player i first installed and played on US realms, trying to find friends, then explain lol dude try EU realms.

i know EU players have US accounts, and the other way around.

it would be a completely new account with no characters though, not sure about BoA things, this was 9-10 years ago.

It's standard practice in MMOs to allow users to transfer between regions in the same way that you might transfer between two US realms. I think you can even add friends cross-region in Bnet; at least, between EU and US, since you can play across those regions. It makes no sense for the game to not have a regional transfer function available.

[Stormlance]

BR is bad enough why would we want even more non english speakers?

[Tackhisis]

And hey, why should they know English since they have clients of WoW in their own language?

Do you realize that idea that people should learn a useless foreign language just to play a video game oriented at 12 y.o. crowd is absurd, don't you?

[Deleted]

I wish they removed russians servers from EU. Besides the language barrier (kill the ???????) most of us have the impression that they are constatly cheating.

[Deleted]

short answer: lag + buying data capacity on ocean cables is expensive.

it's fine if a few people do it, but if everybody did it the game would have to be designed around people having 250ms+ lag between EU/US and worse between US/EU/asia.

[Xantrus]

I would love it since I only moved to Europe three years ago and all of my original characters (and most of my cool stuff) are sitting on Skullcrusher USA unused

[Deleted]

I would love it since I only moved to Europe three years ago and all of my original characters (and most of my cool stuff) are sitting on Skullcrusher USA unused

tried asking support about it? i'm sure they can move your account over if you moved longterm.

[derpkitteh]

i would love it. i've made a few friends in europe and other places, and not being able to hang out with them is lame.

[thilicen]

Canada, Australia, trust me. You do NOT want to connect with EU servers and the russian flood that comes with it.

[Stormspark]

Because Blizzard didn't set it up that way. They decided instead to have the subsidiaries build their own infrastructure, without using some sort of standard for the whole thing. They are, in effect, run by different companies. And they made the terms of use completely different in different regions also. Connecting the servers would mean 1) straightening out the incompatibilities (there are some, they aren't huge but they're there), and 2) changing the terms of use in some places. Changing the terms of use especially would be a pretty large undertaking.

It's only this way because Blizzard set it up without any foresight. I'm pretty sure the reason a lot of other MMO's are worldwide and let you transfer between different region servers is because they saw how WOW was set up and decided to do better.

[Nevcairiel]

Ask any Oceanic player if they really want to once again play on US realms instead of their own Oceanic realms.
Lag on cross-atlantic or cross-pacific play is real. And even though Blizzard could allow it if they really wanted to, the number of people that would really use it is so low that its just not worth the effort.

[Xantrus]

tried asking support about it? i'm sure they can move your account over if you moved longterm.

Yes, a definite no was given. Warrior with SO many legacy items and titles just languishing unused and unloved

[Deleted]

Because Blizzard didn't set it up that way. They decided instead to have the subsidiaries build their own infrastructure, without using some sort of standard for the whole thing. They are, in effect, run by different companies. And they made the terms of use completely different in different regions also. Connecting the servers would mean 1) straightening out the incompatibilities (there are some, they aren't huge but they're there), and 2) changing the terms of use in some places. Changing the terms of use especially would be a pretty large undertaking.

It's only this way because Blizzard set it up without any foresight. I'm pretty sure the reason a lot of other MMO's are worldwide and let you transfer between different region servers is because they saw how WOW was set up and decided to do better.

This is interesting. I did suspect it had something to do with the ToS and some legal issues. It just felt odd that was the case when other mmos seem to pull inter-regional play without an issue. But as you said, I guess Blizzard just lacked the foresight.

[hulkgor]

Xenophobia is strong on some of the comments here, holy hell.

[Deleted]

Global servers would be healthier for the economy, and make the world more fluid.