OMG! Stuck in American Territory

Hi. I have a major problem and and Guild Wars will NOT help me. I (European) went to the American territory a few times in the middle of the night because in Europe it was kind of empty. I finally decided to read the text above the change buttons after several attempts to change back to europe again and it said I could change it 0 more times. I have never really paid attention to what was written their. Never got a warning this change would be my final decision and I wasn't aware that you could only change it 5 times. Otherwise I would have stayed in Europe. All my pvp friends are in Europe. So I send GW an e-mail with the question if they please could help me and set my account to Europe Territory. After all I was just trying to have some fun in the middle of the night and went to America 'cause it was more populated. If I will not be able to go back to Europe I will not continue to play Guild Wars anymore. My online friends are in Europe and international districts are no fun when pvp-ing.
Well like I said... Guild Wars will not help me which I think is pretty lame.
These are the replies I got on my requests to change me back to europe.

*First response*
Hello M,

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars customer support team.

I am afraid to say that the procedure of changing territory can be repeated only five times and unfortunately there is no way that this can be changed. In the interface where you can change your territory it is clearly stated the number of time left to change your account location. If you should have not notice it, unfortunately we cannot bring back players to the territory they wish to play in.

Thank you for your understanding.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.

Kind regards,

GM Stefania

NCsoft Europe
Guild Wars Customer Support

*Second response*
Hello M,

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars customer support team and providing our feedback.

As already stated in the previous response the procedure of changing territory can be repeated only five times and unfortunately there is no way that this can be changed. We would like to point out that In the interface where you can change your territory it is clearly stated the number of time left to change your account location. If you should have not notice it, we're sorry that we cannot offer you a process to reverse the process, and the Support Team unfortunately is not able to bring back players to the territory they wish to play in. If this is going to change we will inform you and all the other players on our official web site www.guildwars.com. By all means, you are free to end up your playing any time and we will be sorry to lost your custom.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused to you.

Thank you for your understanding.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.

Kind regards,

GM Stefania

NCsoft Europe


Now maybe I should have read the information better but again I never got a pop-up (or something like that) which stated it would be the final change. And now I am stuck with a useless game which I enjoyed playing before. I think it's pretty lousy they won't do anything. So be carefull with changing territory 'cause you might end up like poor me.

Bingo! It's plainly and clearly stated. There is no need to add a pop-up to appease customers who won't read what's already there. Yes, you now have 3 options: play American, buy a new account, or quit the game. It is not NCSoft/Arenanet's fault that you didn't read it.

What dansamy said could not be more true. It is stated, in rather massive lettering, that you can only change that particular option a limited number of times.

I know it's written there now, but I havn't really paid attention to it then since it was in the middle of the night and just wanted to play. Of course they have the right to do this but come on... Just by making a simple mistake I now have to pay another 45 euro to keep playing. Bit harsh isn't it.

not at all. just because you didn't read it before, doesn't mean it wasn't there to read. if you really want to play on a Euro server, you're going to have to pony up the dough. like the previous posters said, its not their fault you didn't read it.

be careful next time.

You can still meet your friends in the international districts ...

Personally I think that sucks. I'm sure it would be extremely easy to change if they wanted, but I suspect they just won't do it. It's fine all the good people saying he should have read the warning, but let's face it, how many read every scrap of information on screen? How many of those people read the whole EULA when installing the game? Every single word? Not many I bet. You should at least get an obvious final warning that you can't ignore when making your last change - that's just normal user-friendly UI programming.

Wow that's pretty gay dude... That's one of the worst parts about A.Net's support team is that they always claim they have no access to the database(s) that accounts and characters are on. I e-mailed them when I used all of my refund points and screwed up and put them all in the wrong attribute. All they told me was "too bad so sad we can't do nothing about it go back to playing." Of course it was polite but that's the jist of it. They do a wonderful job of banning people for any number of (sometimes stupid, even) reasons but when it comes to helping people play again or sort out an account-related problem you're SOL.

SoL - Shit Outta Luck

If you don't read something that's plainly made available for you to read, and your failure to read actually bites you in the arse, please don't whine about it on a public forum full of people who are intelligent enough to read what's been made available to them. You really are SOL and it's no one's fault but your own.

Soveetskeey,

Your refund points problem is actually much easier. Go back to playing the game. After you gain XP , you will earn your refund points back. If you can't kill anything because you screwed up that badly, find a friend and with a party of henchmen + a benevolent friend, you can sit back and get XP while they kill.

Actually, even if he is now stuck there and if it is his fault for being so...
I kinda dislike the idea about Territory anways. Geez, why o WHY did you do this Arena.net? Include REAL World Territories?
That is just creating and encouraging a lot of racism.

On top of that, i do not understand WHY you did this. You took the "Press T to attack my target" out of Target calling. I dunno why, but i can guess because it could screw the Atmosphere for roleplayers. You have all those IN GAME territories
You have Rin, you have Kryta... you've even got the former kingdom of Orr. Even though it is no longeri alve. That is just plenty of in game Territory. Something with a context towards the game. But... no...
Kinda spoils the Atmosphere reading about Korea/America/Europe all the time.

Okay so it's the guy's own fault for not reading closely. Yes, yes... but why does ANet have the game set up to do this in the first place?

Well, I am glad that not all of you are as short sighted as the people who say I should have read it. Of course I should have but like someone said in a reply: 'do you read all the info on the screen all the time?'. I bet almost no one does.
And it's indeed poor UI design they will not give you a warning before your final change. Well, guess it's game over for me. A shame that this company has such poor customer support. I bet they easily can acces the database to change this. The point is they just won't. All I am asking is just put my ### in europe where I belong and I wil be perfectly happy again. If they can't acces it they have poor software design in general. And of course they will lose more like one customer... guess they don't care too much about that.

A little off-topic, but I am compelled to answer. When it comes to online games, particularly massively multiplayer ones, you can bet your hat that I read the entire EULA. With single-player games it's less of an issue, but the excuse of "I didn't know" has been used too many times (often in the court of law), both online and offline.

So you're saying that this notice is not clear or obvious enough? I'm sorry, but if someone doesn't think that it's an obvious warning then I'm surprised they know how to use a computer in the first place.

So... By your logic, ignoring a clear and obvious warning is Arenanet's fault? You sound like someone who's been caught speeding and says "Oh, I didn't see the sign."

I bought a Chaos Axe so I removed all my points from Swordsmanship and accidentally put them in Hammer Mastery. I had about 6 skills total for a hammer and I wasn't going to waste skill points on it. At level 20 doing the ascension tests, it was a real bitch trying to earn back those refund points with a weapon I've put no consideration into at all. I ended up going back, spending about 3 hours doing bonuses for missions I hadn't previously done.
The moral of the story is... Properly organized databases make everyone happy!

Erm, what does that have to do with databases? I think what you mean is, "being careful and actually reading things makes me not blame everything on Arenanet".

Well i do understand Arena.nets Policy as well though.
Change it for one person and in the future you'll be changing it for more then one person.

If you give players a little finger they'll chew up the hand.


/edit:
Sitenote, why is this board so fricking hostile towards users? Someone asks a question that is not uberpro and gets immediately flamed by up to 5 persons. Someone admits he made a mistake, yet still asks for help. All you people do is laugh at him and bash him some more.

Is this what the guildwarsguru board is about? Bashing and smashing newbies or persons wo made an error? So far it is. Make a topic and... uh if it has been posted before (NO MATTER WHEN!), you'll get HEAVILY flamed for posting it. If you revive the old thread... well, you'll get flamed as well for raising such an old thread.
What is the rules? STFU and do never ask?

I can see clicking once on Hammer and going "CRAP!". But repeatedly? Nope. I once accidentally clicked some other weapon from the collector than the one I had wanted. I had to buy another set of collectables and trek back out to the collector, fighting everything between me and him to get there. Was I ticked? Yes! At Arenanet? No. It was my fault for not making sure my mouse pointer was on what I actually wanted. User error does not constitute a developer emergency.

First off all Feli I totally agree with you and I was kind of surprised people were almost amused with my mistake. I think it's not funny at all. Everyone makes mistakes right? I am totally screwed by this one. Second, dansamy, maybe you don't realize what this means. I'll explain... I cannot play with my friends anymore unless I pay another 45 bucks. You think I would be posting here if I picked a wrong collectors item? Guess you got the point...

Some of these people are blaming Arenanet and Arenanet's code for their user errors. Those who do not understand the golden-rule of GIGO are just asking for it.

As for hostility, leave it to the moderators and admins to determine what is hostile. When something becomes hostile, warnings are issued.

I turned my back on the European districts on day one.

Never looked back since!

Such a great game? Buy another copy then. At least you still have this copy to switch to when your friends are offline.

I admit I made a mistake. I didn't blame it on the code that I made this mistake. Although I think that, like in any other game I played, important decisions always should give you a pop-up to explain that if you press 'ok' the result will be that... And there are quite a lot of games I have played. I also find it quite harsh that they tell me just to deal with it. I'm not here to bash the game and/or developpers but I am disapointed I cannot play this game anymore (at least the way I want to play). I also hope they eventually will give people 1 last chance to choose territory. I am sure I am not the only one. Untill then it's back to some other games.

As I've already stated, you had this notice. In fact, you had this notice five times before you finally decided to do it for the last time.

There is no need for a pop-up of any sort, that text is huge and blatant.

I do not appreciate the implication that I am unintelligent. Nothing could be further from the truth. I fully realize that you screwed yourself out of playing on the European servers with your friends, and you are now(incessantly) whining about your screw-up. Sorry, buddy. It's not Arenanet's fault that you can't/won't read. I was polite in my original answer to you, but your snide remarks are starting to tick me off. You messed up. Get over it.

Let's all take a deep breath. I am not here to flame/bash anyone neither it's my intention to bash the developpers. As some of you like to point out it is indeed my own fault. The fact is I am still screwed and not happy with this situation. Maybe someone reads this info and can avoid making the same mistake. I was not trying to insult anyone's intelligence although I did find you were comparing two totally different things. I was just teasing you a bit and I apologize for that. Peace out all and be warned. Greetings Shao

I just clicked 11 times quickly, I don't go one click at a time to make sure each and every one goes into the right place.

"Put brain in gear before engaging mouth."

So that was ArenaNet's fault? I think you could learn a bit from that quote too.

LOL! Maybe we could rephrase that: "Put brain in gear before engaging mouse."

Shao, my comparison to my collector item mistake was in reference to Soveetskeey's misuse of his refund points. That was a mousing error, particularly if the attribute he put them into is listed right above/below where he wanted them. I'm sorry if you thought I was implying that was all your error was as well. I fully understand the detriment that your error will cause you. It is a much graver mistake. Both Soveetskeey's and my errors were easily player-correctable. Yours, unfortunately, is not.

You guys are all giving me shit but you're just taking my statement "Properly organized databases make everyone happy!" at face value thinking it had nothing to do with what I was talking about. What I meant when I said that is A.Net, with about two minutes of their time could make a customer happy, maintain a customer who will probably buy their next product and likely get some good recommendations through word-of-mouth.

And Speedy, nobody likes trolls. Buzz off.

..You go out & earn xp to get more refund points (which has already been said), not whine at customer support to do what YOU are suppose to do (=play the game).[Edit: GM:s or devs can look into the database, not customer support because thats not their job]
You can however whine at customer support when you do have a valid complaint.

For the threadstarter: America region is not so bad, Euro has not had favor much which means I might skip over to America because of "favor of gods".

Also because of east & west coast time zones means you will find people at any time (almost, but Euro is fairly empty at late night).[Edit: You can use international districts for teaming up with people from other regions]

lol if only they had made it an even number then it wouldnt be a problem everyone would get stuck after they switched back!

I don't like the idea how you have only 5 chances to change territory since this really has the biggest impact on people OUTSIDE Europe and America. I'm living in Australia so I've already used up one of my 5 switches to changed from the European server to the American one and really there's not much of a ping improvement at all - however I've decided to stick with America since most Aussies play on the American server + most people speak English (or at least something resembling English lol).

I think most can of us can sympathise with your plight but the fact of the matter is there is ample warning about the number of times you're restricted to when changing servers. I'm pretty sure last time I used it a warning dialog came up as well, although I can't remember.

As another poster mentioned, you can still play with your friends on the International districts if worse comes to worst.

I agree. When someone posts a complaint about Arena Net up here that in no way was created by their own incompetence, I might say A-Net screwed up. With the folks and their problems from this thread, however, I think A-Net is in the clear... and just thank goodness you're just video game players and not technicians at a nuclear power plant.

Also, taking 2 minutes to help someone if A-Net screws up is fine. But to take 2 minutes to help someone who messes up on their own is silly with a game like this. Thousands of people would screw up each day, some more than twice, and game development would get nowhere.

Lastly, on some games I don't read the EULA. The exception is online games, in which case I always read it. You have to. Different rules may apply.

Why do they have the maximum times you can change anyway? Sounds like a ploy to get more cash to me... "I wanna go back to my home territory, but I don't have any more changes left..." Anet- "We can't do anything, but you could go buy another copy."

<_<

Oh lord. If that's a ploy, it's playing on the lack of smarts on the consumer's part. So if it's a ploy, it's apparently working.

Thats a good one Syuveil, but they need to make their money somehow
I think Anet did a wonderful job with this game, and their customer support is alot better than some games I played.

hmm...so....this man screwed up, and instead of telling his friends "hey, I'm sorta stuck in america, would you guys like to meet me in the international districts so we can play, because I didn't really read the only text that was on the screen when I changed my location 5 times?" he spent his time posting on here?

Arena.net can't and won't fix your problem for you because, if they start doing this, then they have to do it for every single person who thinks their account is "Screwed up." I fully imagine they get emails that read like the following all day: "OMG!!! I WUZ BUYIN STUFF FROM THIS GUY! AND NOW IM OUT OF MONEY$!!!!! CAN YOU GIVE ME MORE!??!!" and personally, I'd just assume that if the problem isn't a oops on their part (like the time that I bought a pre-order from best buy, and for 3 weeks after the game was released I had still failed to get my Targe, until I emailed them, and it was fixed the next day), that it's best to not waste their time.

To sovestkeey: if you didn't understand that you get a refund point back for every 250 XP you gain, I'll assume you were just desperate to solve the problem. Hey, I've been there. But if you just wanted them to fix your booboo, instead of doing what the rest of us do, and go kill things until our characters become unfux0red, then you should just do what your quote states...think before you speak. :P

Arena Net Employee's read the official / ellite forums. I do think they need a pop-up about the final server choice before letting you go through with. I would drop the suggestion in the threads that talk about adding stuff to the game.

The reason for the server system is the "favor" of the gods and incentive for the countires to band togther in competion. If you could switch servers at will, you always have access to fissure, etc. Then you get stupid people spamming other countries area's. There are some ppl from the american server I don't want being rude / crude on the other servers.

This whole thread is about one request: making Guild Wars idiot proof.
Unfortunately, I think if they 'fix' this, players that have a problem with reading will find a new way of 'breaking' the game. Maybe in time they will fix it, but i think they got their priorities somewhere else right now...
like PvP...

cheers,
Makk.

I got the impression that they were actually unable to help you even if they wanted to. However, even if they can change your territory back at will, they won't do it, and I don't blame them at all. Why?

• It's your fault, not theirs. They make it clear that you only have five chances. I knew, and I haven't even changed yet.
• If they change it for you, you'll run off and tell everyone about it. And then EVERYONE who's used their five chances would bombard ANet with requests to change their territory. It's the same as the reasoning behind why you don't negotiate with terrorists -- if it works for one person, everyone else'll try it too. And of course, unlike a national government negotiating with terrorists, ANet will have to give everyone equal treatment lest they give themselves a bad reputation.

It's probably to stop people riding on the back of the Favour of the Gods.

It still would make more sence to have it be an even number of changes, so you get stuck trying to leave, instead of coming back.