Oceania on European servers?

[Uon.7491]

Hello there!

I've been considering switching from North America to an European server, but I have some questions that I've been hoping to be answered before I make up my mind:

1. What is the Oceania population (numbers) like, or;
2. What are the most active "prime time" hours? (in server/UTC time).
3. (This is a question for Australians) I imagine that the latency will be around 400, is it tolerable for PvE content?
4. Are there active PvE guilds/groups/players that organise and run public content? Examples: World boss trains, Istan/Silverwastes farms, HP zergs, etc.
5. Is language barriers a problem?
6. Is there anything else I should know?

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.Cheers!

[Gulbasaur.1865]

@Uon.7491 said:Hello there!Hi! I'm an English person playing EU but at weird hours, so I will answer where I can. .

1. What is the Oceania population (numbers) like, or;Don't know about that, but the game is fairly busy from mid-morning here. Remember you're funnelled into populated zones via the mega-server system. Metas often have a morning shift as well as an evening shift.

2. (This is a question for Australians) I imagine that the latency will be around 400, is it tolerable for PvE content?I have a highly volatile internet connection because I live in England and we still use morse code and carrier pigeon for our internet connection... and nah. Well, it's playable, but also very irritating at times. It has ups and downs so maybe make a free to play account and have a romp around and see how it fares?

3. Are there active PvE guilds/groups/players that organise and run public content? Examples: World boss trains, Istan/Silverwastes farms, HP zergs, etc.YES. I have Istan-farmed at 8 am in the morning which is 7 pm in Sydney (I work from home and don't play much in the evening). World bosses might be a bit harder, but they do take place during the morning here. HP runs are more likely at the weekend, but, again, they do happen.

4. Is language barriers a problem?Rarely, actually. English is the defacto language but some people might not be too chatty. I've raided swapping between a mixture of English and French before. I was chatting with someone from Greece earlier and my guild has Germans and Portuguese people in it. People sometimes use language tags [FR] or [DE] in the LFG. Someone in the guild once had an entire conversation with someone asking him questions in German, us translating via Discord, then him replying in English. That was fun.

[Uon.7491]

My apologies for the late reply, Gulbasaur. I appreciate your answers and they have been helpful. Thank you!

I find it exhausting trying to work out the hours through time zones. I usually give up before I unravel the mysteries of "Prime Time" though what I understand is most activity is between 3:00pm and 10:00pm of a region. However, knowing which countries provide the most activity is entirely another thing. After browsing Reddit I noticed that Russian players were having issues with being locked out of Guild Wars 2, then being permitted again? Australia shares some time zones with Eastern Russia, but they may be as few and far between like those from Oceania.

What are the most active countries on the European servers? I'll try fiddling with a time zone converter based on those.

[Westenev.5289]

@Uon.7491 said:

1. What is the Oceania population (numbers) like, or;
2. (This is a question for Australians) I imagine that the latency will be around 400, is it tolerable for PvE content?
3. Are there active PvE guilds/groups/players that organise and run public content? Examples: World boss trains, Istan/Silverwastes farms, HP zergs, etc.

EU is basically the same as American servers, only with different names and a tad more compeditive playerbase. I tend to find the players from American servers tend to be a little more lax than those from European Servers, especially in PvP. People from Oceania tend to pop up everywhere you least expect though - a little bit of ping won't stop us from showing them Euro's how to git gud.

Most Euro's are active durring our early morning (perhaps at midnight, depending on where in Australia you live). This is usually when all of the raids occur too.

I'm from across the ditch, but my ping is somewhere in the 300 range in EU (200-250 for 'murica). Not bad considering I'm geographically on the opposite end of the planet from the servers, I guess? I've heard of 'stralian ping going as high as 400 in EU servers though, which isn't exactly ideal.

@Uon.7491 said:

5. Is language barriers a problem?

Most players can speak English, though you will occasionally come across some who can't. If Espanol is your second language, you'll have a much better time in these situations.

[Uon.7491]

Thank you so very much for your response, Westenev! It's helped me considerably.

I've decided to give the European servers a go and have moved to Ring of Fire as of today. Thankfully, I am not interested in the PvP side of Guild Wars 2 and only dabble in WvW from time to time. 500 Gems is not a steep price and I can save to return to the US servers if I feel the need to.