The third race for world first place in WoW Dragonflight will begin in the coming days. The two main guilds, Echo and Liquid, were able to gain a raid level each and the two are expected to fight for victory in Amidrassil as well, although Method still wants to have a say.
One of the points of contention in recent races has increasingly been the different starting times. NA servers (North American servers) will come online on Tuesday night our time, while European players will have to wait until Wednesday morning. This gives NA players a clear advantage, especially since they can get new gear sooner after changing their ID and defeat the final boss immediately afterwards. The main unions have long been in favor of a global launch. But at Blizzard this falls on deaf ears. They are still sticking to the staggered release, as reiterated at BlizzCon.
The guys from the EU’s main guild, Echo, have had enough. They switch to the NA servers so they can start at the same time as their competitor Liquid. Guild Leader Scripe announced this in a tweet.
Echo is moving to NA servers, but for how long?
Gingi also confirmed the move on his stream, but without going into details. However, it’s unlikely that Echo will actually hold the Race to First in the World on the NA servers.. There are too many arguments against it. And Gingi, who was temporarily restrained in his statements by Scripe, repeatedly emphasized the “tomorrow” in “tomorrow we will attack the NA servers.”
It sounds like you want to shorten the wait time until the EU servers come online by playing on the NA server. Until now, all you could do during this time was sit back, wait, and see what the competition did. So now you have the opportunity to set foot in the raid yourself and test the tactics you have planned there.
Everything else barely makes sense. Sure, switching to the NA server would result in a simultaneous launch, which could also attract viewers. But the disadvantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
- Echo is already in Sweden, where its event will take place. From there, the latency is about 150 ms.
- Character transfers from EU to NA servers are not possible. Players would have to reload and equip all of their main characters and younglings.
- Most fans (and therefore potential helpers) play on EU servers and would no longer be able to help on NA servers.
- All guild gold reserves are on EU servers and cannot be transferred either.
So it probably won’t be a long-term change. But it is interesting to see what tricks the guilds resort to to take advantage of every advantage, no matter how small. Something similar happened in the past, when guilds collectively changed races or briefly switched alliances to obtain a single item.