This point may have been brought up already, not sure, but its worth restating even if it has.

 

My guild had a meeting last night and the most pertinent point that came out of it all to me is that Americans are around 14hrs to 16hrs behind us. So basically when we are playing they will be sleeping, when we are sleeping they will be playing, merging with them is going to do little to help our population issues.

 

Ping seems to be the biggest concern with this type of merger, because pretty much all Aussie pings will triple. So two Questions i have for Bioware:

How will you deal with the Lag in PVE 8 & 16 man Operations?

How long do you think Aussie PVP players will last against US players? Keeping in mind the 20ms US pings will dominate the 180ms Aussies pings.

 

Way to go in offering the best playing experience..

 

 

 

 

Did someone say World of Warcraft is looking good again?

WOW doesn't have localized aussie servers either so the problems you find here with ping will be the same. Thus, saying wow is looking good is a moot point as you will experience the same core problems. However, I do believe they have localized Brazilian servers in addition to the Euro and NA servers, but they don't have any aussie localized that's for sure.

Yeah sorry, I shouldn't even have mentioned World of Warcraft!! What was I thinking

Ive noticed a growing suggestion that every Apac player should transfer to harbinger now that we have choice of destination I like this idea and hope apac players seriously consider this option we will have a predominantly Apac population in our prime time and im looking forward to playing against players from Dalborra and Master Dar Nala

I haven't mentioned gav daragon purely because I have no toons on that server but hope that they too get onboard with this idea

You aussie players never had a real transfer. Yes, you were transferred to APAC servers when they first came out, but you all had the same chance of acquiring character and legacy names since they were new severs with no prior population. Thus, when the APAC servers were first open a lot of aussie players reserved their character names in advance just like when the game first launched. However, every one on the current NA servers had to go through two mergers. The first was the voluntary wave of transfer or merge followed by the wave of forced transfers. Plus, there was that super server merging, which was the second merge. In both cases many players lost their character names. Personally, I don't think you aussies should get any dips on any names like what happen to many players the first round of server merging.

 

You also forgot that all you voluntary transferred to new and unpopulated APAC severs. We NA and European players didn't have that luxury the first or second wave of server merging. Thus, I don't think you aussie players should get any thing special from this merging nor should the second round of rules apply since you aussie players are for the first time being transferred to an existing server and their is the fact you all voluntary transferred to the aussie servers. Every who transferred to the APAC servers should have know that there was always a possibility that APAC servers would be shutdown if the population wasn't high enough. It was a risk you all took when you transferred voluntary.

You do realise that ppl already on the US servers may loose their names again when oceanic players are forced on those servers!

How long do you think Aussie PVP players will last against US players? Keeping in mind the 20ms US pings will dominate the 180ms Aussies pings.

I started out playing this game on The Jekk'Jekk Tarr server in Early Game Access, pre-launch.

On that server up until the Oceanic ones became available, there was only THREE PvP guilds worthy of mention:

- Midian

- Genesis

- Epoch

Midian and Epoch were both Oceanic guilds and both DOMINATED their competition (Midian kept their original name when they moved to Master Dar'Narla, Epoch became MVP - now Samurai Pizza Cats on Dalborra). Genesis (as far as I know) were a US based guild. They were ok at PvP, but I remember three-capping them a few times in a full PUG team, so you know, everyone has their off days I guess.

My point is, Oceanic PvPers have risen above their US counterparts before in this game, and I don't doubt it will happen again.

Awesome post and re-inforces 2 points that I heartily agree with.

 

1. Many people complaining about lag haven't actually tried playing on a US server and are speaking out of ignorance. I also, have played on both and found minimal difference. If people have tried both and found the lag is bad, then I think that's a valid opinion. Not those who are purely speculating though.

 

2. This would all go a lot more smoothly if we got better communication. I'd love an APAC super server. That would solve population problems without complaints about lag. It wouldn't be ideal for RPers but most of us RPers realise that we could still do it on a PVE server. An APAC super server it's not going to happen though. We've been lucky to get three locally hosted servers. Most MMO games don't do it. No way bioware would support just one server. It's about cost, and the sooner bioware are honest about that rather than the BS about improving player experience, the better. If they were honest about it, I think people would be more understanding about it and then discussion could focus on how to make the transition go smoothly, rather than obsessing on something that's not going to happen.

Thank you. Your points are good ones, too.

I thought it was about time someone like me who is against the NA Transfer provided some fact rather than mindless venting of anger through speculation.

In saying that there are some self important morons who think that because they're for the server merge they're superior to everybody else and 'cleverer.' They need to clear off.

You should probably edit your post to be less insulting.

You do realise that ppl already on the US servers may loose their names again when oceanic players are forced on those servers!

I doubt it BW will use the same metric they used for the second merge for super servers. First, you guys are given a choice of server to transfer into and second NA players have already been through two mergers. Now I do agree that APAC players should get access to names from players who don't play any more, but I doubt it any current player on the west cost server will lose their names simply due to the fact that those players have already gone through two mergers. This will be the third time for those players. Most likely the transfers will be like they were the first wave of NA server mergers. Finally, the second wave of mergers were not like the first mergers. The super servers were new servers with much higher capacity, but were given previous server names. Thus, we all transferred to a new server.

Currently, you apac players are transferring to an existing populated server like what happen during the first major wave of merging or transfer for NA and European servers. The second merger for NA and European were transfers to new super severs with the same name of the old normal servers and they further consolidated servers. The situation is exactly the same as it was the first time NA and European were transferred during the first wave. Plus, their is a higher probability that an aussie player will quit than their NA counterpart. Thus, I don't believe BW will want to upset their main clientele with these third wave of transfers.

I doubt it BW will use the same metric they used for the second merge for super servers. First, you guys are given a choice of server to transfer into and second NA players have already been through two mergers. Now I do agree that APAC players should get access to names from players who don't play any more, but I doubt it any current player on the west cost server will lose their names simply due to the fact that those players have already gone through two mergers. This will be the third time for those players. Most likely the transfers will be like they were the first wave of NA server mergers. Finally, the second wave of mergers were not like the first mergers. The super servers were new servers with much higher capacity, but were given previous server names. Thus, we all transferred to a new server.

 

Currently, you apac players are transferring to an existing populated server like what happen during the first major wave of merging or transfer for NA and European servers. The second merger for NA and European were transfers to new super severs with the same name of the old normal servers and they further consolidated servers. The situation is exactly the same as it was the first time NA and European were transferred during the first wave. Plus, their is a higher probability that an aussie player will quit than their NA counterpart. Thus, I don't believe BW will want to upset their main clientele with these third wave of transfers.

Mergers are still be enforced, the same rules on who keeps their names should apply.

Mergers are still be enforced, the same rules on who keeps their names should apply.

You forget that one major factor into keeping names is how many times you been merger. That alone will trumpet any apac player if said players has been through two mergers already and has played since the game launched. There was a cs rep that specifically mention this about the metric they used to determine who gets to keep what. Thus, since this will be the third time west coast players go through mergers and if said player has been playing since launch of the game, then they will keep their characters names purely based on them having gone through more mergers than apac players.

This is of course assuming that BW uses the same metrics like they did for the second mergers waves in NA and European servers. If these transfers are treated as such like the first wave of transfers in NA and Europe, then you have no chance at all of keeping any names. In either case the chances of APAC player of keeping their names compared to a existing NA player who been playing since the game launch are slime to none.

WOW doesn't have localized aussie servers either so the problems you find here with ping will be the same. Thus, saying wow is looking good is a moot point as you will experience the same core problems. However, I do believe they have localized Brazilian servers in addition to the Euro and NA servers, but they don't have any aussie localized that's for sure.

It is not a moot poot because of the way WoW was originally designed, and has been maintained since.

Between the network coding, the networking (Battle.NET) and the game mechanics being originally built on a system designed to support dial-up users, WoW has a lot going for it in high ping environments.

SWToR, from the code level up, has none of these safety nets and enhancements. Only very recently in MoP have high ping users started to have concerns in WoW raids, and if Blizzard are true to form, the content will be nerfed in time to make it accessible to the less hardcore components of the community.

If only BioWare could institute a project built off fundamentals other than story.

You forget that one major factor into keeping names is how many times you been merger. That alone will trumpet any apac player if said players has been through two mergers already and has played since the game launched. There was a cs rep that specifically mention this about the metric they used to determine who gets to keep what. Thus, since this will be the third time west coast players go through mergers and if said player has been playing since launch of the game, then they will keep their characters names purely based on them having gone through more mergers than apac players.

 

This is of course assuming that BW uses the same metrics like they did for the second mergers waves in NA and European servers. If these transfers are treated as such like the first wave of transfers in NA and Europe, then you have no chance at all of keeping any names. In either case the chances of APAC player of keeping their names compared to a existing NA player who been playing since the game launch are slime to none.

But let's face it BW/EA are not in the habit of pleasing ppl, would not surprise me if they managed to piss off you guys as well.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/keep-apac-servers-for-swtor-available-and-merge-them-into-1.html

647 signatures on the petition... that's a lot of subs and cartel coins

Awesome post and re-inforces 2 points that I heartily agree with.

 

1. Many people complaining about lag haven't actually tried playing on a US server and are speaking out of ignorance. I also, have played on both and found minimal difference. If people have tried both and found the lag is bad, then I think that's a valid opinion. Not those who are purely speculating though.

 

2. This would all go a lot more smoothly if we got better communication. I'd love an APAC super server. That would solve population problems without complaints about lag. It wouldn't be ideal for RPers but most of us RPers realise that we could still do it on a PVE server. An APAC super server it's not going to happen though. We've been lucky to get three locally hosted servers. Most MMO games don't do it. No way bioware would support just one server. It's about cost, and the sooner bioware are honest about that rather than the BS about improving player experience, the better. If they were honest about it, I think people would be more understanding about it and then discussion could focus on how to make the transition go smoothly, rather than obsessing on something that's not going to happen.

I agree with with you soneil. The communication strategy at the moment leaves a lot to be desired. While I hope that this all turns out to be some early April Fool's day joke, I know that it's not the case and have to accept that I either have to live with the massively increased latency or quit the game. Better communication from EA would help a lot in this case.

In case Eric or anyone else from the community team is still bother to read this, here are some things that would help us to know:

• There still has been no official communication about the changes other than the forum post. This adds to the perception that they are trying to hide the decision. Letting their customers know is important.
   
  
• Approximately what time frame are we talking about? Weeks? Months? If the forced move is not for a few months, then those of us who do find the lag on US servers unacceptable may still be able to get through the expansion content that we pre-ordered.
   
  
• It's been stated that Bioware has tested the higher latency we will get once the move has gone through and found it acceptable. Could you please give us more information. At what ping does it become unacceptable? And what does acceptable mean? There's quite a bit of difference between "a pro-gamer with a max gear character who has the encounter perfectly memorized didn't go so badly that the group wiped on a story-mode flashpoint at 200ms ping" and "average gamer being able to complete the final boss on a HM with the recommend level of gear after a half-dozen goes at 400ms ping".
   
  
• Is there anything being done to help mitigate the latency increase? Are you implementing a tunneling service to help reduce the lag? Are you implementing something similar to the Quartz add on for WoW, which gives an latency indicator on the casting bar to give you a 'best guess' on when to start your next action. Giving everyone connecting above a certain ping time a free Alacrity buff to pull down their activation times ?
   
  
• Stating what the refund policy that Billing Support is using instead of leaving it up to individuals to find it out for themselves.
  

The reason this would help is because, right now, all they have done is create the prospect that we may find that our game experience will decrease to personally unacceptable levels at some unknown time in the future. By giving more information, we would be able to make informed decisions instead of us having to base our decision to continue to subscribe based on our gut feelings.

I made a character Begeren Colony (where my characters are going to end up) last night and had my concerns about how high the ping would be confirmed. I was getting 360ms while on Tython - so roughly speaking it looks like I will be getting a 0.3s delay on all actions over what I get on Gav Daragon. From my past experiences in WoW, which had similar ping times, I am now concerned that I will see a similar level of problems with any game action requiring timing. In WoW, I found that when I started using the Quartz add-on which helped give a much better idea of when I should be sending a command, helping to reduce the effects of lag, I found my DPS & healing went up by ~15-20%. If I do 20% worse in SWToR once I have to move to Begeren Colony, will I have the right to pull a group down by that much? I don't want to cause the group to fail because of me.

As it stands right now, the only way I could find this out is to wait to the transfer and then try run something like the final fight of HM Directive 7 and see what happens. My subscription expires in a month. Given all the uncertainty I'm not sure if I should just give up now and seek a refund for my pre-order of RotHC. I'd still be just as disappointed as I would if I wait around, try the move and find that my fears are confirmed, but at least I'd have a bit more money to go towards finding a replacement to SWToR. The current communication strategy isn't making this easy.

I still remember what Bioware said when Ocenia and others in red zone regions were given reasons for being excluded from launch. No 1. reason - quality of game play experience could not be guaranteed and so we had to wait for them to launch the APAC servers before the game officially launched in Ocenia. The ping time and latency to US servers is exactly the same as it was at game launch. What makes anyone think the sittuation will be better this time around. I suffered through the first 5 months of the game being gimped in PvP and Boss fights that were unplayable due to ping times of 300ms+.

Bioware had warned the game play experience on NA servers would be sub optimal for those outside the region and they were correct. Having a healthy populated server did not not improve the game play . Forced migration to NA servers now will likewise not improve your game play.

Since it's launch The Dalborra server has had an adeqaute population and in peak periods I've had acceptable queue times for both level 50 and pre level 50 PvP. Would I like to see that population larger ? Of course, but not at the expense of game playability. Who cares if you can get into a WZ in 30 secs if you are gimped by lag. What's the point of burdening an ops group because you can't see effects and insta kill inductions until after you are dead, or where your heals don't fire because the target is blocked, out of range or dead all because of lag?

I and my fellow aussies had to drop group on many occassions in guild ops because our group could not beat enrage timers, due to our gimped dps or deaths due to lag. The NA server merge is not a solution. We started there and it didn't work.

All APAC players would benefit from a population increase resulting from a merger into a super APAC server unlike the proposed NA merger which will result in an unplayable game for many and highly degraded one for most everyone else. I see very few winners with the Bioware plan. Please rethink this. At least try an APAC super server before taking the radical misstep of a NA server merge.

I still remember what Bioware said when Ocenia and others in red zone regions were given reasons for being excluded from launch. No 1. reason - quality of game play experience could not be guaranteed and so we had to wait for them to launch the APAC servers before the game officially launched in Ocenia. The ping time and latency to US servers is exactly the same as it was at game launch. What makes anyone think the sittuation will be better this time around. I suffered through the first 5 months of the game being gimped in PvP and Boss fights that were unplayable due to ping times of 300ms+.

 

Bioware had warned the game play experience on NA servers would be sub optimal for those outside the region and they were correct. Having a healthy populated server did not not improve the game play . Forced migration to NA servers now will likewise not improve your game play.

 

Since it's launch The Dalborra server has had an adeqaute population and in peak periods I've had acceptable queue times for both level 50 and pre level 50 PvP. Would I like to see that population larger ? Of course, but not at the expense of game playability. Who cares if you can get into a WZ in 30 secs if you are gimped by lag. What's the point of burdening an ops group because you can't see effects and insta kill inductions until after you are dead, or where your heals don't fire because the target is blocked, out of range or dead all because of lag?

 

I and my fellow aussies had to drop group on many occassions in guild ops because our group could not beat enrage timers, due to our gimped dps or deaths due to lag. The NA server merge is not a solution. We started there and it didn't work.

 

All APAC players would benefit from a population increase resulting from a merger into a super APAC server unlike the proposed NA merger which will result in an unplayable game for many and highly degraded one for most everyone else. I see very few winners with the Bioware plan. Please rethink this. At least try an APAC super server before taking the radical misstep of a NA server merge.

Great summary Mikla!!!!

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

Hi Eric.

I would like to clarify if you currently mean we can transfer to a different server type ie. PvP to PvE as your wording can be interpreted differently.

If not consider my reasoning below.

Allowing transfer to a different server type would go a long way to making sure the Australian population survives. I know several guilds from Master Dar'Nala are more interested in joined our PvE brethren on the Harbinger. Many of the prominent guilds are in favor of as I am sure their are players from Gav Daragon and Dalborra who would either like change to PvP, PvE or RP as they may already have other characters waiting on those servers.

You can the support in favor for this action from Master Dar'Nala at this thread.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616525

Our main concern now is that you will now dilute our population even more. I know you are probably worried about the server stability if we all transfer to the same server. However many accounts which are currently active have cancelled their subs which further reduces the population shift and as you have stated yourself during peak times the Aussie servers even if they were all consolidated onto one server would not have reached the same population as the American servers during off peak. Also from what I can understand these servers can take roughly 3 times their current offpeak load before coming unstable.

Please keep us up to date, Please consider this as a viable option and if not state the actual reasons this would not be viable. As I see it small changes like this would not impact what you are trying to achieve and would go a long way to help smooth troubled waters.

Zarth Mangore

I and my fellow aussies had to drop group on many occassions in guild ops because our group could not beat enrage timers, due to our gimped dps or deaths due to lag. The NA server merge is not a solution. We started there and it didn't work.

You do know that a lot of Aussies play on NA servers today, and have for some time now.

Here's the interesting part for me as I have followed this thread..... Aussies are generally known to be good natured, resilient and pretty much fearless in the face of adversity. At least that is the way many people outside of Australia perceive you as a culture.

Yet the general tone of this thread has been often (and particularly since Bioware announced a decision) filled with people portraying uncertainty and doubt, displaying rage and hate, and generally playing a victim role. It's incongruant with the general perception of the Aussie people, so I personally tend to think that such outbursts are atypical of the Aussie playerbase, especially when I run across so many in game on NA-West servers, enjoying themselves and playing the game.

/2-cents.

You do know that a lot of Aussies play on NA servers today, and have for some time now.

 

Here's the interesting part for me as I have followed this thread..... Aussies are generally known to be good natured, resilient and pretty much fearless in the face of adversity. At least that is the way many people outside of Australia perceive you as a culture.

 

Yet the general tone of this thread has been often (and particularly since Bioware announced a decision) filled with people portraying uncertainty and doubt, displaying rage and hate, and generally playing a victim role. It's incongruant with the general perception of the Aussie people, so I personally tend to think that such outbursts are atypical of the Aussie playerbase, especially when I run across so many in game on NA-West servers, enjoying themselves and playing the game.

 

/2-cents.

What you see here is not uncertainty and doubt, it is anger and disbelief.

Anger that we are/had been lied to.

Disbelief that a company would tell a whole player base they are unimportant now.

Rage and hate go along with the above and we are victims not playing it....

Zarth hope this helps cut and highlight from Eric's response you quoted When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

Yes thank you EOL.

I doubt it BW will use the same metric they used for the second merge for super servers. First, you guys are given a choice of server to transfer into and second NA players have already been through two mergers. Now I do agree that APAC players should get access to names from players who don't play any more, but I doubt it any current player on the west cost server will lose their names simply due to the fact that those players have already gone through two mergers. This will be the third time for those players. Most likely the transfers will be like they were the first wave of NA server mergers. Finally, the second wave of mergers were not like the first mergers. The super servers were new servers with much higher capacity, but were given previous server names. Thus, we all transferred to a new server.

 

Currently, you apac players are transferring to an existing populated server like what happen during the first major wave of merging or transfer for NA and European servers. The second merger for NA and European were transfers to new super severs with the same name of the old normal servers and they further consolidated servers. The situation is exactly the same as it was the first time NA and European were transferred during the first wave. Plus, their is a higher probability that an aussie player will quit than their NA counterpart. Thus, I don't believe BW will want to upset their main clientele with these third wave of transfers.

If you are American, or indeed playing on a NA server, and don't think it will have an effect on you, then why do you feel the need to come in here and inflame already pissed off people?

And FYI I have already been through a merger on the server that my NA characters are on, I am sure there is many people like myself out there, don't be so smug in your assumptions.

You do know that a lot of Aussies play on NA servers today, and have for some time now.

 

Here's the interesting part for me as I have followed this thread..... Aussies are generally known to be good natured, resilient and pretty much fearless in the face of adversity. At least that is the way many people outside of Australia perceive you as a culture.

 

Yet the general tone of this thread has been often (and particularly since Bioware announced a decision) filled with people portraying uncertainty and doubt, displaying rage and hate, and generally playing a victim role. It's incongruant with the general perception of the Aussie people, so I personally tend to think that such outbursts are atypical of the Aussie playerbase, especially when I run across so many in game on NA-West servers, enjoying themselves and playing the game.

 

/2-cents.

Andryah

You Come across as extremely annoying, the Apac community will sort it self out within the options provided by bioware,

In the effort to be fair in my comments :-

Will the game be UN-playable .

No you just stand to no chance of winning any competitive pvp , your activations will keep being late and because of the way skills are stacked then skills will keep being missed.

People not lag gimped like us will keep getting off extra activations. When this means stun locks then kiss your butt goodbye.

Low level pve content will be fine but high level lag inducing ops etc where getting off last second heals etc are so critical , well it ain't gonna be pretty.

And before the trolls start , I played harbinger from launch I have experienced 300+ ping standard with frequent spikes.

Super server was always our answer , close and save money was always theirs.

F2P for me I think, no more sub

Alkemmi