OMG! Stuck in American Territory

That's actually a good idea, Aldrich.

This was the first time I had heard about this 5 times and thats your lot.

I had a few weekends on the Beta and then they brought in the Release. I had changed 2 times to begin with. I was originally in America, then I went back to Europe as that is where I am from, then went back to America, as that was where most of the English speaking players were.

I still have my 5 choices, so this option has obviously come in with some recent changes. I don't ever remember it being mentioned in a game update, but I may have missed it.

How does this option sound.

They will let you change the server you are located in, but you can only do it once. You then have to wait 2 months, before they allow you to do it again.

This way, as EternalTempest says above, you can't abuse the Favour of the Gods, but it gives you a choice to try out the different servers from time to time, and see if there is any improvement in how many people are playing there.

All I can say is, if more and more people keep flipping back and forth between Euro and American servers, we will see the American Servers getting more full, and the European servers being next to empty and useless and would make the Favour of the Gods and PvP between these two camps, pretty useless.

Just my thoughts on this issue.

That looks reasonable to me.

Or perhaps you have to earn so much experience before you can change regions again (as with attribute point allocation).

It does seem brutal to me to prevent someone from returning to their home region at all after an arbitrary number of times.

Worse yet, who in the world chose '5' as a number? It would make much more sense to choose an even number, not an odd one; you'd most likely be able to return to your region, only to find that you couldn't change *out* of your region anymore.

This said, I would be against any policy that required the efforts of a dedicated customer support person to 'fix' this kind of problem for the user; those guys have enough to do dealing with real problems than user errors like this (and, no, I'm not saying user errors are ignorable altogether; they just shouldn't demand the attention of a support person).

One person said something about only requiring two minutes to twiddle a database somewhere. Multiply that number by even 5% of the people playing the game, and decide if you could really spend that much time twiddling databases for people who made bad decisions? Especially, consider whether you could afford to pay someone to deal with that on an ongoing basis when you don't charge a monthly fee.

Of course the number should have been an even one... that's what we call logic. Uneven numbers just don't make sense. I wouldn't mind being stuck in Europe. I will have to disagree with what you said about customer support. I think is exactly an issue for them. Remember... if you are working as customer support its your job to help/assist customers. They are not paid to bug hunt or re-write the application, so they can dedicate their time helping customers. Although it's their policy/right not to help people with this issue, I still think it's pretty harsh and this will prevent me from buying any new games/expansions released by Arenanet. Also a good friend who wanted to try it and play together with me will not buy the game now. I wasn't too smart not reading the text but they arn't too smart also. This will cost them at least 180 euro (2 normal games, 2 expansions). I am pretty sure a database fix is way cheaper and they will have no bad reviews.

Shao... Of course you should have read the blatant warning before changing five times, that's what we call logic. Not reading blatant warning just doesn't make sense.

No offense, but the whining in this thread is frigging pathetic. Deal with your own ignorant mistakes instead of acting like children needing hand-holding. I lose my faith in humanity every day, it's little things like this that help push that along.

You quote things out of context which isn't fair. Don't make me look like all I do is blaming others since that's not the case. I admitted making that mistake myself. We are not whining but discussing an issue. That's what these boards are for. If we do not discuss and/or talk about games and how to improve stuff anymore, things are going to get pretty ugly. All I can say is that I hope they will tweak this so other people won't end up in the wrong territory like me.
Like I stated before this thread is also to make people aware of this issue.
Why are you acting so hostile?

Where is the customer services based, there seem to be a few noticeable errors in their replies.

Why not do this: transfer the old account to a new "disposable" email address, like hotmail or yahoo and sell the account on eBay? Then buy your new account. True, you'll have to begin new characters.

No, what is pathetic is peoples' need to try and polarise a debate into black and white. What is pathetic is people who have no empathy and can only attack others' instead of trying to see both sides of the argument. Yes, the person in question clearly acted stupidly by not reading the warnings but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question the reasoning of why you are only allowed to change the setting five times in the first place. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask the questions:

• Why can't we play in whatever region we want? How does this benefit me as a paying customer?
• Why is the number of times we can change region set to seemingly arbitrary five? Why is this an odd number when logic would dictate an even number would be less risky?
• Why isn't there a final confirm dialogue when you attempt make the last change? Would it be a good idea to implement one?
• Why don't Arena Net support have the ability to change the region in exceptional circumstances? Why is it so difficult to change one field in a database?
• Why can we only read the EULA once we have bought and opened the game, meaning we can't return it to the shop even if we disagree with the EULA? (This is a general point that applies to nearly all games but is an example of how customers often get screwed).

I think these are reasonable points to raise. Arena Net are not God and are not beyond improvement or above criticism. I would hope they would learn from a situation like this and show more maturity than some of the posters in this thread who just seem to relish it as a chance to make personal attacks.

The reason Anet doesn't want infinite skipping (I am just guessing) is so that people don't just skip to the area with the god's favor everytime it changes.

Might be because you posted in the technician's corner. If you wanted to discuss a problem and suggest a fix for it, the sardlac sanitarium would have been a better choice. I highly doubt a.net looks about this particular section of the forums for game fix's because its based on helping poeple with physical problems with thier computers.

EDIT:: ugh, been trying to fix this for like 10 mins now, forums runnin slow ANYWHO, I would like to point out that your first post or two did sound like you were whining. I realize that isnt the case, but the person who starts a thread indirectly sets the mood for anyone posting in it there after.

Perhaps a less Draconian way of preventing this would to simply have a delay between being able to change (which got progressively longer the more times you change)? For instance, after the 5th change you have to wait a week until you are able to change again. This would prevent people changing all the time whilst still allowing people who've made a mistake some leeway.

Ok one I have read through this and I will make some comments which are not in any way meant to bash, belittle, or insult anyone:

First Shao, yes I realize you admit your mistake but you go on to say that they should correct your mistake. That's not really owning up to it but I am not here to offend or talk about that. I looked at the initial warning and well its pretty obvious that its states 5 times before the change is permenant. I happened to be colorblind and that stood out pretty brilliantly to me. From my own experience working on a website and I needed to push out updates to clients, I highly doubt that if a pop-up was issued the person receiving it would pay any more attention if they didn't pay attention to the first message. Heck, you can say the message telling you that you only have more times to change your server as a pop up. I know I don't get that screen everytime I log on (in fact never even knew that you could do that so I have never seen that screen until here) so I would think if I got a new message or screen, I would read it to see what it was but I digress as I don't want to rehash how or why it occurred. They are inclined to hit the OK button as fast as they see the pop-up so I doubt it would make that much of difference.

Now am I saying what happened to you is fair? No. I have an idea as to why they limit the change but since I don't have access to their code, can only formulate a hypothesis. Depending on how the changes replicate across the network, continual changing may stress the servers to the point that individual clients (yours and my machine) may/will lock up.

To give you an idea, I am a developer working on a Telephony system that we discovered whenever we moved users between the different queus for answering phone calls during peak hours, we would get a data spike that would lock up agents (folks who answered the phone) for up to 10 minutes yet at the central office we wouldn't have any problems, it was our outside locations that bore the brunt and we only had like 500 agents using the system. Imagine the load with several million users. It may be that if only one or 2 users do the switching, it won't affect much but let's say folks got into the habit of constantly switching, I would imagine the stress would be dramatic.

2ndly towards the issue of not being to immediately correct ones character immediately. I can tell you from database programming it isnt that simple. Chances are they would have to shut down the whole database server to implement the corrections to your mistake (the entering everything in a useless attribute). 1) I couldn't imagine shutting down the whole server simply because one user has his/her mouse in the wrong location. 2) They give you an out. They allow you to continue to gain experience in order to get more refund points. I am not saying its easy nor am I saying its not time consuming but it is available. Because that option is available, I am not surprised that they won't fix your mistake. Sorry, this is coming from a coder's perspective. Think of it another way. How many games allow you to correct a mistake like this? I know with Diablo, you got no such reprieve. Once you clicked that mouse see ya and there is no room for help on that.

Well, I know this may not be an option but you could in theory possible get your friends to help you out (I am not sure if this will work). First get your friends to switch 1 time (warn them about the limit to numbers of switches). then meet up with them have them hold of all your gear for you. Next delete the current account. Try starting a new account using the same key or try using a different email address (most IP allow you to make several email accounts which I do to limit spam and what not). Yes if you are really far along which most of us are, this is kind of a pain but maybe the friends would be willing to get you are your feet.

Since when do you have to shut down an entire database to execute an UPDATE SQL statment?

Did anyone stop to think about the importance of using the number 5 in max. amount of switches. By using an odd number, if a player is switching between two territories they are automatically assured that they will not end up at their starting territory if they use up their switches like the OP did.

Eur to Amer.
Amer to Eur.
Eur to Amer.
Amer to Eur.
Eur to Amer.

5 switches and stuck in the wrong territory. They should either change the number to an even number, or like someone else suggested, make any subsequent changes only available after a long wait, something like a month. I also think that the final change needs to be preceeded with a big 'WARNING, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE' box too. Heck, they have a verification process of typing in the name of a char. you want to delete, this is just as important. I know that I don't read everything that comes on the screen and I doubt that most of the rest of the players do either. I do however always read warning and confirmation boxes.

Am I the only one that see's the Irony of this statement?

I think we should all see the obvious moral of this story.

DON'T COME TO AMERICA!

But since you did and you cant go back. WELCOME TO AMERICA!

I feel your pain thou. I would go crazy if I got stuck in Korea. I could never party, at least you can speak english. So, you will be able to survive. You can do what most immigrants to the US do. Find yourself a nice minial labor job, work in a factory and get paid really low salary. Live in a slum. Also you should start applying for welfare. Or just join the mafia that caters to your nationality. Again welome to the United States, by the way your new name is Fred Smith.

There are warnings on everything nowadays. Look at a McDonalds coffee cup. HOT COFFE INSIDE WILL BURN YOUR SILLY ASS SHOULD YOU SPILL IT ON YOU. Everything nowadays is sue proof, and that is why Anet has the EULA (End User License Agreement). They are not obligated to help you, because you clicked the little check box that says "I agree". Little did you know by doing so you entered into a contract. Yes it sucks you are stuck, and you got yourself there. I am sure you will get relief someday though. If you can not wait purchase a new game.

Such an incredible thing it is. I questioned almost 2 weeks ago somewhere in the Ventari Sell how much can cost an item (if I remember well it was a Storm Artifact). And to the date it remains unanswered.

That makes me think: Should I had question that with: OMG! I sold the wrong item at the wrong price to the wrong npc! A.net get it back to me! That way I should have 3 pages full of answers?

Don't you all think this forum is getting a bit "flame!" ? That wasn't the style when I joined the day I bought the game (28th April I think)

Ok, nevermind...

You can still play with your friends in the international districts, wouldn't that work for you?

Matt

jeez the number is SO large and yellow a blind man could probably just about make it out...

Absolutly true - I was about to say the same thing myself, that it should be an even number... ~but you got their first~

What I think is hilarious is how many typos and grammatical errors those e-mail responses have.

With an even number you dont assure you are in your territory:

Eur to Amer.
Amer to Kor.
Kor to Amer.
Amer to Kor.
Kor to Eur.
Eur to Amer. / Kor.

The chances are the same, If he didn't read the 5 times he wont read them 4, 6 or 80

Reread my post please. Heck just reread the 1 section of the post that you picked out. Please tell me because my page displays this "Chances are they would have to shut down the whole database server to implement the corrections to your mistake" . I am not seeing that they have to so apparently my browser is broken so I apologize for the misscommunication.

Now if you would go back read the first portion of an issue of my experience with my telephony database/network and read about the potential issues with dataspike and the way the changes may replicate across the network.
No, generally you shouldn't have to shut down the whole database to an SQL update on a small DB but in my experience, whenever any change is done to a production server/database it is taken down to avoid any problems especially on one that is as large as the one GW has. 1 ounce of prevention is worth 12 hours of rebooting and listening to phone calls from people whose application froze while they were doing their grocery list.

you cant change to korea

Ok, reading all this head bashing going on, I can only say that we are now past the point where, "The Words Were Right In Front Of Your Face" attititude and it's time to move on to the bigger picture.

He made a mistake, and there is no mistaking that. He has admitted to that mistake, and there is no changing that.

What I would like to point out is this.

I know they have put in this 5 attempts and then you're locked to the last Territory you enter because of Favour of the Gods and the abuse that would get with people switching back and forth. I totally agree to why A-Net did that.

However, I don't see an issue with bringing in a feature whereby they limit the amount of time you are allowed to do it in 1 month. Lets say you can only move once per Month. This would stop the abuse that would occur, would give you a flavour of the other server for a time and have the ability to switch back and forth on a less regular basis.

Another option could possibly be this.
There are two locales that you can choose.

One is your primary and this can not be altered after a set number of times. Just in case you were European and the Euro servers kicked off big time and you wanted to get to know your Euro Neighbours more, you would have the chance to try both America and European servers. You then finally choose the server you wish to stay on for FotG and that would be that.

The Secondary would be the one that allows you to move freely between servers but you would not be able to use the Favour of the Gods, but you could play with other people across the globe, get to know your neighbours and do quests and such, just not enter the areas that use FotG.

Personally, I like my first option as it's a lot less complicated to understand and would be a lot less troublesome to impliment.

So, instead of all this head bashing , bullying, fighting, act like grown ups and try and come up with a solution that may well come in handy one day when playing this game in the future, as I wouldn't be surprised if for some reason, someone else makes a mistake, and then decides they have had enough of the server they ended up in, or some other stupid mistake that someone in this very thread has made a big booboo and is one of those giving grief to others.

Just remember, things can happen to everyone and remember your actions here. As it could well be you next time that is getting a grilling and bullying for being stupid.

I know for one, there is a lot of whining going on and that would make me want to go back to the European Servers for good. At least that way I couldn't understand most of what they said, so it wouldn't bother me at all.
The reason I don't, is I have a guild in the American Servers with mates from other games. We come from different parts of the globe and it's setup there.

It's about time people start to come up with solutions instead of fighting all the time.

It's very easy to get into a fight. It's not hard and doesn't take much brain power, and just a few words to kick it off.

However, being creative and thoughtful is a lot harder and takes a lot more brains than some of you Peeps are showing right now.

Just my 2 cents, even though in my country it would be 2 pennies.

I agree that is a much better idea in fact I would drop this suggestion in the more main forums that Arena Net Employee's read about changes to the game / feed back to patches.

They may of thought about this as a time delay but opted for permanent to slow down a potential server load balancing issues down the road, but it makes more sense to me from a players point of view to not permanent lock on the server if you choose to switch.

With locking after 5 they can at least count on x number of accounts are not going to keep potentially switching servers if you had a flux system.

No matter what it is possible to have load balancing issue but at the rate of response to feedback on the game is unlike I've ever seen in a game before and have not doubt would find a way to fix it.

I would still put in a double are your sure prompt on the last server change with and secondary confirmation prompt (even to the extent of typing in confirmation code).

I work in text support and there are a lot of cases where its misunderstanding based on a lot of factors. Having a double confirmation prompt would cause more people to realize if they didn’t which in turn; cause less issues with no longer can play with friends, which is less bad press about Guild Wars regardless on how it happened.

Wow, are these boards getting more hostile or what ?

I don't think you can go to Korea, but my original post said if you were switching back and forth between two territories. I doubt that there are many players that would switch between three territories. Of course, there are no guarantees that he would have ended up stuck in the right place if he switched between three territories.

I do agree with you that if he didn't read it the first 5 times, I doubt that he would have read it the 4th or 6th time. However, the chances are much better that he at least would have gotten 'stuck' in his home territory if it was an even number. As a matter of fact, if he simply switched between 2 territories, it is guaranteed that he would be 'stuck' in his starting territory.

Ok, ok, never tried to switch servers, I'm happy in Europe, my fault

Then agree, the number should be even then, so you can always stuck in your territory. But even so, I bet someone would comply because he/she is stuck in HIS territory when he/she wanted to stuck in the OTHER territory

The OP should have read the text, I think its big enough! On the other hand, be stuck in a server where you have no friends is a pain in the *** so they should change the number to 4 or 6 (there are more possibilities where someone want to stay in his territory than in the other, i think)

So i've read quite a bit of this thread but not all of it and a question comes to mind, yes i realize that there was the big writing telling him that he couldn't switch back again on his last time, but...why do they care? Why is there a limited number of times in the first place? Who cares if they switch back and forth all day? Certainly not me

Read a little more of this thread and you will find the answer to those questions.

No thanks, probably something to do with the countries and their guilds, which doesn't make sense to me anyway because our guild is from all over the world........sooo....how exactly do we win a point for a certain country?

*note that i've yet to do pvp so i probably dont know how it works

You enter PvP and "defend" a continent. You never noticed the chat window and read something like "x guild won the Hall of Heroes, and gets the favor of the gods for Europe" ?

So, if your guild is "all over the world" you must stay together in a Continent to be able to enter the Hall of Heroes PvP battles.

The point in being only 5 continent changes is... well, if you wont read, then I wont tell ...ok, sometimes read a whole thread (and more ones like this with a *bit* of flaming is a pain, so I'll explain. If there were no restrictions, a player could change continent to whichever one has the favor, getting access to Fissure of Woe and the Underworld.

Well, all I can say is, two totally pointless posts that doesn't help with any of the issues being discussed here.

Why not save the space and don't comment again unless you really have something worth contributing.

This was a battle for no reason. Some mod should lock this.

Blame Canada!

Fissure and Underworld.

When your country doesnt have Favor..just simply move to another one.

Next.

You don't have to shut-down a large DB either. You only need to shut-down a database if you are changing the database schema, not changing the contens of a particular tuple.

Okay, that's the answer i was looking for, I've never heard of Fissure or Underworld but aparently you can only access these places while your country has favor of the gods, i have no idea whats there but now it makes sense, thanks for the help


.....while this wasn't an answer i was looking for, i had questions, you sir are just an asshole.