4 Limit on Region Change needs to GO...

I don't understand why the limit on changing your Region has to be kept, just because not enough European players play the game we have to switch our accounts to America to buy or sell items most of the time, or go to the Underworld.

It's hardly fair how we only get 4 times we can switch, this one time I went to Ascalon city wanting to buy a max damage fiery dragon sword and no one was trading anything decent. So I switched my account to American and the city was PACKED, like 10 times more people than european and sure enough I got my sword in 2 minutes. However, I am British so naturally I switched back to European after I had done this where all my friends are. Now I only have 2 chances left to switch, and I know this is going to be a MAJOR pain when I ascend and need to go to UW since the favour is always in America. Why must Europeans have this switching restriction, it's pretty much saying I have two choices now: Abandon my friends and people from the same country as me and constantly use American server and always have access to Underworld and busier trading cities. Or stick with European, never be allowed into Underworld and have to try for ages to buy or sell anything I need.

You might say the Americans have this restriction too and they aren't complaining, but why would they need to go to European servers? They have their friends, people from their country, busy trading cities, almost constant access to Underworld on their server already. Would it have been that hard for Arenanet just to make it so we can state whether we are European or American in our profiles, and whether guilds represent Europe or America, then allow anyone to access any server unrestricted? Also scrap the Underworld favour requirement, it might have been seen of as fun for countries to battle for the right to use it at first but people forgot the fact only a few Countries in Europe play a lot of computer games (primarily Britain) and the population of America outnumbers ours.

You sort of answered your own question by saying you had to switch to go the underworld. That's what A.Net wanted to prevent by adding the 5 switch limit. Unfortunatly, A.net, unlike everyone who didn't like the idea from the start, didn't forsee one country dominating, while the other country was prohibited from entering the Underworld because of an arbitrary barrier.

I sympathize with you for being stuck in a country where Worlds at War and population makes the game boring. You could try convincing all your friends to switch to the American districts, but that may be annoying because of the time difference. Unfortunatly, I don't think A.Net will change this, or Worlds at War.

I switched, I have 3 switches left (I bought a Canadian CD but wanted to start in Europe with my guild). The initial is 5 and you're right. I don't like the switch limitations. I hope that with the expansion they reset the limit or even better add an additional 5 (giving me 8, and all those americans with no reason to switch 10)

In one of ANet's articles I have seen the numbers for online gamers (not GW, players playing ANY online games) in different parts of the world:
20 million in Korea
2 million in America
200 000 in Europe ...

If we assume that the proportions of geographical representation of GW players are not much different from the division of the online gamers in general (except maybe less % in Korea since they launched the game later in Korea?).

Knowing these statistical data, it's highly unlikely they didn't realize they'll be putting Europe in the most discriminative position when they implemented regional separation to gain access to some areas. If from all GW players Europeans constitute 1 or 2%, that's also how long time they'll be holding the favor.

Maybe they should put a warning about this discrimination on the box of the European version of the game?

Otherwise, something needs to be changed. Maybe require European guilds to win HoH only 2x to gain favor?

P.S.Changing to American servers is not viable for most Europeans because various issues, like timezones (there is a 9 hour difference with western north america).

I live in Korea, played in Europe then my whole guild changed over to America. I generally don't have timezone issues. Lag is never an issue and the districts tend to stay pretty loaded. You just have to remember not to join a guild at 4 in the morning because most of the people you game with are playing at their regular times... join a guild at 8 in the evening and you're probably going to end up meeting them often at that time.

They should just unite US and EU servers and the problem would be gone. Simple problem => simple solution. The Worlds at War idea is just the single most annoying aspect of this game.

I have never switched before. I honestly do not grasp the concept at all. Can someone tell me what the differences are? I assumed EU and AM server were in place to avoid sever overload and crashes from being common. Too many people and bam, not server for anyone. Am I wrong? Just curious.

if the numbers given by Gwenhywar are right, then it won't cause a problem tu unite US and EU

If EU and US are united, then it'll pretty much be west vs. east, US vs. Korea?

That's pretty much how it is now, so not much will change.

I like in the UK and play on the US servers, more people, more English, more fun. The favour thing has nothing to do with it since I have no clue about it during my early days of GW.

Needless to say, my friends followed me. Lag is low, on a good connection. And the while there are more nublets its a good trade off.

Im European - But i switched to America.

No problem at all. I've joined a decent American guild - and they themselves have a few european players, so timeframe is never a problem for me... Unless im at work ^^

Im going to switch to america too. WaW with real life countries is the stupidest thing they ever did!

Well the game made the decision for me, i'm forced into staying on the European servers since I passed my switch limit last night (which I really regret, kicking myself now), now I have to fork out another £30 if I want to play on American servers and start my char all over again. Thanks a lot ANET

What they really need to do to solve the UW/FoW problem is to let Europe have free reign of them. Let EU players to access UW/FoW 24/7. For trading, create a Internation Trading Bazarr Zone. One zone + good translators = less spam in major towns, equal economy all over the world and everything is fixed so EU can be happy.

I'd rather play in EU myself because the people are A LOT better to play with than America but that is another story.

Well here's my suggestion.

Allow Europeans into American servers, but still keep a few Euro-only servers up.

Open FoW/UW auto-matically (not the statues in the middle of maps) to Americans for a certain hour, and do that with the europeans and the koreans. But still play for favor of the gods, so koreans may have favor of the gods but if its European's time for FoW/UW to open they can go in too.

I'm noticing more and more Europeans have switched to America lately. It blew my mind; me, a guildie, and one other guy were the only people who spoke English as a first language in my last FoW group.

I agree and disagree in the same breath.

1- the problem of favor would certainly be gone, and it certainly would be more fairly matched.
2- this would also eliminate the need for Euros to switch servers since an american team winning favor would work for Euros as well

3- This wouldn't solve the (temporarily forgotten) problem of nationalism and racism promoted.

However:

If they made two "favor zones" (while keeping the localized servers) and gave them simply two mythological/religious names (Grenth's Congregation, Balthazaar's Army, etc.) then they could solve all problems in one go. So I agree with your solution, but propose the addition of name changes for the zones.

No more WaW...

I agree
they shouldn't keep real country/continent names in the game

You know, I bounce back and forth on opinions here... I like the WaW aspect because it's really all that ties a level 20 PVP created character to all of us Roleplayers. But I know it must be brutal on the europeans to watch America and Korea fight over favor, and have it little themselves. And the Hall of Heroes, and Favor, are all that use real world places... breaks the RP aspect, which I love, to realise that those blasted koreans have taken my favor. I'd like to somehow set up divisions, but in a balanced way. Sometimes I think perhaps if each guild got put into a random division, like the Grenth's Congregation or Balthazaar's Army mentioned above, then those divisons fight each other for access, would be much more balanced. Instead of winning the favor for this country/area, you would win the favor for your divison. Only problem is, usually whole guilds dont fight the HoH... but maybe they really should! More Guild interaction ahoy.

Yes, the randomly splitting up into Factions to gain favour instead of it being country-specific seems like a good idea. Whoever said about an International trade disctrict though, there is already one and no one bothers to use it. In America server 1 there are easily 10 times more people trading than International district.

100 times or more - International Districts are where I go for silence and to be alone.

i'm european and feel as if the whole continent where i am is useless in the GW community i've been in the underworld 3 times and got nothing but demonic remains (i've been there every time europe got the favor when i was online + i play quite a lot which makes this situation quite sad...). Maybe a new system could be promoted, my proposal would be to open the underworld on mondays for America, tuesdays for Europe, wednesdays for Korea, and the rest of the week the different areas could fight for it. This would give europeans the opportunity to go in the underworld 4 times a month (let's stay realistic it wouldn't be any more than that ) which i think isn t too much to ask for

I'd say, do not allow any region changes anymore but slightly better drops for Europeans.

And why is that a good thing?

My opinion is that PvP and PvE should NOT be interconnected in ANY way. They are two completely different aspects of the game and thus, they should be seperated. The PvP players got their seperation of the PvE part of the game with the introduction of the faction points. Now it's time for the PvE players to get their independence as well.

Ah, yes and we shall completly seperate them in an expansion!
I will suffice it to say I don't agree with you, Fantus - We are all still playing the same game, after all.

No, we don't. All we do is using the same game engine. It beats me why seperating PvP from PvE is a good thing (=Faction point system), while the other way around would not be a good thing. Do you PvP guys draw satisfaction from the fact that 1,000s of roleplayers are completely dependent on your PvP skills or what? Would you PvP players like it if you only could access your precious Hall of Heroes when one of us PvE players beats Hell's Precipice in the last 5 minutes?

I think you have me picked wrong, I'm a PVEer. I don't do much PVP that isnt with my guild, allthough I've taken the Hall a few times with my guild/PUGs.
I like keeping everyone linked together very much, and I feel PVP is still quite dependant upon PVE, do you really want to earn all the faction to unlock the skills? You must play far more than I do... ^_^