US and EU Account Data Transfer

[Thundertotem-blackwater-raiders (Thundertotem)]

Perhaps you need to talk to the devs. You have been given a blue response. If you wanna ask the devs, best way is to ask them on @WarcraftDevs on Twitter.

[Kastaside-alexstrasza]

Perhaps you need to talk to the devs. You have been given the official position from Blizzard. If you wanna ask the devs, best way is to ask them on @WarcraftDevs on Twitter.

See there you go with the “No” in your heart again. You were so positive previously with the whole, “People posted on the forums for classic, look what that did!”

Now i just get eye rolls and “go ask somewhere else” posts.

I realize this doesn’t affect you, but as many expats and others who move to Europe and other data centers it is daunting to “start over”. Seeking a change to this policy or putting on the radar as something players want isn’t a bad thing. Even if it is a relative minority.

[Thundertotem-blackwater-raiders (Thundertotem)]

whatever…Time for me to bow out. Good luck.

[Perl-anetheron (Perl)]

It’s certainly something that people have been asking Blizzard to implement for many years. Whether or not the cost of developing a solution could be countered by an increased cost to the character transfer service, or even if people would be willing to pay more, likely has some influence on whether or not Blizz could/would develop a solution.

That said, your post in the General forums is the right thing to do. It doesn’t matter whether or not others agree or even that Blizz has said no in the past or even recently.

All that matters is that you’re showing there’s still a demand for it.

Prior to character transfers, players made many threads and a lot of players were even willing to pay upwards of $100 to transfer a single character! Now people complain that it’s too expensive.

In any event, I actually hope that at some point Blizz is able to put in a solution for everyone

[Nephe-caelestrasz (Nephe)]

Now i just get eye rolls and “go ask somewhere else” posts.

Yes, because that is where you can either post the suggestion so the dev team can see it. The CS forum is simply a player assist player forum moderated by Blizzard forum staff. There are no devs or community managers here. That is all, you’re reading far much into what others have replied with here.

[Teufelgott-shadowsong (Teufelgott)]

See there you go with the “No” in your heart again. You were so positive previously with the whole, “People posted on the forums for classic, look what that did!”

Now i just get eye rolls and “go ask somewhere else” posts.

I think the responses you’re getting are indicative of a growing level of frustration as a result of your unsatisfiable argument of “yeah, but why?!?”

[Mastadôn-thrall (Mastadôn)]

I believe a look nt being missed here is PTR is not the game. They could allow us an invis feature in the PTR and it has NO impact on the game, nor regional laws. Itnis a test only place.

However, there very well could be a regional impact due to some obscure law somewhere in a live game. This is an absurd scenario, I fully get that. It was absurd on purpose. But it illustrates the point. We just don’t know.

Please let us not forget what can be done j. The PTR and what can be done live.

[Vrakthris]

It is important to remember that we do what we can to help people play our games. If it were currently feasible, don’t you imagine that we’d provide the service? After all, that would be additional folks using a type of character transfer across both regions.

CS can’t give details on all the particulars of why it is currently not an option. We know that there are several hurdles that have traditionally been in place, they generally range from different laws and policies involved and how things are currently set up.

Could that change in the future? Absolutely, and we’ll likely announced it if it does.

That really just feels like a, “no one cares, it’s not happening, go away” response.

More like a … Customer Support has no involvement in the development of the game nor are we liaisons to our development teams.

That is interesting because in general someone brought up many other games that are able to provide data and licensing across multiple regions without issues. Two i can think of off the top of my head are ESO and FFXIV. Both provide multi-region support as a subscription model.

I can’t say for certain, it likely has to do with what agreements they have made, and how their systems are set up. We have global play as well for several of our games, but the World of Warcraft wasn’t originally set up that way so it may have to do with the current infrastructure or part of licensing, contracts and agreements, local laws, or a combination.

But I want to know if it’s possible to transfer my account data.

Simply put, Kastaside, if we were able to do that for you, we would also have to do it for others who made the same request. It wouldn’t be fair to do so otherwise.

I am sorry we’re not able to grant your request, it certainly is worth asking.

[Rufflebottom-bloodhoof (Rufflebottom)]

Seeking a change to this policy or putting on the radar as something players want isn’t a bad thing.

That is done in General Discussion, not Customer Support.

As for the regions - for all intents and purposes World of Warcraft NA and World of Warcraft EU are two separate games rather than two copies of the same game. When they were made they could not be joined. One of the factors that may be restricting the sharing of information between the two versions is the fact that NA and EU realms have the same name. In order to share they would need to have unique names.

it is daunting to “start over”.

You don’t have to “start over.” Each license can be accessed internationally. You just aren’t going to be able to share achievements, mounts, pets at this time.

[Nok-winterhoof (Nok)]

The only thing I could think of is that the ptr came along after the initial architecture was set up and may have been set up to accommodate cross region by design.

As no fee service, it would also avoid currency exchange restrictions and regional laws and taxes.

I believe that Asian regional accounts do not have access to “our” ptr due to additional content restrictions beyond what the US and European rating agencies allow.

[Vralok-turalyon (Vralok)]

I think it because the EU servers reside in the EU. Hence the regional laws.

That is interesting because in general someone brought up many other games that are able to provide data and licensing across multiple regions without issues. Two i can think of off the top of my head are ESO and FFXIV. Both provide multi-region support as a subscription model.

Also, I can easily switch between the EU and US servers on other games such as Overwatch with no loss of non-game enhancing items.

Those games are not WOW. They all game out a LONG time after WOW. And they were designed with those lessons learned in mind, so they set the games up (and the licensing, etc) to allow everyone to use the same servers regardless of physical location from the get go. WOW is from a different era, when things like MMO’s were a niche, and there was just no thought given to this when the game was set up, and changing it after the fact would be a massive legal undertaking (especially in the EU where changing licensing agreements after the fact is VERY difficult). I won’t say it will never happen…but it’s not likely.

[Kastaside-alexstrasza]

You don’t have to “start over.” Each license can be accessed internationally. You just aren’t going to be able to share achievements, mounts, pets at this time.

Oh you definitely do. When you buy an EU license you log on and you have NOTHING from the US license. So you have to start completely over from level 1 or whatever character boost came with the xpac.

[Ekon-wyrmrest-accord (Ekon)]

What Ruffle was hinting at was that you can still play on your US license while abroad, though it isn’t always ideal and can sometimes result in heightened ping.

[Kastaside-alexstrasza]

I do maintain both. Because I will eventually return to the US, but there are things I want on the US side when I return, such as mounts, allied races, and other timed events (15th anniversary stuff). But it’s not feasible to find quality groups or raid teams when with the time difference. Would be lovely if wow would act more 2019 in terms of server data support instead of 2008.

[Rufflebottom-bloodhoof (Rufflebottom)]

Would be lovely if wow would act more 2019 in terms of server data support instead of 2008

You’ve posted in General Discussion. That’s all you can do.

Blizzard was asked at one of the Blizzcons, or interviews after one, about this. They have said if it were as simple as throwing a switch they would have done it by now. It’s a lot more complex than players seem to feel it is.