Server region

Western region selection

Server region determines the location of servers your account will play on. There are three server regions: America, Europe, and China (exclusive for the Chinese client). A closer region will generally have a faster and better network connection.

Region selection

• Upon first launch, a region has to be selected to continue playing. Pressing Cancel will close the game.
• After selecting a region, the game may automatically restart to process the transfer.

Transferring

• It is possible to transfer between the Europe and America regions for a fee of 500 gems.
• If the account does not have any characters, the transfer is free.

“

Are you sure you want to transfer to <region>?

If yes, you'll be logged out of your account, which may be inaccessible for a short period of time while the transaction completes. In addition, you cannot make another transfer for 7 days.

— In-game description

Anomaly:

Despite the popup being available, free to play accounts cannot transfer between regions for free.

Linked features

Between the American and European regions, multiple features are connected to some degree:

• The Trading Post is fully linked, allowing buying and selling items cross-region.
• Mail can be sent from one region to the other.
• Guilds are semi-linked: Members can be from either region, but the Guild Hall instance is separate.
• Friends can be added regardless of region, but Looking For Group is separate, as each region can only play with players on the same region.
• Chat communication is possible through whispers and the guild channel.
• All text and audio language options are available regardless of selected region.

Notes

• Some ArenaNet Partners have elevated accounts that allow them frequent transfers in order to play with community members in both regions.
• The American servers are located in Virginia, US and are often called the North American servers.
• The European servers are located in Frankfurt, Germany.

Anomaly:

Another Region Selection panel can be opened while already in the first forced Region Selection screen after account creation.

Bug:

The character creation button is clickable before selecting a server, but trying to create a character will show the following error:

“

The game client is unable to gain access to the log-in server at this time. This is most commonly caused by firewall or router settings, security applications, or connecting through a campus network. For additional support, please visit http://support.guildwars2.com. (Code=40:5:6:4392:101)

— Error message

Trivia

• Servers were migrated from internal datacenters to Amazon Web Services in 2017.
• The American servers were located in Dallas, Texas before the migration.

See also

• Megaserver
• World