I couldn't be more disappoint with this announcement, but I'm going to give it until the end of my sub to see how this plays out. One thing that does strike me is the sheer indifference Bioware has shown in mass dumping the APAC servers on their NA counterparts. How about giving us the choice of where we want to go? There are quite a few of us here with toons on both Dalborra and MD (or GD), and I think it's safe to say that most of us hoped BW would allow us to combine them on one server. As it is I have four mid-level toons on The Bastion, and with this merger I'll end up having to delete a character. By giving us the choice of which server to roll on, it also allows the APAC community to try and consolidate a bit - not flinging us out in three different directions.

So how about it, Bioware? Throw us a friggin' bone already and at least let us select the servers of our choice.

If the server going merge with other server after the 2.0,i gonna quit,i got 180~400 ms on asia server,if we go to that server it will kill me,and u kill most of my friend too~ and i don't wanna ply over 300ms,that ms killing me,and it not fun,we pay for ply game for fun,not pay for mad.

no more asia server,no more game on swtor,that me,i try the lag and ms,if merge i sure quit and wait ESO

but where my expansion money??maybe i just throw the money to the big sea...feel sad to my decision buy the expansion...i just start loving the game and u give me this NEWS,how wonderful~

sry to my bad english...i knw i am bad on english ...

I am so disappointed, but shamefully not surprised, by this loathesome, cretinous choice of action by Bioware AKA EA's Cash Pinata. It was overwhelmingly obvious to even the most casual of observers that combining all the servers into one AUSTRALIAN LOCATED PVE server was by far the most popular choice. Merging the populations into seperate US based servers does not solve the problem of not having people to play with, because the vast majority of natives of the destination server will NOT BE ONLINE during our PRIME PLAYTIMES. You've essentially turned our populations into graveyard shifts in the interests of shedding the maximum possible amount of financial outlay, rather than listening to the people who have continued to support you through the toughest times. A loyal community whom you supposedly "surveyed and researched" but chose to ignore, making this joke of a penny pinching choice over choosing to find a balanced and mutually beneficial result for people WHOSE PLAYTIME ACTUALLY OCCURS AT A MUTUAL TIME. The ONLY THING that APAC players stand to gain from this HORRENDOUSLY WOEFUL idea is an extra 100-200 latency. We will NOT have more people to play with, as the majority of our new "community" simply will not be online at the same time as us.

For our unwavering loyalty to you through all these hard times, we APAC players deserved better from you Bioware. But who gives a **** right? You already have our cash and pre-orders for the XPACK right? Bioware seriously sucks.

If the server going merge with other server after the 2.0,i gonna quit,i got 180~400 ms on asia server,if we go to that server it will kill me,and u kill most of my friend too~ and i don't wanna ply over 300ms,that ms killing me,and it not fun,we pay for ply game for fun,not pay for mad.

 

no more asia server,no more game on swtor,that me,i try the lag and ms,if merge i sure quit and wait ESO

 

but where my expansion money??maybe i just throw the money to the big sea...feel sad to my decision buy the expansion...i just start loving the game and u give me this NEWS,how wonderful~

 

sry to my bad english...i knw i am bad on english ...

Don't worry about your English mate, your information is spot on and represents how we all feel.

I am Shocked about this decision,first i want to remember to some people in here that the APAC server is NOT an australian server,but WAS an Asian/Oceanic server,so there are people who play around other places in Asia as well,but of course you don't give it a crap besed on your selflish conception which is very sad,but of course this is not our australian friend's fault,this is a BioWare major faiulre.

now to the main topic,so you force me to move from Gav Daragon to a US server,i think you totally ignore the part of us who asked at least to give us a choice! to let us move to a US or EU server,i DO NOT WANT TO PLAY IN AN AMERICAN SERVER,i wanted to move to a EU server,and this is not because of a ping issue,but a cultural decision,for personal reasons some of us are more comfortable playing in a European server rather than in the US one,but your arrogance in this matter is amazing BioWare

i rather erase my 2 level 50 char and reroll to a EU server rather than play in a US server,in this case was better to merge the APAC server,but force me to play in a server where i already know to find a community that is not suit for me,no thank you!

well done BioWare,you did a mess and get most of us angry.

If this is a cost saving thing why not give us a dedicated oceanic server that we pay extra for (ie let us consumers soak up the costs)

Id be willing to pay double or triple the sub fee for a dedicated aussie server.

Alternatively Id be willing to organise a donations program to fund the server. This has been highly successful over at swgemu.com to keep them going and id donate the first $1000 to see an Australian based server exist for swtor for the next 12 months. I am sure theres others that will donate as well, and ive received emails with about $4000 worth of pledges of support so far from my thread on the MDN forums.

Please give it some more thought Bioware. We are counting on your decisions to be good ones in the best interest of the community.

Here is a novel idea for increasing population on the Oceanic servers.... Advertise the game in Oceanic regions!

Get more customers... seems like a sound business model to me.

 

There is little to no advertising of this game in Australian media, seriously, a couple of banner adverts on a few gaming websites is not going to cut it.

It would have been nice for them to try this. Something I don't understand about low APAC numbers is this. The world's biggest gaming show, PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo), will be held outside of the US for the first time later this year — and of all the world's gaming cities, it chose Melbourne.

If our gaming community isn't large enough to be cost effective for them to keep our servers open it isn't because a lack of numbers of gamers in Australia.

What will happen in merge:

If we go by the last merge of Euro and Ami servers.

1. Place holder toons to keep names will not always work. The toons retained names, based on time played and other esoteric factors.

2. They will never allow you to choose a different server for the merge, ever.

3. You will keep your highest Legacy, if you have toons on both servers, and all purchased/earned legacy perks for both legacies.

But, they have been known to change things in each merger, in an effort to piss off as many people as possible.

To those leaving, understandable, and good luck with future endeavors. To those of us staying... well good luck as well, we will continue to be dumped on, disrespected, and lied to.. but comes with the territory of EA/BW games.

Doesnt Australia have one of the highest per capita gamers to population, as well as disposable income for cartel coins??

Across accounts I have spent $2800 on cartel coins. I know others who have spent more.

We are willing to pay for an aussie server even if there is only a handful of us playing on it. Give the consumers what they want EA.

Gotta compare Bastion to Master D and Harbinger to Dalborra.

Then compare MDN, Dalb and GavD to the others. No one cares about the play-types here. It's an insignificant thing.

It would have been nice for them to try this. Something I don't understand about low APAC numbers is this. The world's biggest gaming show, PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo), will be held outside of the US for the first time later this year — and of all the world's gaming cities, it chose Melbourne.

If our gaming community isn't large enough to be cost effective for them to keep our servers open it isn't because a lack of numbers of gamers in Australia.

Thats the thing... one round of mass media campaigns in Sydney and Melbourne selling SWTOR as "the only Mass Multiplayer Role Playing Game with servers in Sydney, no more pacific ocean lag" should of/would be enough to increase sales. Nope, the one thing they have over and above any MMO in the Australia and they dont mention it. Now they taking that one epic sales point away...

... there marketing department SUCKS!!! I seen more advertisement for a B grade romantic comedy that flop at the box office than I do for A grade quality games in this country. Thats sickening.

Seriously EA, try actually selling games for once!!!

What a *********** load of ********, so basically you have toyed with us taken our money and pretended to care for once in 7 months now, with full knowledge that you did not intend to renew your lease. *********** pathetic...

Please do everyone in the Asia/Pacific a favour and go die in a fire.

Kind regards,

Someone who used to care about this game.

Well seeing this has sealed the fate of this game for me. If it does indeed go ahead as they plan it too then its goodbye sub. I understand why BW has gone this way and I also understand that BW are pretty much the only MMO that still have APAC servers but keeping the customers happy should be a higher priority on their list. Unfortunately they constantly seem to let us down with either content, patch timings and now this. I have enjoyed my time playing but if this does go ahead i'll be off to TESO...

you do realize that TESO will probably not have APAC servers and it being so FPS oriented the ping from aussie land will make the game nigh unplayable.

^agreed ^

Why have they not designed a cross server game-play style that WoW provides.....REALITY..... because they are not willing to spend the money to invest in this, as our concerns as APAC subscribers mean nothing to them. WE ARE A MINORITY.

(WoW did this and surprise, surprise...... the game began to succeed with faster queue times, a higher population growth of happier gamers and eventually a dedicated Australian server was also formed. You think for a game that had millions spent on it, and for it to compete with the biggest MMO, Bioware and EA would have had this covered to help population issues among servers.... )

I came from Harbinger like many of us Aussies did. I am getting 75-129mms on Dalborra atm and I dread to think what it will be on Harbinger upon transfer. Won't lag times increase even more when they shift everyone over there? Do people forget when you had to line in a queue of 200ppl for 30mins on a weekend to simply log in????

Looks like my assassin will now be turning into a rogue.....can't believe I never rolled one before when I played.

Check it b4 they wreck it...

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/...ignatures.html

'It's like paying money for a freshly cooked steak. Then a year and a bit later they start serving you 3 day old 'lag steak' for the same price.'

Thats the thing... one round of mass media campaigns in Sydney and Melbourne selling SWTOR as "the only Mass Multiplayer Role Playing Game with servers in Sydney, no more pacific ocean lag" should of/would be enough to increase sales. Nope, the one thing they have over and above any MMO in the Australia and they dont mention it. Now they taking that one epic sales point away...

 

... there marketing department SUCKS!!! I seen more advertisement for a B grade romantic comedy that flop at the box office than I do for A grade quality games in this country. Thats sickening.

 

Seriously EA, try actually selling games for once!!!

Things that have been better advertised than swtor -

toenail fungus cream

STD's

microsoft paperclip guy

standing on Lego

Please feel free to add more to the list. They are going to shut down our servers we may as well have a little fun first.

The amount of damage you have caused to your company today with the thoughtless announcement of the APAC server demise is unfathomable.

This situation as a whole is due to one wrong decision after another. The amount of mistakes Bioware have made during the life of this game in Australia is staggering as you will find through my fellow APAC posts.

The decision for a server merge should have happened 6 months ago with the ability to transfer to and from the new APAC super server if you wanted to play on PVP/RP. In our opinion this is still not out of the question. Bioware seem to think 150 people on fleet is unplayable, its a lot better than 30 and to have our beautiful ping remain would see a lot of players re sub as well as people return from US servers.

I would have also thought the process to be quick and painless if you were going to commit to such a huge decision. NO ETA is worse than telling us this news and should have been delayed until you had specifics. It should be planned to coincide with the new expansion so we level with those we will be joining.

Also more people would have been more understanding if this was announced as a financial decision if these servers were not longer viable (If we had been merged 6 months ago and super server failed not as many would be heartbroken). Very little effort has been put into this decision and those responsible should no longer hold that position in decision making. I will be actively attempting to find and talk to those that can actually make sure BIOWARE NEVER treat a paying customer like this again.

I am thinking maybe less than half the APAC server population will survive this transfer.

I will salute those who stuck it out in the tough times on the APAC servers.

Good luck to those who have moved already, those that moved on and those I still battle with.

Zarth Mangore - MDN

i am so disappointed, but shamefully not surprised, by this loathesome, cretinous choice of action by bioware aka ea's cash pinata. It was overwhelmingly obvious to even the most casual of observers that combining all the servers into one australian located pve server was by far the most popular choice. Merging the populations into seperate us based servers does not solve the problem of not having people to play with, because the vast majority of natives of the destination server will not be online during our prime playtimes. You've essentially turned our populations into graveyard shifts in the interests of shedding the maximum possible amount of financial outlay, rather than listening to the people who have continued to support you through the toughest times. A loyal community whom you supposedly "surveyed and researched" but chose to ignore, making this joke of a penny pinching choice over choosing to find a balanced and mutually beneficial result for people whose playtime actually occurs at a mutual time. The only thing that apac players stand to gain from this horrendously woeful idea is an extra 100-200 latency. We will not have more people to play with, as the majority of our new "community" simply will not be online at the same time as us.

 

For our unwavering loyalty to you through all these hard times, we apac players deserved better from you bioware. But who gives a **** right? You already have our cash and pre-orders for the xpack right? Bioware seriously sucks.

this ^^