On October 30 2011 09:27 Sek-Kuar wrote:
Forgive me my english, but did they really say its region free?

I understood from it that you select any realm, but then its locked for you...

It was said many times in the thread.

You will be able to play in any region you want and switch from on region to another (D2 style). Only the realmoney auction house is region locked, you can access one and only one RMAH.

windsupernova

Mexico5280 Posts

October 30 2011 04:03 GMT

#24

Its probably due to administrative or legal issues.

[Agony]x90

United States853 Posts

October 30 2011 04:06 GMT

#25

I'm sure there's also regional economic reasons as well. Monetary worth in one region of the world may not equal that somewhere else. Someone living in say, the Philippines, would not be able to afford items if it were based on an American system. At the same time, people from China or once again, the Philippines will have a smaller incentive to mass farm items. (They can't mass farm items and sell them to Americans who are willing to pay more for a service than a Filipino or Chinese person would be willing.) That said, as an American, this doesn't affect me too much. For people, like reasonable, who live elsewhere, I don't know what kind of repercussions this will have.

Endymion

United States3701 Posts

October 30 2011 05:40 GMT

#26

... d3 is region free but sc2 isn't? what is this, i don't even..

GGTeMpLaR

United States7226 Posts

October 30 2011 05:58 GMT

#27

I really wish they would eventually do this with SC2 so we could have the option there as well. Although it would present certain league complications, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find a solution.

Reasonable

Ukraine1432 Posts

October 30 2011 06:03 GMT

#28

On October 30 2011 08:10 vaporizor wrote:
i hope with some luck or a miracle we can keep the Chinese farmers out!!!!!

It surely keeps me out since I won't be able to sell a damn thing in this broke shithole.

rezoacken

Canada2719 Posts

October 30 2011 06:17 GMT

#29

On October 30 2011 15:03 Reasonable wrote:

Show nested quote +

It surely keeps me out since I won't be able to sell a damn thing in this broke shithole.

Maybe you can subscribe to the game by stating you live in say France. They certainly spoke of rules and issues if you want to switch region. For your starting region so far it doesn't look very hard to fake your country from what I gather from the video.

Cyro

United Kingdom20345 Posts

October 30 2011 06:41 GMT

#30

On October 29 2011 06:37 Kairos~ wrote:
This may be off-topic, but do you need to be a certain age to use the RMAH?

Need to be 18 to buy the game.

I had to walk half a mile to the shop in rain for midnight release to buy starcraft 2, and had to go home for ID because the game was rated 15 and there is some stupid policy here where you have to "look 21 or over" to buy anything rated 15+

Nilrem

United States3684 Posts

October 30 2011 07:37 GMT

#31

Not entirely true, Sc2 is partially region free for certain areas. It was a whiles back but there were hints of the potnetial for Sc2 as a whole moving to being entirely region free. They (Blizzard) is probably testing it out and using guinea-pigs to eventually bring it to NA.

It does seem like Diablo III will be much more lenient when it comes to playing with others so how ever they have it rigged it, possibly easier to implement. Regardless, I am glad it is to be region free. This is good news to me and makes me a bit happier with Diablo III.

Taguchi

Greece1575 Posts

October 31 2011 00:44 GMT

#32

funny how d3 is going to be region free while sc2 isnt

really, id like to hear them explain this away
we couldnt create a gateway system for sc2 but did in the case of diablo because...

i bet they start waving their hands around screaming ESPORTS (and they'll need to scream so as not to have to listen to the obvious responses like "but we still have lag ANYWAY if we want to host a tourney with koreans, americans and euros!!")

anyway, good news! the RMAH being regionlocked is obviously ok, blizz couldnt possibly navigate through all different laws and regulations to make a global AH work, and nevermind different currencies and value of money elsewhere

Perseverance

Japan2800 Posts

October 31 2011 00:54 GMT

#33

if I live in Japan, do I get access to NA and EU? It's no big deal if not since I was already planning on buying multiple copies of the game.

paralleluniverse

4065 Posts

October 31 2011 08:30 GMT

#34

Great.

Now we have leverage to demand they remove region locking from SC2.

BeMannerDuPenner

Germany5638 Posts

October 31 2011 11:29 GMT

#35

On October 31 2011 09:44 Taguchi wrote:
funny how d3 is going to be region free while sc2 isnt

really, id like to hear them explain this away
we couldnt create a gateway system for sc2 but did in the case of diablo because...

i bet they start waving their hands around screaming ESPORTS (and they'll need to scream so as not to have to listen to the obvious responses like "but we still have lag ANYWAY if we want to host a tourney with koreans, americans and euros!!")

anyway, good news! the RMAH being regionlocked is obviously ok, blizz couldnt possibly navigate through all different laws and regulations to make a global AH work, and nevermind different currencies and value of money elsewhere

it never was a question of "can they make a gateway selection". as i said during beta already, the could enable that within days. bnet infrastructure recognizes accounts from other regions (like i can log into us battlenet with my acc and it shows up my games etc) and even the coding for that is done since the down under guys got access to us servers.

they just dont want to.

well good news i guess for d3. tho i care much less in d3 about it then in sc2.

Jerubaal

United States7684 Posts

October 31 2011 14:15 GMT

#36

I'm hoping/assuming there will only be one NA server?

bubblegumbo

Taiwan1296 Posts

October 31 2011 14:33 GMT

#37

I love Blizzard if this region free thing is true, I was worried finding a way to get a US copy here in Taiwan to play with my US friends. Now I can just pick up a copy at the store and pick a region to log into when the game comes out.

andeh

United States904 Posts

October 31 2011 20:50 GMT

#38

I'm going to guess since d3 will come region free, sc2 will come region free in hots.

It would be a really hard argument for them to make if d3 wasn't lock and sc2 remained so. ~_~

rezoacken

Canada2719 Posts

October 31 2011 20:56 GMT

#39

On October 31 2011 09:54 Perseverance wrote:
if I live in Japan, do I get access to NA and EU? It's no big deal if not since I was already planning on buying multiple copies of the game.

So far they were cautious in their information about asia. Everything in the OP is not 100% sure for Asia. I think though you will get at least region free for gaming, RMAH is the big question for asia.

Technique

Netherlands1542 Posts

November 01 2011 11:11 GMT

#40

On November 01 2011 05:50 andeh wrote:
I'm going to guess since d3 will come region free, sc2 will come region free in hots.

It would be a really hard argument for them to make if d3 wasn't lock and sc2 remained so. ~_~

Not really, since 1 is esports and the other is just a fun hack and slash game... can't compare the 2 when it comes to things like lag/delay.