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Free Character Migrations for select EU realms
Players on EU realms looking for a change of pace or simply a new place to call home should take note -- Blizzard has opened up free Character Migrations for select EU realms. These Character Migrations are a one-time move from a predetermined list of source realms to a choice of a few destination realms. It's a one-time, one-way move, but it's absolutely free of charge for those that want to take advantage of the process while it's available. At the moment, these Character Migrations will be available until October 23. However, they can be closed down at any time, if enough people have taken advantage of the offer. Players may also want to note that this is on an individual character basis only. Any guild leaders looking to move their guilds may do so through the Guild Master Realm Transfer service, which they'll still need to pay for. However, guild members that want to follow to the new realm can do so for free with the Character Migration offer. Please note -- this service is only available to EU realms, and at this time, there are no free Character Migrations available for US players. Read on for the official announcement, as well as the full list of available realms for the Free Character Migration offer.
Vaneras on the merging of high-pop realms
As we reported the other day, connected realms will soon be coming to WoW's EU servers. As expected, there have been a bevy of questions regarding the upcoming changes, and the EU community managers been busy keeping on top of updates. Connected realms represent a number of potential benefits that have many folks hopeful that their servers might get an injection of vitality, so Vaneras took some time to give a clarification of what the current intentions are behind the use of connected realms. Some players on high-population realms, particularly high-pop realms with an enormous faction imbalance, have been looking toward connected realms as a potential way to correct that imbalance. Alas, Vaneras explains in his post that this functionality is not currently a way in which Blizzard intends to use connected realms technology. Connected realms are specifically focused on improving the situation of small-population servers. If you play on a small server, you're likely familiar with many of the problems they face: few guild options, stagnant economy, very high prices for essential raiding supplements such as gems, glyphs, and enchants, as well as increased difficulty in tackling group content. These are the types of problems connected realms are intended to alleviate. Vaneras further explains that, because of the limitations of the existing technology, merging very high population servers just is not physically possible at the moment. The technology may expand or evolve in the future in ways that may make it possible, but for now, it's not an option. The full blue post is under the break.
Expanded battleground queuing for select EU realms
If you play on an English or Spanish language EU realm, your battleground queues may be changing soon. As of February 25th, players of the same faction on some English realms and all Spanish realms will be able to form teams in battlegrounds. Blue poster Draztal explains that the change is being made in an effort to help improve low-level battleground queue times. To help ease the transition Blizzard will be providing a glossary of common English and Spanish terms used in battleground PvP so newly interacting players can overcome the language barrier. Now if anyone gets on you about rotting your brain playing video games, just tell them you're practicing your foreign language skills! For the time being, Blizzard is also opening up the local-language only forum restriction for the Spanish realms affected. If you wish to team up with Spanish players but don't really speak Spanish, now's your chance to ask them in English and hope that nothing gets lost in translation. Happy bilingual battling! The full blue post after the break.
You can always depend on the kindness of strangers
Since I began studying the social and community nature of WoW, was lucky enough to land a job here at WoW Insider, and joined twitter not long after, I've been blown away by the WoW community. Sure, it's not always perfect, sometimes we have our ups and downs, but most of the time this game brings people together in ways that, to this day, continue to surprise me. So, when I received an email from Dtail of Vashj EU, in which he asked about a particular addon, and also mentioned that his server had such a low population that he couldn't find anyone to sign his guild charter to get a guild bank set up, I suddenly thought "hold on a minute, I bet the WoW community could help Dtail out!" When I wrote up the Addon Spotlight, I included a plea for help getting Dtail's guild charter signed, and to my surprise I received a fair few responses! I then took to twitter, thinking that asking there could be a good move, and that I could hopefully communicate with anyone who was interested in helping out. It wasn't a lofty goal, particularly, to get 3 players together, but asking for help from what are essentially strangers is always a little daunting.
European maintenance extended to 1500 CEST
Blizzard EU has informed us via Twitter that maintenance has been extended to 1500 CEST, which is 1400 UK time. This is certainly not unusual for large patches and definitely not for ones that make such major changes to the game's systems and structure. Edit: Most realms are up two hours earlier than scheduled! Maintenance continues for Nemesis and Pozzo dell'Eternità. Of course, WoW Insider will keep you updated, but in the meantime, why not check out some of our coverage of patch 5.0.4? Release version of the 5.0.4 patch notes Class-by-class glyph changes for 5.0.4 Spellbook changes for 5.0.4 Updated information on the Battle of Theramore What you need to know about pets, mounts and achievements An updated list of addons that are ready for 5.0.4 An addon survival guide for patch day It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
WoW and Burning Crusade on sale at EU store for 4.99€ each
World of Warcraft Classic and The Burning Crusade are currently on sale at the Blizzard Europe store for 4.99€ (£4.99) each. This sale will last until June 20, 2011. Now is a great time to buy the game as a gift or start up that second account for some sweet recruit-a-friend rocket mount action. We do not have any information yet if the sale will be extended to the US store, but in the past these sales have been paralleled in both regions. For now, check these links for the EU store downloads and retail version links: WoW Classic at the EU store. The Burning Crusade at the EU store. REMINDER -- These copies of WoW are for the European realms ONLY. If you are a US realm customer, wait until we have confirmation about a US-specific sale on these games.
European weekly maintenance: 17th June 2009
Happy Wednesday everybody! After the annoying events of last week when the Battle Bots were ripped from the fingers of European players, things have settled down and are back to normal. With that in mind, it's maintenance time. All the realms are going down from 3:00am to 11:00am CEST. As always, there's plenty to do and read during this maintenance. There's a nice round up of news for you to read if you are up. Hint: if you are reading this at 3:00am, go back to bed! Those aren't birds singing but owls. Go. Back. To. Bed.Edit: Our beloved Overlady and Editor in Chief has decreed I also link you to our tattoo, license plate and cake galleries. I don't particularly care for the first two but the cakes are awesome and so delicious. The cake is so not a lie.
European weekly maintenance: 10th June 2009
Welcome to Wednesday in Europe. While the Americans are still sleeping and dreaming of that next boss kill, it's a brand new day and, with it, a bunch of rolling restarts to boot. Yes, rolling restarts: it's a different kind of maintenance this week. We'll be getting fifteen minute warnings before the restarts take place between 5:00am and 7:00am CEST so do bear that in mind when you start that wee-small-hours-of-the-morning raid in Ulduar. The rest of the downtime is forum and website-side with both going offline between 3:00am and 5:00am CEST. So it's a relatively painless bout of maintenance this week, one I fully intend to sleep through. If you're looking for something to read on the bus to school or the commuter train to work, then Daniel W. has plenty for your to browse through. Personally I think it's just an excuse to post that Sailor Moon kitty form although I freely admit the anime fan in me is currently screaming loudly for my own senshi makeover.
European extended and weekly maintenance: 27th May 2009
Good morning Europe. May is almost over and summer seems to be officially here -- at least in the UK. This week we have something different. For most of us, it's the usual bout of maintenance but some lucky souls are getting extended downtime for a very special reason.Basically the Big Giant Heads at Blizzard have decided to merge a couple of Battlegroups. What's so special about that, I hear you cry? Well, it's special because the groups concerned are all in different languages. Yes, this will be the first time French, German, Spanish and English will come together to make multilingual Battlegroups. Lovely EU Blue Wryxian has created a quick FAQ to explain what the heck is going on, though I confess to still being a little confused.This means most of us will have normal maintenance between 5:00am and 7:00am CEST while folks in Nightfall, Crueldad, Nemesis and Hinterhalt (realm-wise, that's Aionsus, Anachronos, Bronze Dragonflight, Burning Steppes, Darkmoon Faire, Darkspear, Kor'gall and Lightbringer) will have extended maintenance between 3:00am and 11:00am CEST.Anyway, my usual motto of 'keep calm and carry on' applies. In the meantime, Daniel Whitcomb has once again provided a feature packed post to keep you entertained. If you finish reading that with time to spare and just happen to be a druid, well you might just want to stare at those lovely updated forms some more. I know I will be.
Updated: European weekly maintenance: 13th May 2009
Greetings folks, it's once again Wednesday and you know what that means? Yes, it's maintenance day once again. Where did the week go? I must be getting older because time is flying by way too fast.Things finally seem to be settling down as we're back to the normal maintenance routine of downtime between 5am and 7am CEST. Of course, our poor American brethren were once again in guinea pig mode. They experienced a rather lengthy period of extended maintenance yesterday afternoon so, as usual, don't hold your breath. As if anticipating the whiff of downtime, Daniel W. compiled a rather extensive list of things do to during the (hopefully short) downtime. See y'all when the servers come back up!Update: All the servers seem to be back up a bit earlier than anticipated. However Blizzard have posted a note concerning 'technical difficulties' relating to the login/authentication servers and promise they're looking into it. Hopefully the problem will be fixed pretty quickly but if you find yourself unable to get into Azeroth, that's why. All you can do is keep calm and carry on, folks.
European extended weekly maintenance: 29th April 2009
Good morrow, my European companions, it's Wednesday which means only one thing. Yes it's maintenance time once more.This week we're getting yet another patch: 3.1.1a and I'm seriously hoping this will be the end of all of the patch 3.1 chaos. That said, we here in European haven't had such a bad time of it thanks to the American guinea pigs over the pond.As you've probably predicted by now we're getting downtime until 11am CEST this morning. Hopefully this latest patch will make it all better, eh?In the meantime, I suggest you make some tea, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and install the patch. You can, of course, also check our posts from yesterday which have fun suggestions of things to do during the downtime.
UPDATE: European weekly maintenance: Wednesday 22nd April 2009
Wednesday is, as always, maintenance day here in Europe and this morning is no different. While any realms escaped last week's post patch chaos, we still had problems so Blizzard are of course keen to fix them so we're going from 3.1 to 3.1.1 and, as usual, we have to wait an extra twemty four hours to get it. With this in mind, we've got an extended maintenance meaning all European realms are going to be down between 3am and 11am CET. However if US maintenance is anything to go by, prepared for it to be extended to 3pm CET.Oh and just cause they're nice (and there were some er issues) everyone is getting a free respec tomorrow. Yep, all your talents get wiped so you get to spend the first half an hour of up-time sorting them all out. This doesn't include gylphs though, just FYI.Anyway, in the mean time, why not check out some of the suggestions in yesterday's US post to kill some time? Alternatively, why not take a peek at the full patch notes here.Update: Having been tipped off by a number of our European readers and just applied the patch myself, it seems while the weekly maintenance is still being listed all the realms are currently up.
UPDATED: European maintenance extended till 3pm CET
Let's get real here for a second. When I signed off at midnight, the US realms were only just started to pop back up. Did you honestly think we here in Europe were going to get away scott free? You did? Oh dear, let's not go there, eh?Folks have been reporting extended maintenance and so we're now looking at 3pm CET. All we need to do now is cross our digits that Blizzard managed to fix whatever was ailing the US realms before starting to roll out 3.1 on our severs. Needless to say. I'll be keeping you guys in the loop should things change.So in the meantime, as your waiting, why not enter our EU loot card competition? Your could also check out our 3.1 FAQ and start planning your new primary and secondary specs using Wowhead's new calculator.Not finished patching yet and having issues? Try this post.Hopefully we should have a smoother ride of it but I'll be keeping you updated nevertheless.UPDATE: As of 3pm CET, the realms are slowly starting to come back up. Some of the most popular ones - Vek'nilash amongst them - keep going offline, probably due to being hammered by players trying to login. Hang on in there.UPDATE: Most of the realms are now back!
The Queue: The Scantily Clad Edition
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hello, everybody! I'm going to jump right into things today because I'm sure at least a dozen people will want to shiv me for my answer to our first question, and I'd like to give everyone time to do that.Andrew R. asked..."Why do the females in WoW always wear such scantily clad gear? I don't see how plate armor that exposes half your upper body will do you any good when someone wants to stab you. Isn't it kind of degrading to real women who play the game?"
New European transfers
In their continuing efforts to bring some faction balance to Magtheridon (EU), Blizzard has refreshed free character transfers off of the server for Horde, and onto the server for Alliance. These transfers are scheduled to run from today until Feburary 10: Magtheridon -> Haomarush, Tarren Mill, Trollbane, Zenedar, Silvermoon (Horde only) Aerie Peak, Aggramar, Alonsus, Arathor, Azjol-Nerub, Bronze Dragonflight, Bronzebeard, Eonar, Hellscream, Khadgar, Lightbringer, Kilrogg, Kul Tiras, Silvermoon, Terenas, Turalyon -> Magtheridon (Alliance only) In addition, the following transfers are now open for European players of either faction: Al'Akir, Stormscale -> Vek'nilash, Xavius Burning Legion, Grim Batol -> Boulderfist, Trollbane Crushridge, Sylvanas -> Chromaggus, Haomarush Kazzak, Ravencrest -> Laughing Skull, Sunstrider Outland, Twilight's Hammer -> Daggerspine, Lightning's Blade Ragnaros, Shattered Hand -> Kor'gall, Shattered Halls Argent Dawn -> Steamwheedle Cartel, The Sha'tar These also are scheduled to run until the 10th of this month, and like all other transfers may close early if the desired population levels are reached. Magtheridon players, have you noticed an improvement in the faction balance since they started pumping Alliance in and Horde out? WarcraftRealms is now showing a 1:16 population ratio overall on that server, which is much better than the 1:67 ratio it was showing when the transfers started (but still pretty bad).
Free EU transfers continue
Man, you'd think they're trying to achieve realm population balance or something. Blizzard has just opened up yet another round of free character transfers for the European realms, these scheduled to be active from now until Tuesday, January 27. Some of these transfers are simply extensions of the last round, and some are brand-new. Horde-only: Magtheridon -> Haomarush, Tarren Mill, Trollbane, Zenedar Alliance-only: Alonsus, Aszune, Bronze Dragonflight, Bronzebeard, Emerald Dream, Eonar, Kul Tiras, Runetotem, Shadowsong, Silvermoon -> Magtheridon Both factions: Al'Akir, Ravencrest -> Kor'gall, Lightning's Blade Burning Legion, Crushridge -> Vek'nilash, Xavius Grim Batol, Twilight's Hammer -> Dentarg, Dragonmaw Outland, Kazzak -> Burning Steppes, Haomarush Shattered Hand, Stormreaver -> Genjuros, Trollbane Stormscale, Sylvanas -> Spinebreaker, Zenedar Argent Dawn -> Darkmoon Faire, Steamwheedle Cartel, The Sha'tar Move early if you want to move, because transfers can be closed if the desired goals are met (i.e. world domination). So who's saying goodbye to their home server and leaving to a new world?
Many free transfers for Europe
An extravaganza of free character moves has just been made available for various European realms: Al'Akir -> Bladefist Burning Legion -> Chromaggus Frostmane -> Laughing Skull Grim Batol -> Genjuros Kazzak -> Karazhan Magtheridon -> Emeriss Neptulon -> Shattered Halls Outland -> Auchindoun Ravencrest -> Spinebreaker Stormreaver -> Burning Blade Stormscale -> Boulderfirst Sylvanas -> Jaedenar Twilight's Hammer -> Vek'nilash Argent Dawn -> Darkmoon Faire They will be open from today, the 13th, until Wednesday, November 18th. This is really not your typical character transfer here. Usually there's a group of source realms with one destination realms, sometimes two. I'm not sure I've ever seen something like this: 14 source realms with 14 different destination realms. This may have to do with the more fractured situation in Europe – with four realm types (PvE, PvP, RP, RP-PvP), five languages, and I'm not sure how many time zones, I can see how it might take some juggling to keep moves within one category. As always, if you do want to switch, you're advised to do it early, because transfers can be closed if the realms meet their desired populations early. Edit: I see that all of these realms are English and CEST (thanks, Sethox). No clue why they're so fragmented, then.
Wrath comes early to Europe
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Wrath_of_the_Lich_King_is_live_early_in_Europe'; Although the rest of us have to wait until midnight Eastern/9 PM PST, it looks like some lucky European subscribers have gained entry to Northrend and access to Death Knight creation! We've been getting multiple tips about it from different tipsters over the past half hour; at first it was easy to call it a fake, but at this point there are enough independent claims out there that I'll just have to accept the fact: North America is slow. Seriously though, how does it feel to be among the first non-beta Death Knights and Northrend questers in the world? Presumably, these are people who managed to get their copies of the game early, and upgraded their accounts already; who would have thought that would actually work? On second thought, maybe it's a good thing we don't have Wrath early. I would be seriously tempted to stay home and skip my own midnight event. I guess this means the race to 80 is on, and it's a pretty good bet the winner will be on a European realm. They always seem to get the firsts anyway. Update: this is apparently official: "Remember, there are different time zones, even in Europe." Wrath is live!
EU battlegroups experiencing language problems after mergers
Tipster Nimm writes in to let us know that several EU battlegroups have been having serious issues after mergers that occurred post-patch 3.02. The mergers have seen a number of battlegroups acquiring servers with other language-dominant populations, which has resulted in a number of French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian-dominant servers (among others) all in the same battlegroups. While this is probably necessary to a certain degree to guarantee equal Alliance/Horde populations for quick queue times, it's become something of a communication nightmare in battleground matches, particularly those with lots of players using Cyrillic characters. As the player Thoughtless from the Karazhan realm asks, "Can you imagine how hard it is to organise any sort of teamplay in AB with player ???????? from <????????> guild cha(t)ting "?????? ??? ??????? ??????? ?????" in BG chat?" Nimm also notes that differentiating between ??????? enemy players is a nightmare.We knew that Blizzard was closing four EU realms (Stonemaul, Molten Core, Shadowmoon, and Warsong) and transferring remaining players to other realms in response to Russian player migration to Russian realms opened late summer 2008, and the problem's partially the result of that (which has already resulted in the inevitable "In Soviet Russia, battlegroups merge you" joke). A few amused people are rising to the occasion by translating such phrases as inc 5 schmiede (inc 5 blacksmith in German) or proposing a revival of Esperanto, but the Russian language pack would be the only possible solution for the ???? problem. There's been mention made that this is only a temporary fix on Blizzard's part to faction imbalances on battlegroups, but if you're on an EU realm that's seen a recent battlegroup merge, just be aware that Babelfish might be a useful tool in the near future.
Playtime credit for many European realms
Last Monday, July 21st, many European realms apparently underwent thirteen hours of additional maintenance. Players were understandably upset. Blizzard understands this too, which is why they're giving players with characters on any of those realms a one-day playtime credit, like they do. The battlegroups Cyclone, Nightfall, Conviction, Ruin, and Rampage were affected, which is to say the following realms: Anachronos, Balnazzar, Blade's Edge, Bloodfeather, Bronze Dragonflight, Burning Steppes, Darkmoon Faire, Darksorrow, Darkspear, Defias Brotherhood, Earthen Ring, Frostwhisper, Genjuros, Hakkar, Haomarush, Hellscream, Kor'gall, Laughing Skull, Lightbringer, Lightning's Blade, Magtheridon, Molten Core, Neptulon, Nordrassil, Quel'Thalas, Ragnaros, Ravencrest, Runetotem, Scarshield Legion, Shadow Moon, Shadowsong, Shattered Hand, Silvermoon, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker, Steamwheedle Cartel, Stormrage, Stormreaver, Stormscale, Sylvanas, Terenas, The Maelstrom, The Venture Co., Thunderhorn, Turalyon, Twisting Nether, Vashj, and Xavius Anyone with an active account and a character on any of those realms will get a free day. That must have been some technical difficulty, since well over half the English-speaking European realms are on that list. Enjoy your playtime credit, my friends across the Atlantic.
