shirlw

We are currently living in South Africa and my 2 older sons 14 and 12 are nuts about World of Warcraft.They are worried that their game will not be compatable on the Australian network because they currently play the European one from what I understand(clueless mother that I am)...there are more than one type or circuit something about pinging.....but what do I know.

Please help clear this up for my boys if there are any Wow gamers out there.
TIA

Mochinbach

Hi!

I played Wow in Oz and in some ways they are right. You won't be able to acess their saved game on the Australian server if they play the European one.

I have the opposite problem ( I play on the Aussie server in the UK) . Here's how i solved the problem.

I still play on the Aussie server from the comfort of my Warwickshire home (UK). I've never had any problems with connectivity.
In order to pay for game time, a mate of mine in Melbourne buys me prepayed game cards and emails me the codes ( which I submit in the normal way) This does mean that you need to have money in the country yoiur mate is in so you can pay then back!

This has worked well for me and I assume that if you're in South Africa and playing on the Eurpean Server you're doing something similar?

You can transfer your toons over to the new server in Aus but then you won't be able to play with your guild or mates on line. You have to pay for this. It's worth noting though that because of the time difference Saturday morning (Friday night in Oz) is the only time I can play with my Aussie mates anyway!

I suggest you get your son to raise a help call with a GM (Games Master) in the game and ask them for more details. I can see the following about moving characters between realms in oz buy not across countries.

" The cost is $25.00 USD per character transferred. This service allows you to move your characters to different realms, and even from one of your accounts to another one of your accounts. Please note that account-to-account transfers are subject to certain restrictions.

The character transfer includes the transfer of gold, items in inventory, items in the bank, purchased bank slots, lifetime honor ranking, honor points, arena points, quests, and hunter pets that are associated with the character that you want to transfer. The character transfer does not include the transfer of quest kill progress, mail in the mailbox, and the guild affiliation and guild tabard design associated with the character that you want to transfer. Please note that you will be prompted to choose a new character name if a naming conflict exists on the destination realm.

Things to Know Before You Start!



* The paid character transfer is not immediate and may take several days to complete because of the approval process involved. Your character will not be available for play during this time.
* Each character you transfer costs $25.00 USD . This covers the character's ONE-WAY TRANSFER to a new realm, a new account, or both at the same time.
* Your character will not have any guild or arena team affiliation upon arrival at the destination realm.
* Each character may only transfer once every 3 days.
* You will need to rename your character if his/her name is taken on your destination realm.
* If you already have a character on a PvP realm, you may not transfer a character of the opposing faction to that PvP realm.
* Character transfers between accounts are subject to restrictions. Click here to learn more.
* For a list of eligible and ineligible destination realms, click here."

Centurion

In relation to "ping", thats the time taken for the game server to respond and how far it has to travel and what route, you can use a service such as www.lowerping.com

This routes your gaming traffic to say your European servers by dedicated routes and so on. So the difference between someone playing on a server located in say France when in Australia becomes relatively negligible compared to someone actually being in Europe and not using it.

I have used this in the past for a few games, and it supports WoW. Its works very well but of course is a chargeable service, not expensive, but there is a cost.

shirlw

Thanks for that...I let my eldest read your reply and he understands what he must do.We actually clean forgot about the time difference (currently 8hours for us)......it makes sense to change to Aussie circuit though.Incidentally,are there many WoW gamers in OZ or is that a dumb question ?

Mochinbach

Thanks for that Centurion but I've never had a problem with lag or ping ont he Aussie servers. In fact usually when I@m playing they're mostly asleep thius makes the server much faster (and farming alot easier!)

shirlw

Thanks for that Centurion.......his dad can look into that because I am a bit technophobic

The Bloke

If Federal Communications Minister, Senetor Stephen Conroy, has his way there apparently will be none. Alledgely WoW is on the supposed "possible banned sites list" for the internet filter, because of the "graphic" content. http://www.news.com.au/technology/st...014239,00.html

That is if it is ever implemented.

Hutch

Interesting concept - will check that out.

I retired my WoW character shortly before we emigrated. I did try playing on the Europeans servers from Oz, but my ping was pretty dreadful and that contributed to my decision. Well, that and the fact that it was eating up far more of my free time than was healthy!

What sort of a ping do you get?

sr71

I'm sure those services do optimise traffic, but you can't overcome the laws of physics.

The speed of light in fibre is about 66% the speed of light in a vacuum, so it travels about 120,000 miles per second, which is 120 miles per millisecond.

12,000 miles to Europe would mean minimum of 100 millisecond latency, and that is the best you could ever achieve with a single fibre cable between two points, which obviously doesn't exist. More likely to be minimum of 1.5-3.0x this.

In any case i am still on the European WoW servers using PvE and it is acceptable. I also recharge my account using an Australian credit card without any problems. (probably a security hole in their billing system - a UK address with an Australian card but maybe they don't check vigourously for small amounts.)

Centurion

My ping is 220 now to US servers from Aus using lower ping. Down from 600+

Hutch

Hmmm - I can get 220-250 to west coast servers without any proxy or VPN intervention and 250-300 for east coast. But then I suspect that Internode has the best peering arrangement of all the ISPs in Australia which probably helps. Of course everyone's pings are going to improve when the new pipes go live.

Dreamy

You can't move a character from a WoW Europe realm to a WoW US realm (the Oceanic realms favoured by Australian gamers are on the US system)

You can move a character from any realm within the two different companies but not from one to the other.

We decided after a couple of months to just abandon our European accounts and start again. It didn't really bother me so much, but the kids, who were heavily into Guild Raiding that the time difference was too much of an issue. Bit of a pain as for us it involved 5 new accounts and 5 new lots of expansions.. fortunately it was before WotLK.

The lag/ping/techie stuff wasn't that much of an issue - even the Oceanic realms servers are based in the US (although my eldest says they are on the West Coast)

dave99

12 and 14 playing wow? if I was their parent I wouldnt allow it to be honest. I have played wow in the uk and now in aus since it launched and the young players I have seen have all been pretty badly abused.
Wow is a very social game and when a very young player is on its very obvious from the things they say just how young they are and they quickly get attacked verbally by other people.
They just dont have the skills to deal with other people very well at that age, especially when things turn nasty as they frequently do.

If they like gaming theres lots of other titles out there, personally I wouldnt recomend warcraft for young players

shirlw

Thanks for your concern but we do check them regularly and it is our choice.We hope that we have taught them well enough to recognise when there are "strangers" at play and they tend to stick to their own little network locally where we live.Frankly I would rather they were gaming sensibly than doing the whole hoody yobbo thing on street corners.In south Africa our kids are cloistered enough due to high crime rate so that is their one little pleasure.They do play other games too but my eldest is quite a WoW fan so everything in moderation is fine by me.

shirlw

Thanks for that,I reckon we will probably end up doing the same eventually with the new accounts and expansions.