Cross region PvE...so i can join my AU and EU friends

[FearedFox.3906]

why isnt this an option yet, i get it would break the game if it was implemented for PvP and WvW, but it should be allowed for PvE, why do we have the ability to add people cross-region if we will never be able to play with them

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Because the Devs feel it's better to have two Data Centers, so the EU folks don't have to play from US servers, if they don't want to.

[Tzarakiel.7490]

This question gets asked at least once every month. Please try a little harder to find the answer first before making a new discussion.

[Trise.2865]

Let's do this mathematically: Take the current amount of lag you experience reaching your local data center. Now multiply it by the Atlantic Ocean. Is that acceptable amounts of lag? or is it unplayable?

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

Since there are two data centers and each account is only on one that means you’d have to transfer your account to the other data center each time you want to play on it. A transfer can take up to half hour, depending on how fast your connection is and whether your connection drops in the middle of a transfer, etc etc. If they combine the two data centers, presumably getting rid of the EU data center, then that effects all EU players as their ping goes up, lag increases and the chances of them getting dropped while playing also goes up. It doesn’t make the game unplayable for them but it is a negative impact.

 

Edit: here’s what the devs say about it

 

> [From the World Restructuring thread, 31 Jan 2018](

)

> [Q](

): will it be possible to TEMPORARILY guest for free cross-region, to allow us at least a temporary way to play at least PVE with friends cross-region?

> [A](

): No that won't be possible - guesting allowed your "current world" to change but didn't do anything with the location of your data - Europe or North America. We have talked about what it would take to play in Europe and have your data in NA (for example) but the cables under the Atlantic are just not robust enough to have reliable database saves across continents

>

> [Q](

): I remember changing servers instantly in GW1, how that was possible then? Different system all together?

> [A](

): In Guild Wars character data /is/ actually transferred across the Atlantic and it was a huge source of downtime and disconnects for EU players. It wasn't fair at all and so for Guild Wars 2 we decided it was a better trade-off to have reliable service on the same continent even if that limited the ability to play together somewhat.