Again, it was obviously a bad PR move. It would be difficult IMO to spin this into a positive.

 

Instead I think it is better to focus on the real things that can be done to reverse it, like pushing them to open a new west coast server based on need.

 

That means more players AND more money spent in the CM is needed to facilitate that change IMO.

How do you get west coast or apac players on board with that when they left because of the move? That means all the East coast and EU players need to step up their spending so we can have a west coast server 😉 But I’m not sure how that benefits them in anyway.

Then even if they opened another west coast server, they would need to lure those people back to the game. How do you do that when there is such disdain for what they did. Bioware dont advertise this game, so most people wouldn’t even know the server had moved.

+1 from South Korea. From a former Harb resident. Thanks for the post.

Thanks for the support.

I'm curious if you play from the west coast? I know most of the people that I know that do play from there saw their ping double. More than enough people to say it's not just one person's internet connection. Most of those people used to PvP, but have found the additional ping makes that harder than it used to be and much, much less desirable. (To the point that most of them don't even play anymore). So while they might not have "screwed over" the west coast people (unless you count not telling any of us about moving the servers in the first place) - I wouldn't go so far as to say "nothing wrong" either.

I play from the West Coast. I was on Ebon Hawk voluntarily because I didn't want to be anywhere near Harbinger. I've had a few incidents where the ping has risen to ridiculous levels (like 100,000) - but that happened on Ebon Hawk, too, and it usually resolves in a few seconds.

But anyway, the ping from EH to SF hasn't changed for me. It's usually between 70 and 80. I don't do PvP so I can't speak to how 70-80 is for that, but for all the content I play (solo, solo flashpoints, heroics) it's been fine. I also have a character on one of the European servers. The ping there is between 150-250 depending on the time of day I'm on, and there's been no difficulty playing through with that.

I do think the APAC population was screwed with the server merges, and I also think the RP/story-based community was, too. They made a big deal of saying they were merging Harbinger and BC to keep West Coast servers together. If they had no intention of keeping any servers on the West Coast it would have been far kinder to merge BC with Ebon Hawk and match Harbinger up with some of the more aggressive remaining servers to keep like-minded populations more intact.

 

I do think the APAC population was screwed with the server merges, and I also think the RP/story-based community was, too. They made a big deal of saying they were merging Harbinger and BC to keep West Coast servers together. If they had no intention of keeping any servers on the West Coast it would have been far kinder to merge BC with Ebon Hawk and match Harbinger up with some of the more aggressive remaining servers to keep like-minded populations more intact.

I agree with this, I think it would have made more sense to merge the old servers based on server personality and focus rather than location since they're all physically located on the East Coast now. I'm in Kansas though, so really the physical location of either would have been about the same for me regardless of where it ended up. Still, I do feel for the people whose game has been adversely impacted.

I will say, having run with you a bit, there are some times when my game is ahead of yours. Your character does a funny little bop back and forth thing for a second and then you're with me again, lol.

I will say, having run with you a bit, there are some times when my game is ahead of yours. Your character does a funny little bop back and forth thing for a second and then you're with me again, lol.

LOL! I had no idea. I have noticed your character often is in places before I am, but I always thought that was some sort of special sprint ability that my class didn't have.

 

I do think the APAC population was screwed with the server merges, and I also think the RP/story-based community was, too. They made a big deal of saying they were merging Harbinger and BC to keep West Coast servers together. If they had no intention of keeping any servers on the West Coast it would have been far kinder to merge BC with Ebon Hawk and match Harbinger up with some of the more aggressive remaining servers to keep like-minded populations more intact.

Unfortunately that would have completely screwed the evenness of the merged servers.While Harb was the biggest server, and Ebon Hawk the next (by a small amount, and honestly close to the end was actually looking more populated), Shadowlands and JC were both basically tied for 3rd, and were waaaaay larger than Bergen colony. So it would have ended up with one server much much bigger than the other (the combined Harb/Shadowlands/JC vs Ebon Hawk/Bergen), which would have led to basically the exact same issue that plagued the game prior to the mergers, which was one or 2 servers being really populated, and the other being basically empty.

Unfortunately that would have completely screwed the evenness of the merged servers.While Harb was the biggest server, and Ebon Hawk the next (by a small amount, and honestly close to the end was actually looking more populated), Shadowlands and JC were both basically tied for 3rd, and were waaaaay larger than Bergen colony. So it would have ended up with one server much much bigger than the other (the combined Harb/Shadowlands/JC vs Ebon Hawk/Bergen), which would have led to basically the exact same issue that plagued the game prior to the mergers, which was one or 2 servers being really populated, and the other being basically empty.

If I had been moving the pieces, I would have suggested the following then:

Harbinger + Jung Ma + JC

Ebon Hawk + Bergeren Colony + Shadowlands

That might have left things fairly even. I don't know if the spike in Ebon Hawk's population toward the end can be taken for anything, though. I did hear of a number of people who transferred there from BC because they were desperate to get away from the merge with Harbinger.

Some pvpers left over a slightly higher ping? That is just so.... terribly unfortunate. Just terribly unfortunate.

It was more than slightly higher. More like double.

They screwed over APAC (the few that are left), nothing wrong with the west coast people

This is true (about APAC). While I play out of the West Coast, my very first level 50 was on Gav Daragon, and I joined a guild full of some of the most lovely people I've ever met online (and I have been playing online games since the original Everquest.

These days, logging into Satele Shan formerly Harbinger formerly Gav Daragon shows maybe three people in guild during peak hours, as opposed to over a hundred during the APAC days. No one says anything, it's like we all just happen to be in the same guild, and our guild sponsors have given up and left (which they probably have).

I have a good provider, and I've never had much in the way of issues reaching any server that SWTOR runs, but if people are leaving the game, all the good connections in the world mean nothing.

I'm curious if you play from the west coast? I know most of the people that I know that do play from there saw their ping double. More than enough people to say it's not just one person's internet connection. Most of those people used to PvP, but have found the additional ping makes that harder than it used to be and much, much less desirable. (To the point that most of them don't even play anymore). So while they might not have "screwed over" the west coast people (unless you count not telling any of us about moving the servers in the first place) - I wouldn't go so far as to say "nothing wrong" either.

It is less important what the relative increase in ping was as opposed to what the actual stable ping rate currently is.

I live in Northern California. Setting aside the few occasions when there was an internet backbone ping issue (which does happen and nothing we as players or the studio can do about it as it is the major internet providers that control this in the US) I always got a stable ping to a west coast server of 25-30ms. I always a stable ping of 90-95ms to an east coast server. I never had any game play issues at these ping rates on either east coast or west coast servers. In fact.. the only time I noticed any in game issues was if there was a backbone route issue somewhere between me and the server.... and even then.. only of the ping was greater then 250ms (and even then it was minimal impact)

Today... I get a stable ping to either US server of 90-95ms (essentially identical to my ping rates to Ebon Hawk for years). While some may claim such a ping is an issue for game play... I disagree... even for twitchy PvP play. Why? Because there are almost always server side transaction delays taking place that have nothing at all to do with ping rate to the server. The biggest impact to twitchy style PvP play is the inherent delays on the server side resolving who is where and what they are doing at any given moment (as this game has never been good for large scale open play between players... not since launch).

I agree that APAC players, having to cross the pacific from sometimes unstable routes in AUS, have a core issue as they are typically seeing multi-hundred ms ping just to get to the US west coast. But any west coast player crying about a ping moving from 20-30 up to 90-100 is conflating the reality of performance, in the context of game play, to an east coast server from the west coast.

LOL! I had no idea. I have noticed your character often is in places before I am, but I always thought that was some sort of special sprint ability that my class didn't have.

Nope, no special sprint, my ping is just shorter. I mean, my little chiss death flower is pretty speedy and sneaky but in this instance it's just my geographical location making the game run a bit faster.

If I had been moving the pieces, I would have suggested the following then:

 

Harbinger + Jung Ma + JC

Ebon Hawk + Bergeren Colony + Shadowlands

 

That might have left things fairly even. I don't know if the spike in Ebon Hawk's population toward the end can be taken for anything, though. I did hear of a number of people who transferred there from BC because they were desperate to get away from the merge with Harbinger.

The way things turned out with the servers in one databcentre, it would have made even more sense to make it one server so we don’t have to go through another merge in 12 months time as the populations continue to shrink.

It might look ok at the moment with 4 fleet instances in prime time, but step out of prime time and its nearly exactly the same as it was back in March last year. After the mergers and before NY, the mergers seemed to have worked because the game was nearly active 24 hours a day. In the last week and a half, that has changed out side of US prime times.

Let me refer you to a post I made in another thread.

12pm Eastern Time = 9am Pacific Time (west coast time)

12am Pacific = 3am Eastern

 

That time reference is baffling (especially before coffee). Okay. Coffee ingested.

 

I think I figured out what you were trying to say there. It covers a 15 hour period. 12pm to 3am Eastern or 9am to 12am Pacific. These are the times of heavier activity, and things slow down from 3am to noon Eastern / midnight to 9am Pacific. Add 5 hours to Eastern Time for UTC/GMT.

 

In those 3 hours (or what I call fringe time) at the beginning part and end part of that bracket, it drops off a lot, but that’s because of the time zones. What I’m seeing at the moment is those fringe hours slipping back to 2 hours and then it will be 1 hour and then it will infringe on the current actual prime time hours. Then it’s a slippery slope. I expect by March, the bracket hours will be more like this -

3-4pm eastern time and 8pm eastern time (which is where it was on Harbinger in March last year)

By June I expect it will be more like this -

6pm eastern time and 8pm western time (with lull in the middle of about 2-3 hours)

Basically, prime time will not be one US prime time, but two seperate prime times again that will be about 3 hours each. Also remember that at the edges of the prime time it starts to drop off. This is why prime time shrinks because people who initially played at that time see slower pops and decide their time is better spent in another game or doing something else instead of sitting around. That is how I measure the health of a game, by how fast those fringe times shrink because once you get to a critical point, they accelerate and it’s near impossible to stop them.

The way things turned out with the servers in one databcentre, it would have made even more sense to make it one server so we don’t have to go through another merge in 12 months time as the populations continue to shrink.

It might look ok at the moment with 4 fleet instances in prime time, but step out of prime time and its nearly exactly the same as it was back in March last year. After the mergers and before NY, the mergers seemed to have worked because the game was nearly active 24 hours a day. In the last week and a half, that has changed out side of US prime times.

 

Let me refer you to a post I made in another thread.

It may seem that way to you since you used to play on Harbinger, which basically didn't have off time, but I promise you that outside of prime time it is still far better than it used to be on all the other servers. There are still oftentimes 2 instances up, and even if there is only 1 there is at least 100 people in it on fleet. JC/SL/EH oftentimes had less than 30 people during off times.

Also, right now during prime time the game can get laggy, especially on fleet with how many people are on. Just think how much worse it would be if there would be twice as many people on the same server.

The way things turned out with the servers in one databcentre, it would have made even more sense to make it one server so we don’t have to go through another merge in 12 months time as the populations continue to shrink.

It might look ok at the moment with 4 fleet instances in prime time, but step out of prime time and its nearly exactly the same as it was back in March last year. After the mergers and before NY, the mergers seemed to have worked because the game was nearly active 24 hours a day. In the last week and a half, that has changed out side of US prime times.

 

Let me refer you to a post I made in another thread.

I am not a fan of one megaserver; I think it's always a good idea to have two just so one can back up the other. And I do think that given the differences in play styles and attitudes (not saying they are good or bad; just that there are differences) I do think having one server that was friendlier to solo/story/more RP-oriented players would have been nice.

The fall off in population isn't really a surprise, no...people did show up when there was something to do (Life Day; the Darth Hexid event; the new Copero flashpoint, the double XP) and now when everything's slow again, boredom has set in. Of course the answer is for BW to add enough content to keep people around and playing, but as we see that isn't happening.

I am not a fan of one megaserver; I think it's always a good idea to have two just so one can back up the other. And I do think that given the differences in play styles and attitudes (not saying they are good or bad; just that there are differences) I do think having one server that was friendlier to solo/story/more RP-oriented players would have been nice.

 

The fall off in population isn't really a surprise, no...people did show up when there was something to do (Life Day; the Darth Hexid event; the new Copero flashpoint, the double XP) and now when everything's slow again, boredom has set in. Of course the answer is for BW to add enough content to keep people around and playing, but as we see that isn't happening.

I would like the megaserver. Other games use it well and a mega server isn't only one server, it's a server cluster so if one server goes down others pick up the slack with little to no interruption in service. I play ESO on the NA Megaserver and in the past few years have only had it go down maybe once while SWTOR went down much more often without megaservers.

Regarding differences in play styles, honestly who cares? RPs will still RP with other RPers, ERPers will still give you cringy pick up lines via whispers on fleet, but at least the queues for group content from Warzones to FPs to Ops will be more populated and pop quickly.

It may seem that way to you since you used to play on Harbinger, which basically didn't have off time, but I promise you that outside of prime time it is still far better than it used to be on all the other servers. There are still oftentimes 2 instances up, and even if there is only 1 there is at least 100 people in it on fleet. JC/SL/EH oftentimes had less than 30 people during off times.

 

Also, right now during prime time the game can get laggy, especially on fleet with how many people are on. Just think how much worse it would be if there would be twice as many people on the same server.

Harbinger did have an off time. Go back and read what I wrote.

 

Regarding differences in play styles, honestly who cares? RPs will still RP with other RPers, ERPers will still give you cringy pick up lines via whispers on fleet, but at least the queues for group content from Warzones to FPs to Ops will be more populated and pop quickly.

it makes a difference because you're putting very different styles together and they don't mix well. There's been far more harassment, far more ninjaing and far less civility since our server was merged with a more aggressive one. I couldn't care less about PvP and group content queues; I just care about not being duel spammed or cornered by someone bent on harassing me as I'm trying to complete quests - which has happened a lot more since the merger.

So when is the West Coast data centre coming back Bioware?

It isn't. Learn to love the lag.

Great way to start a thread off: begin with a threat. it won't win hearts and minds at bioware if you and half the APAC players are acting like bad guys in the attempt to get them to notice that they made a mistake losing the APAC players and should bring a server for those players.

I'm not sure of how you define bad guys, but imho Bioware fits the typical bad guy description here way better than the thread starter. No insults were said to against Bioware, only a simple demand. Give us the service we pay you for or we will not pay you.

If that is going hurt the Dev's feelings maybe they should find a new line of work?

I love the pedants in this forum who go berserk whenever a player makes a thread that implies that more people besides the OP are in agreement with him. The 'you don't speak for me!' rage of people who don't understand that they are not literally saying that, it's a rhetorical tactic, never ceases to entertain me. Particularly here where we're clearly talking about west coast and apac, and you've got east coasters up in arms because omg, THEY won't unsub so why are you including them in 'we', OP?

Forum hysteria aside, I get a lot more ping since the merger and it's pretty damn irritating, particularly given that BW y'know, LIED about it beforehand. Multiple times. But please, keep moaning about the need to have a good attitude when it doesn't affect you anyway. Whenever people want anything in this game it's treated with scorn whether they're asking or demanding. The 'entitled' tag comes out regardless of how polite they're being.

 

I cant wait when devs will tell us about game being closed so i could laugh at them, and they that they failed their fans. Star wars deserve better than ignorence, lies and gambling. Game is bleeding as hell

Nice attitude - “my cow died, so I hope my neighbour cow dies as well”

And even if swtor dies, BW wont take it personally like you did, they will just forget of swtor like it newer existed, move to new project and continue earning money. Thats what they exist for.

I'm not sure of how you define bad guys, but imho Bioware fits the typical bad guy description here way better than the thread starter. No insults were said to against Bioware, only a simple demand. Give us the service we pay you for or we will not pay you.

 

If that is going hurt the Dev's feelings maybe they should find a new line of work?

Or you just find new entertainment since they took their service from you?

Technically, they didnt even took the service from you, service is available to you all the time, its only your connection to the service thats failing.