You should see the amount of complaints in the beta forum, as if this sort of thing hasn't happened before. It's not that I don't want to play with my Euro friends, but it's simply not that big of a deal in my eyes.

It didn't trouble WoW or any other of the plethora of MMOs that have done this... I just don't get people sometimes. Always looking to complain is what it seems like, and this just gave them another reason.

I understand that there may have been Kinships (guilds) with multi-nation members, but maybe I'm weird... WHO I play with does not determine whether I WILL play a game. I will play it because I like it, not because I like the people in it. Case in point my 2+ years of WoW. We all know how the community can be there, but that didn't stop me playing it.

Sigh... sorry, just venting. I understand the plight of the people who feel scathed by this, but I also think the "hurt" are just plain overreacting.
 

I think for many people the persons you play with may be more important than the game - at least when you get past a few months of playing.

I don't see a problem with a regional split, a number of games have done that before. But the problem here is that it seems that they will force which servers a person can register with, depending on where they are located.

Other games may have regional splits, but does not directly force players to that region in the same way. For the majority of players it will not be a problem most likely, but it is too bad that they arranged it this way.

People may want to choose to play in another region due to

* having friends in that region they want to play with
* their work hours are such that the time thy can play will be when the local region servers are least populated. Another region would have worked better.

Had a similar situation a few years ago when I planned to play Horizons with a few US friends (I am located in Sweden). Bought a copy in the US, only to find out that the game forced me to connect to the Euro servers. My main reason for playing that game at all was due to the people, not the game itself.
Needless to say, I did not really play any.

Turbine is not as large as SOE or Blizzard, so the kind of deals they can strike with regional operators will likely be different and this could be one effect of that.
 

Used to play PSO on Gamecube which had worldwide servers. Most Japanese players wouldn't play with European players on the grounds (so they said) that there was too much lag between the two regions, and much more chance of players getting DC (and in that game, DCd players could not return to the party once they came back online).
I used to have a snobbish attitude towards players from the USA, but WOW has now convinced me that there are just as many idiots in Europe.
*Vlad*
 

When I played Asherons Call, only a small percentage of the guild were Europeans, most were from North America and one or two from Oz or South East Asia.

When set up the guild in DAoC, we all played the US version - and the guild was a cross continental guild.

Same with SWG and City of Heroes.

But in the WoW generation of MMOGs, it seem that publishers like to "region lock" their games just like Film Studios like to region code their DVDs. And unlike DVD's it not so easy to get around (ie you need a US Credit Card and Address to pay by normal means, and whilst importing game cards is possible, its not convenient).

As a result, our guild is now really a European only guild. Only in ww2ol and Eve do I get to play with people from outside Europe now.

Its a shame, because I loved grouping with people from all over the world, even though that meant odd playing times sometimes :P.
 

"Just like World of Warcraft, the Lord of the Rings Online will ..."
I'm seeing that phrase (or variations of it) quite a lot...
 

Doeg, take "World of Wacraft" and replace it with "Everquest 2", "Dark Age of Camelot", "Asheron's Call", or any other number of traditional MMORPGs. Seriously. They're all inherently similar. Didn't Tobold recently address this?