Loyalties and Practicalities

World of Warcraft still doesn't have a certain release date for Europe, but is widely expected to be released end of February, or March at the latest. And then I'll be in trouble: Do I stay on the American servers, or do I switch to the Euro servers?

From a pure technical point of view, there isn't much reason to change. From Europe you can play on the US servers just fine, with not much noticeable lag. A Euro server *could* be more stable than the overcrowded US server Icecrown I'm on now, but I could as well end up on an overcrowded Euro server with the same problems. Playing on a US server 9 time zones away has the advantage that I never got into the prime time queues, but the disadvantage that the weekly maintenance prevents me from playing on Tuesday evening. Not sure yet what is worse.

So while technical reasons don't push me one way or the other, the deciding factor will be my guilds. Since years I'm in The Echelon, in different games, and it is with them that I'm playing on Icecrown. Great guys, we are having a lot of fun when playing together, and we help each other out by sending stuff via mail all of the time. Trouble is the same as in all these years: We are playing together not very often, due to the difference in time zones. During the week, when I play in the evenings, I meet the few guild members that are playing during the day. During the weekends, around the middle of my day, I'm often the only guild member online, because it is the middle of the night where they are. And then they organize a guild event in their evening, and I can't attend because it is 4 am in the morning here.

For this reason I decided to switch guilds for Everquest 2, which I played with The Order of the Rose-Croix, a European guild with mainly UK members. And of course they will be playing World of Warcraft as well, which would give me the opportunity to play with a guild playing just 1 time zone away. I kind of botched playing with them in EQ2, because I was too concentrated on crafting to group much, my mistake. But I would expect that if I play WoW with them on the Euro server, I'd have a lot more opportunities for guild groups and guild events.

I really like the fact that you can solo World of Warcraft when you want. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to group. And guild groups are so much better than pickup groups, where you sometimes are plagued with the most incredible idiots. If I wanted to play solo, I wouldn't need to pay a monthly fee for a massively multiplayer online game, there are a lot of quite good single-player games out there. And as I mentioned in my WoW tips, playing in a group means you can get quest rewards and loot which you would be unable to solo. Furthermore I could play a character class which is strong in groups while being less optimal solo, for example a warrior. Playing on a Euro server would mean playing on "prime time" most of the time, so finding a group at most times, guild or pickup, should not be a problem.

Right now I'm undecided. I'd hate to leave my old guild. I'd hate to abandon my druid, who is level 37 now, and restart from level 1. And I'm not sure the European launch will not have the same server problems as the US version, and wouldn't want to stand in a waiting queue every evening. But I would like to group more than I'm doing now. And the Euro guild would be playing Horde, enabling me to see more of the other half of the game. Decisions, decisions.

Well, anyway, the US version is pre-paid until end of March. Assuming the Euro version comes out before that, I can try it out and see how good or bad it is in comparison. I'm already thinking about what I would play as Horde: Troll Warrior as main, and Undead Warlock as alt? Whereever I go, and whatever I play, seems I'm stuck with WoW for quite some time to come.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:58 AM Permanent Link