If your ping in WoW Forever is suddenly 200 ms or more, check your Preferred Account Location. Since 6 November, players in North America, mostly on the East Coast, have reported that this setting was set to Australia (Oceania) without their choosing, which puts them in Oceanic worlds. In the forum thread players describe home latency of 180 to 300 ms instead of their usual 3 to 30.
This is reported by players. When we checked, no Blizzard staff member had replied in the thread.
Where the setting is
Open Options, then Languages and Social, and look for Preferred Account Location. Players say the option only shows up after you've made a character, so many didn't know it existed while leveling.
What players tried
| What | Did it work |
|---|---|
| Set it to the right region and apply | Not for most. One player says it switched back to Australia at every login. |
| Change it, then make a new character | The most common fix. New characters had normal ping, but existing characters stayed on Oceania. |
| Wait | One player waited three days and still had about 250 ms. |
Some players think grouping with Oceanic players early on pushed them toward Oceanic worlds. Nobody has confirmed that.
What you can do now
- Set the location to your real region anyway. It costs nothing.
- If ping stays high, try a new character on the same ruleset and check its latency before you invest time in it.
- Open a ticket with Blizzard Support and add your location and ping numbers to the forum thread. The more reports, the sooner it gets attention.
If the problem is the language around you rather than ping, see why everyone's speaking Portuguese or Spanish. Other problems are on known issues and hotfixes.