Blizzard Introduce Global Play for Diablo III
Posted 1 May 2012 by Rushster
Blizzard updated us on how Global play will work now when the game is region free, you can play wherever you want but with some restrictions to the Auction House.
Diablo III’s global game servers are grouped into three distinct game regions:
The Americas – For players in the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.
Europe – For players in the European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Asia – For players in South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
In general, players will create characters and play in their “home” region, which is determined by where they live (specifically, the country of residence registered to their Battle.net account). Global Play gives players the ability to switch to any of the other game regions via the in-game options menu, either before or after they log in to the game.
Note that characters, items, and friends lists do not transfer across regions. Playing on a different region’s servers means you’ll be creating characters and friends lists specifically for that region, and you’ll be accessing the gold-based auction house for that region.
In addition, players will only have access to the real-money auction house (where applicable) when playing in their “home” game region. That means that, for characters outside of your home region, items cannot be bought or sold in any real-money auction house. The focus of Global Play is simply to give you the ability to play Diablo III together with your friends in any region.
For more information on Global Play in Diablo III, see the FAQ.
….the ****?
“The Americas – For players in the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.”
Whose bat****-crazy idea was it to include Southeast Asia in “The Americas?” At least Australia/NZ need to be thrown in SOMEWHERE and nothing is going to quite make sense….so might as well lump them in. But according to Blizz, Southeast Asia is now not a part of Asia.
I would guess that the Asia region as they define it is done that way to include all the countries for which they will not be allowed to include a real-money auction house. Other Asian countries such as Japan get included with us so they can be on a RMAH.
Except Japan is not included in America region at all…..
What region are they in then? They’re not mentioned in the Blizzard post, and since they’re in southeast Asia and are ok with RMAH I assumed that was the “Southeast Asia” mentioned in the Americas region.
A lot of the groupings are determined by language barriers.
Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore fit much better when grouped with other English-speaking countries.
why bitch about it if it’s not even going to make it a problem.
Another white trash being a dumb ass noob and pointing out something pointless.
There must have been a reason why they did this or else they would not have.
Seriously dude… at least make a valid point when posting
I like how they found a way to allow cross-region play while limiting ‘Chinese Gold Farmer’ type issues.
http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-realmoney-auction-house-regional-access#americas
According to that table, China will be indeed not be part of the Americas, however India will be =/
Actually, these are the countries not part of the Americas, Europe or Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau) regions: China, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, South Sudan.
Want to know more about Diablo III’s new auction house feature? We’ve just updated the Diablo III web site with a comprehensive Auction House guide that walks you through the ins and outs of Diablo III’s in-game item marketplace, including details on buying and selling, a breakdown of how the real-money auction house works (in regions where available), and more. You’ll also find some important information on Battle.net account-security requirements that players interested in using the real-money auction house will need to know about.
The gold-based auction house opens its doors worldwide on May 15 with the launch of Diablo III, and we plan to bring the real-money auction house online approximately one week after that. This is a new service that includes lots of complex elements, so we are going to take a little extra time to ensure the game gets off to a good start before we flip the switch and open the real-money auction house for business.
“Note that characters, items, and friends lists do not transfer across regions. Playing on a different region’s servers means you’ll be creating characters and friends lists specifically for that region, and you’ll be accessing the gold-based auction house for that region.”
Interesting. So correct me if I’m wrong, but does this mean that, as long as we don’t mind splitting our characters across the three different regions, we can actually create 30 characters rather than the 10 we’d be limited to if we only played in one region?
Not necessarily, as they could count those characters against your total.
My own question is answered in the official FAQ (http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-global-play-faq):
Heroes are available to play only in the game region in which they were created, and you are not able to move a hero from one game region to another. Each game region has its own independent hero list, and you can have up to a total of 10 heroes per region (counting both normal and Hardcore characters) at a time. You will be presented with a region-specific hero list whenever you change game regions.
Will Real ID friends be visible across regions?
I would think the answer is yes since RealID is global across all Blizzard games.
Told you guys on the stream, don’t doubt us again
Well for Europeans the ping on the American Server was still quite good so its definitively an option to have those 30 chars.
Umm thats 20 for Euro and American I dont many people from Europe or the US +Australia NZ will play on the Asian servers.
Heroes are available to play only in the game region in which they were created.
So if I have friends in Americas and Europe, I’m totaly screwed because I can’t play with all my friends at the same time. Come on ! It’s so stupid.
you could if you can convince one group of friends to creat characters on the other server. They will miss out on the oh-so-much-fun of the RMAH but I think some people would be able to live with that
Get your EU mates to go American Server or vice versa maybe?
I just think this is interesting simply because there reason for not having any offline play was due to noobs not knowing the difference between offline and online characters. doesn’t this create just as much confusion?
Top it all off with the fact that the RMAH which was so groundbreaking wont be breaking ground till after release.
Why does Blizz think all of its players have mental defects?
Well the game automatically put you on a server based on your Battlenet details. Also it super-hidden in the options so “noobs” wont find it.
Just hope there won’t be as much lag when the game launches. Couldn’t avoid dying with any class in the beta with so many sudden spikes in the latency. (200~2000)
Shouldnt be that bad due to servers being closer (in theory).
I do live in Brazil… but honestly, if the game is unplayable for alot of people simply because of location, they will have some angry customers to deal with.