You moved all the servers to the East Coast, Why?

Why would you abandon APAC players? If the ping/latency isn’t a problem as you claim for everyone that has been forced from the West Coast to the East Coast ( APAC players exempt) then why not bring the East Coast servers to the West Coast and save the APAC players?

It makes no sense. You went the wrong direction. This looks so bad. No consideration for the community as a whole. Even from a logical standpoint this doesn’t make sense, because servers in VA can’t be saving you much if any from servers in Texas.

What the heck happen? Seriously consider moving to West Coast if you want to stay consolidated. Or just put a West Coast locates server back. We are losing friends that we have played with for 5 + years.

Don’t divide us, Unite us!

Because the difference in actual ping times between the East and West coasts from a geographical point of view are minimal.

The internet isn't based on crow flies distances. Pings are based on the route the packets are going to take, and spend the vast majority of the time sitting in router queues. How long this takes depends a great deal on the infrastructure in place, and the East coast generally has better infrastructure than the west coast.

This i why in western Canada I get significantly better pings to the east coast (~60-70ms) than the west (~120) despite geographically being quite a bit closer to the west coast servers.

Moving everyone to the west coast would have just made it worse for everyone.

I'd be surprised if the extra hops across the US to get to the east coast will take more than an extra 30-40 ms of actual network time (server process and response time due to increased load is another matter entirely)

I expect because the majority of people playing on the NA servers live in the Eastern US. That doesn't make it a good decision, but I expect that is the numbers behind it. Well, that or the lease was up on the west coast data center and it wasn't on the east coast.

I understand what your saying. I still think that it shouldn’t matter the number of East Coast players because according to them the ping/latency issue is irrelevant or not significant enough to matter regardless of server location (APAC players exempt) relevant to West/east coast player location. Or is it that they knew we would be mad, and the east coast has more players to complain.

As far as a lease being up. That seems like a simple matter of renwal, but your suggestion has me thinking there must be another factor on why they did what they did. Something they are. It willing to tell us.

FWIW I have played on both East and West coasts and live on the West Coast. I raid on SL (and pretty much have stopped doing anything else because the game sucks right now.) I started on SL with a ping of 100-120. After some of the maintenance over the last few months that dropped to a mostly steady 85 (won't discuss the periodic spikes) I played on BC and Harby with 20 ms ping. The game is definitely playable at 100 ms (although you die to stupid more often because the game decides you aren't where you thought you were) but there is a way more than noticeable difference between 20 and 100. I understand why the people who played at 20 are now really unhappy at 80+. I also understand why the APAC people are angry at 300+.

Those now playing at 80-120 will get used to it and be fine if they stick around. Those at 300+ are just screwed. I don't expect many of them will stick around and I expect BW knew that going in. They just won't be honest enough to say it. Now, what I wonder is what will they do next that will screw over another bunch of players. (We won't get into doing nerfs just to slow progression, CXP grind, etc. because they've got no content.)

As far as a lease being up. That seems like a simple matter of renwal, but your suggestion has me thinking there must be another factor on why they did what they did. Something they are. It willing to tell us.

I believe it's all been counters making decisions and say "cut costs here, cut costs there." GC killed the game. We're just watching it bleed out while BW tries to apply bandages to major trama and performs amputations. The single data center and no thought for a player population that got screwed makes me think this is the setup for maintenance. Another year or two and they'll stop selling 6 month subs and that will be the notice that the end is near, assuming anyone is left playing by then.

You know, I'd be more inclined to be supportive, if some of you didn't act like we people on the east coast are 'non people'. I've read several posts now across the forums where it comes across like ya'll matter more, that there are more of you and for that reason we on the east coast should get screwed over instead of you. For many like me, the entire notion of merges is a big screw over, so you're not the only ones that got the crap end of the stick. There's no good end to the stick.

Just by the OP's statements below, it's like if the shoe were on the other foot, you'd not care one iota about the east coast players.

...why not bring the East Coast servers to the West Coast and save the APAC players?

 

It makes no sense. You went the wrong direction. This looks so bad. No consideration for the community as a whole.

...Seriously consider moving to West Coast if you want to stay consolidated.

People who wanted the merges seemed to think it would solve all their problems, but instead, it's made more and is making for more bad feelings which serve to divide people. Please stop and think before there's any more 'you should screw over the east coast instead' type talk. It's divisive. If you want something positive to happen, you need the support of 'the other camp' like when the name of the server was an issue.

People who wanted the merges seemed to think it would solve all their problems, but instead, it's made more and is making for more bad feelings which serve to divide people.

And while you're at it, stop trying to blame this on the pro-merger crowd. This isn't the first post I've seen saying it's because we wanted mergers. Yes we wanted mergers because we needed mergers. BW agreed. They are still merging all of the old west coast servers into one, but it was BW alone that made the decision to also include a physical relocation of those servers. Nobody asked for that in all 300 or whatever pages of that thread. That was NEVER part of the discussion and it wasn't even part of the stated plan.

And while you're at it, stop trying to blame this on the pro-merger crowd. This isn't the first post I've seen saying it's because we wanted mergers. Yes we wanted mergers because we needed mergers. BW agreed. They are still merging all of the old west coast servers into one, but it was BW alone that made the decision to also include a physical relocation of those servers. Nobody asked for that in all 300 or whatever pages of that thread. That was NEVER part of the discussion and it wasn't even part of the stated plan.

^ This. We asked for merges, not this. This is something completely different.

I believe it's all been counters making decisions and say "cut costs here, cut costs there." GC killed the game. We're just watching it bleed out while BW tries to apply bandages to major trama and performs amputations. The single data center and no thought for a player population that got screwed makes me think this is the setup for maintenance. Another year or two and they'll stop selling 6 month subs and that will be the notice that the end is near, assuming anyone is left playing by then.

We asked for something that cost money, a fair amount, to be 'able' to merge the servers. In order to fund this Bioware looked to cut costs. Merging server centers clearly cut costs. The east coast data center was 'probably' the least expensive data center. Since that's the one they chose to consolidate to. Things cost. This is one of the ways they paid for the merges.

Because it's cheaper. Why would there possibly be any other answer.

WAKE UP Bio, you're going to lose a lot of customers, it's not going to be worth it in the long run.

Because it's cheaper. Why would there possibly be any other answer.

 

WAKE UP Bio, you're going to lose a lot of customers, it's not going to be worth it in the long run.

That should say “you have lost” a lot of customers... even if they could miraculously fix it,,, which they can’t.,, people are sick of the lies and have left... even those not directly affected by this

How can you trust them when theyve lied in the last two updates and always after the fact... I know there isn’t a conspiracy to sabotage the game from with in... but if there were... this is how you would do it,

Well done boys

We asked for something that cost money, a fair amount, to be 'able' to merge the servers. In order to fund this Bioware looked to cut costs. Merging server centers clearly cut costs. The east coast data center was 'probably' the least expensive data center. Since that's the one they chose to consolidate to. Things cost. This is one of the ways they paid for the merges.

Sorry, but merges were going to happen no matter what. Too few people playing now to support the data centers and rack rentals. What players wanted had nothing to do with it anymore than player wishes had to do with what we got in 4 or 5. The game just doesn't have the population anymore.

And while you're at it, stop trying to blame this on the pro-merger crowd. This isn't the first post I've seen saying it's because we wanted mergers. Yes we wanted mergers because we needed mergers. BW agreed. They are still merging all of the old west coast servers into one, but it was BW alone that made the decision to also include a physical relocation of those servers. Nobody asked for that in all 300 or whatever pages of that thread. That was NEVER part of the discussion and it wasn't even part of the stated plan.

Agreed, their decision on what to do with the servers is so odd. It's like, "let's do something the players want, but then screw it up somehow"

You know, I'd be more inclined to be supportive, if some of you didn't act like we people on the east coast are 'non people'. I've read several posts now across the forums where it comes across like ya'll matter more, that there are more of you and for that reason we on the east coast should get screwed over instead of you. For many like me, the entire notion of merges is a big screw over, so you're not the only ones that got the crap end of the stick. There's no good end to the stick.

 

Just by the OP's statements below, it's like if the shoe were on the other foot, you'd not care one iota about the east coast players.

 

 

 

People who wanted the merges seemed to think it would solve all their problems, but instead, it's made more and is making for more bad feelings which serve to divide people. Please stop and think before there's any more 'you should screw over the east coast instead' type talk. It's divisive. If you want something positive to happen, you need the support of 'the other camp' like when the name of the server was an issue.

 

I hope they can figure out how to fix your pings but not at anyone else's expense. None of us should have to suffer. I hope they can put a server back on the west end for those of you there.

You are so far off the mark lol. The fact is that Asia-pacific players were already at 200 ping with the west coast, and now jumped to 300 at least(50% up) while the east coast has 20 ping? lolol Fact is moving things to west coast would have kept us around 200ms, while east coast would only jump to 80-100 maybe. Still half the ping we would have yet we are the ones saying east coast do not matter? Lol the logic, my kingdom for some logic.

WAKE UP Bio, you're going to lose a lot of customers, it's not going to be worth it in the long run.

They're counting on it. That's the whole point.

And EA is too stupid to realize what these f**kwads are up to.

^ This. We asked for merges, not this. This is something completely different.

I used to play Dungeons & Dragons a lot. You know the tabletop, pen-and-paper RPG. And then we had a Dungeon Master for a while who loved to give players items like a ring of wishes.

Why he liked doing that because he got an obscene amount of pleasure from getting the wishes from players and finding any way possible to meet the wish exactly but also screw us over because any of us would make a wish that wasn't water tight. For example, someone wished that all his current enemies were dead. So the DM teleported him 200 years into the future when all his enemies had died of old age. Of course because of this his character was 200 years in the future separated from the rest of the group, so he was effectively written out of the story and he had to make a new character.

I am often reminded of this Dungeon Master when I see how Bioware does things. They have this amazing ability to ruin their own good news. So people get excited but also get disappointed shortly after. I honestly cannot believe that Bioware still thinks that this is a good way of doing business.

I refer again to the CXP perk as it's the most reason example before this situation. Everybody was excited about getting this perk boosted to a 100% bonus. The failed to mention that this is only achievable by characters of a different core class and not mirror classes.

Now here's the thing. If they had given those details right away people would've generally been excited about it. I'm sure some people wouldn't have but they would've given it an 8/10 overall. They way they did it people were like wow that's a 9/10 and then the details came and then after people got over the initial disappointment it will barely make a 6/10 on the scale of 10 being really awesome.

Now Bioware should know this by now. They've made this mistake so many times and yet they set themselves up to get a 6/10 instead of an easily achievable 8/10. Worse, it ticks a lot of people off and not all of them will go back to 6/10 but quit the game or still think it's a 1/10. And the trust in Bioware and their communication is damaged yet again.

The reply that they didn't want to give full details also rings hollow. If that were the case then they should've simply mentioned that they are giving general details and that how it works exactly will be divulged later. Then people know they don't have the full story yet.

And here it's the same. They knew going into this server merge plan that they would move all the US servers to one location. This was not a last-minute whim. It was an investigation they did beforehand. The names of the new US servers were divulged without an east or west coast indication. More evidence that supports they knew already that this was going to happen.

Not telling people such things is treating people like they're dumb or children. Nobody likes to be treated like that. As much as I understand that they don't want to tell us everything, they should tell us that we're not getting the full story at least when they do give some new information. It's really just a communication issue. Whatever these guys are, they are clearly not communication specialists and to be honest, they're mostly lacking insight and common sense here.

People are calling them liars and even though I prefer not to use that term myself, I do get why people do this. It's information that was willfully held back. I have to wonder if they really think they can pull one over on 100s of thousands of players. It really only takes one player to figure it out and put it on the internet and the cat is out of the bag.

But as someone extremely intelligent once defined...Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So let me just say that when it comes to communicating Bioware are insane to think this style of communication actually is a good idea after so many failures. Especially because these are avoidable mistakes and they just don't learn.

100s of thousands of players

You moved all the servers to the East Coast, Why?

 

Why would you abandon APAC players? If the ping/latency isn’t a problem as you claim for everyone that has been forced from the West Coast to the East Coast ( APAC players exempt) then why not bring the East Coast servers to the West Coast and save the APAC players?

 

It makes no sense. You went the wrong direction. This looks so bad. No consideration for the community as a whole. Even from a logical standpoint this doesn’t make sense, because servers in VA can’t be saving you much if any from servers in Texas.

 

What the heck happen? Seriously consider moving to West Coast if you want to stay consolidated. Or just put a West Coast locates server back. We are losing friends that we have played with for 5 + years.

 

Don’t divide us, Unite us!

Didn't you get the memo? The whole world today is about DIVISION, not UNITY. "Us vs Them" and such crap.

You moved all the servers to the East Coast, Why?

 

Why would you abandon APAC players? If the ping/latency isn’t a problem as you claim for everyone that has been forced from the West Coast to the East Coast ( APAC players exempt) then why not bring the East Coast servers to the West Coast and save the APAC players?

 

It makes no sense. You went the wrong direction. This looks so bad. No consideration for the community as a whole. Even from a logical standpoint this doesn’t make sense, because servers in VA can’t be saving you much if any from servers in Texas.

 

What the heck happen? Seriously consider moving to West Coast if you want to stay consolidated. Or just put a West Coast locates server back. We are losing friends that we have played with for 5 + years.

 

Don’t divide us, Unite us!

As bad as it sounds and is, I believe the reason they cut off the APAC players like this is because it wasn't profitable enough for them to maintain it. If they can gain more profit from the moving of datacenters than from maintaining them as they were it's not that crazy they did it. Doesn't mean I condone it, not at all, but it's the system of our world. Companies do it all the time, when they no longer can acquire cheap workers in one region they'll just move elsewhere. Yes, they leave people without a job, but that's not what they care about. They care about profit.

As much as I hate it and wish it were otherwise, Bioware is a company too and it will need to be keep making a profit if it is to keep the game afloat. Yes, they shouldn't have lied and withheld information from us, but the reason was clear: they didn't want to have this outcry from the APAC players sooner.

As bad as it sounds and is, I believe the reason they cut off the APAC players like this is because it wasn't profitable enough for them to maintain it. If they can gain more profit from the moving of datacenters than from maintaining them as they were it's not that crazy they did it.

I think this is it as well. I don't know how many APAC players are playing swtor, but I guess it wasn't enough for them to cater to. It really sucks and i wish it didn't have to be this way.

They chose East over West to so that if they close the EU data center sometime in the future the remaining data center is in a central location for a majority of the games population. I'm in the UK and the east coast servers are a very playable 95-130ms for me.

They wouldn't shut down the European datacenter, the amount of players in Europe is too high to be added to the datacenter in Virginia.

They wouldn't shut down the European datacenter, the amount of players in Europe is too high to be added to the datacenter in Virginia.

They just shut down a datacenter in their own country and seemingly uncaring of the entire APAC market. The minute it becomes cheaper to herd us to the American east coast versus maintaining servers in Europe they will absolutely do it. Our only saving grace this time was that we are still big enough but that's not a permanent state of things.

They just shut down a datacenter in their own country and seemingly uncaring of the entire APAC market. The minute it becomes cheaper to herd us to the American east coast versus maintaining servers in Europe they will absolutely do it. Our only saving grace this time was that we are still big enough but that's not a permanent state of things.

Then I will keep hoping Europe stays big enough. Then again, I have had characters on the East Coast servers and the game was fairly playable still. If it happened it wouldn't be as bad as the situation the APAC players are facing now.

However, Ireland has low tax rates regarding this entire thing so as long as those tax rates remain low then Bioware will not be moving away from Europe.