Cross-Region Progression - Please Consider!

Community General Discussion
1

Hi there! I’m a player with a complicated work history - due to some professional and personal reasons, after playing Wrath-to-Legion on my US account, I had to move to an EU account to continue playing at peak times and enjoy content.

Recently, after Legion-through-Dragonflight, pushing higher PvP rating, 200HL, multiple AOTCs, M+ achieves, collecting dozens of limited time pets and achieves, I had a new work opportunity and had to return to US servers.

Despite sharing the same Battle.net Account, and other same-region accounts sharing achievements, collectibles, and progress, accounts from different regions do not.

It feels particularly bad, as I’m now nearly at HL100 on US and I’m less than halfway to my original HLs all to get the same rewards. I’m missing AOTC mounts, limited time rewards I worked hard for, and now will never get due to FOMO. Despite sharing character names, I’ve had trouble getting into Raids because my US account has no progress and people (likely rightfully) don’t trust “I was in a different region” as a mark of progress.

Multiple external sites track these stats and unlocks via API, and other games such a SWTOR, ESO and more have the ability to transfer accounts and characters across regions. In 2023, there’s really no excuse to not be able to track these collectibles across regions with an internal API when linked to the same Battle.net account which already tracks progress across multiple accounts on the same region.

It’s something my GF now has to face, as she’ll be immigrating to NA from EU in the near future, and it’s something that’s genuinely made her pause as she’s played since Vanilla WoW (not classic, LAUNCH NIGHT).

It would be nice to hear something about this, as we can already see cross-region B.net friends and chat with them in WoW, as well as play with them on other games. This is an incredibly NICHE issue, but it’s one dozens of people I’ve spoken to would appreciate being addressed.

105HLs to meet my old total…

15 Likes
2

Completely reasonable and it’s not like you’re asking to duplicate the account across regions but to move it

1 Like
3

Bumping this in hopes for a bit more attention. It’s a niche problem, but one that really could be fixed?

It’s weird that SOME of my rewards carried over (Strand Achieves, BNet rewards) but not the rest? It feels bad.

4

Bumpity-bump-bump.

5

Mega-late night bump where I hope a tired 24/7 CS dev sees this and passes it along.

6

It’s something people have been asking for, for a very long time and it’s not something that’s ever really gotten any real communication from blizzard over it as far as am aware, I really wish in one of the interviews with the devs like ion someone would ask the question about cross region in general but nobody ever does

2 Likes
7

All I’ve heard is ‘it’s a physical server issue’ but other MMO’s don’t all have their servers located in Austin, Texas. Clearly there is a method to do it.

8

All you will hear is community guessing, imo they probably just don’t think it’s worth putting money and effort Into doing it

1 Like
9

The late night post bumps will continue until Cross Region connectivity improves.

10

I feel you, I feel you too much.

I played on my EU account from TBC to MoP, then moved to Brazil and had to play on a US account from MoP to now.

  • EU account: Zulian Tiger, Immortal title, the very first Brewfest Kodo and other unobtainable stuff.

  • US account: MoP CM sets, WoD CM weapons, Legion Mage Tower stuff, etc

All I ever wished was to be able to play with all that stuff in one single account. I’ll pay for the merging service if necessary. It is frustrating as heck.

They tell us we can’t merge because it’s two different games, but then we get betas and everybody is mixed up inside of it, EU and US.

I’m going to keep bumping this. It’s been +10 years that people have been asking this.

1 Like
11

What hurts even more is we run this even in the normal PTR. We can just COPY CHARACTERS FROM ANY REGION ONTO THE SAME PTR SERVER. It automatically shares their progress, as those achievements, HKs, HLs and earned collections are added to the ‘PTR account’ and generates the internal tracking for those metrics.

Even having that ability to ‘copy’ characters / image them onto a different region would be amazing.

1 Like
12

I would do any. I’d copy the characters, sure, but if this is a money thing, I’ll gladly pay for 2 accounts.

1 Like
13

MID-DAY BUMP

Because sometimes, it’s the perfect time.

14

Bumping this months later.

A lot of the PvP Scene right now makes this pain point prevalent, but with HOW MANY BNet rewards are now cross-region no matter what, it’s a lot of salt in the wound.

World of Warcraft is the only game that makes me feel like I’ve wasted decades of my life and love because my job had me move across the world. Twice.

1 Like
15

Bringing this back for a Blizzcon-bump! Please Blizzard, give us some hope!

1 Like
16

I second what everyone has said. Though I think because it’s an issue for such few people… it’s probably not a prominent enough plight to address. I mean there are still bugs and annoyances in the game from 10-15 years ago that Blizzard has never done anything about despite hundreds/thousands of people complaining about it. But hey, we can hope that with Microsoft’s involvement that it’ll be a possibility one day.

I wish there was enough traction on this subject for someone out there to care enough to ask in an interview. But maybe we’re going about it wrong? Maybe we need to ask streamers to bring it up and not just post it on the forums?

1 Like
17

Post winter bump.

72 HLs to go just to get back to my old total. Cross-Region progression when?

18

I more recently changed regions. It’s been 2.5 years since I moved from NA to EU. I’m on The War Within Beta where I was able to copy my level 60 Shadowlands main to the Beta server, alongside my EU characters I’ve been playing since moving.

Multiple accounts share progress when they’re within the same region. Why not cross-region? I accept that I have to play on a different license. I too have silly achievements I earned years prior to opening my EU account.

19

Dear Blizz,
Please consider this. Bring the world closer together and let different continents play with one another!
I played on EU from 2006-2010 and made a lot of cross-region friends. However, once moving back to the US, I was not able to keep playing with them. And of course - I also lost access to all my hard-earned reputations, mounts, and achievements. Many of there were time-sensitive and not attainable again.

We can freely change our server/region in Diablo, HOTS and other Blizz games, is it not about time that you make this possible for WoW? Please merge the regional accounts and (to take it a step further) give us access worldwide. I daresay it’d be much more interesting to play with people from all over the world.

1 Like
20

I see this has been necro’d a couple of times, but I’ll reply with what I remember. Ancient WoW player here and I recall Blizzard having a service that did indeed allow US/EU WoW transfers many years ago. I also remember it was only available for a few months until they had to discontinue it due to an EU data protection legislation that had been passed.

Doing a Google search I found the first version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being passed in 2016, but I thought this happened further back than that. Legal folks reading this can probably pinpoint the relevant legislation better.

Anyway, my understanding is that the transfer service you want is unavailable because of a legal issue, not a technical one. And because of that it will probably not be available for the forseeable future.