116 replies to this topic

[CutterWolf]

The fix in a nut shell:

Copy the player base from your NA sever files and transfer that over to your UK severs. Then add a "Select sever" option to your start up screen where you log in at. (i.e. NA or UK)" Now your entire player base can pick where they want to play at and not split the community.................

Edited by CutterWolf, 10 March 2013 - 04:28 PM.

[Phlyk]

DV McKenna, on 10 March 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

If they don't split the servers, they can't get some peoples money twice (hello mech bays/premium)

I completely forgot about having to buy a second set of mechbays. That would definitely seem like a money grab!

[CarpetShark]

I can usually only play at 3 or 4 am Eastern US time. I wonder how populated my 'local' server is going to be at that time...

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Thanks for redirecting this from ATD 33 ...

I play from Japan, and have a consistent ping of about 200 ... the game is exceptionally enjoyable, but every now and then I do have some warping problems with either me or other players. My personal observation (no data to back it up, since state rewind for lasers and stats for each weapon came out at the same time) is that the "lag shield" effect is mostly gone for lasers, both in my targeting and getting hit when I'm in a fast light.

Given the option, I would most likely PUG in local servers. However, I will probably start dropping with other groups soon, but I want the option to drop with any groups that I want to drop with, regardless of location. While this may not be best for competitive play, that's not why I'm playing. I'm playing to have fun.

Also, with Community Warfare coming "soon ^TM", I don't want different inner sphere maps for each server/region. I want one persistent game universe ... is it possible that between the time my wife pries my mouse from my hands and points me to bed and when I get back from work that the "big game" will have changed? Absolutely! It will keep me logging in each night to find out what missions the Combine has in store for me. When I do wake up early on the weekends, I'd prefer to log on to North American servers and play with my friends there. When their real lives or circadian rhythm takes over (at about lunch time for me), I'll log on to more local servers and play with others.

Give us the flexibility to have one universal account that can be used on any server to do battle across one persistent game universe.

If I have to choose, I'll almost certainly stick with North American servers ... while I love where I live, it may not last forever.

Edit: Oh, and on a more personal note, I won't be getting a second account for any reason, partly because I already have too much invested in this one.

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 11 March 2013 - 12:28 AM.

[Thirdstar]

borisof007, on 09 March 2013 - 11:48 PM, said:

Edit: I don't want you on my team if you have more than 150 ping. Yes I'm one of "those" people.

I'm going to keep dropping into the NA servers with my 300+ ping just in the hopes of dropping on your team. And I will savor your sweet sweet tears.

[SmokinDave73]

All i can say to the post above me is burnnnnn needed to put shades on for that one

[CompproB237]

I just wanted to post here in support of having region select on a per-session basis. It would cause many problems on the developer's end (Sorry) but I really think this could be a game breaker if not handled correctly. The community for this game is pretty spread out across the world. My small mercenary corp. has some members strewn across the US from the west coast to the east coast and one member from Australia.
I used to play an old game that had regional game servers. The one that was closest to the developer's home country (Japan) had by far more recent content and stable service (even going from UK -> Japan). By the end of the game's service they had shut down the US server (not enough "interest") and alienated all US players. Their data was not allowed to transfer. It was sad to see the game company essentially kill the game because of this.


I can grasp at the basic fiscal decisions (cost of a centralized database with good storage, good connection - specifically to the regional servers, and the coding required) as well as the technical limitations of implementing a region select (coding for client, regional server coding, decent connection to database as well as anti-cheat considerations) but I implore that you at least attempt to make it happen. Even if only in a theoretical discussion. I would also love if you could let us know, in any way, why you came to your decision.



P.S. - Thirdstar, your post reminded me of a photo I edited a while back. The original is in my team's thread.

[Thirdstar]

CompproB237, on 11 March 2013 - 01:15 AM, said:

.......Snip

If Path of Exile (run by a similarly tiny development studio with an even MORE limited budget) can do it I don't see why we can't have it here.

[Jimskiavic]

This isn't a new community either. A lot of people have been playing the various BT games for years, and built up friendships (and rivalries!) and units all around the world. The last thing we'd want would be to split those long-established, strong communities up.

As much as I'd love having a sub-200 ping (well, it's much better than the old 1200+ pings of the dial-up days) from Australia, I wouldn't want to have to make a choice about which splintered community to play with.

[SirLANsalot]

I don't see this as being much of an issue for anyone thats not a founder.

Founder status is something very diffrent then just owning a hero mech. For one we get shiny gold/orage/blue banners. We also have 4 mechs no one else can ever own....again. If we made another account to play on XX server, we would lose our founder mechs and....well everything. Making a new account and then having to get new hero mechs may be annoying, but it dose give you a chance to maybe get a diffrent hero. (going on the basis of getting 1 hero mech on an account). So it might not be all bad for people who already have mechs (non founder).


However I am for a free choice of swapping servers, maybe make it a 3 or 4 hr delay between swaps of servers (issuing the change from here on the site) so as to not completely melt down the two of constant swapping.

[Thirdstar]

SirLANsalot, on 11 March 2013 - 01:38 AM, said:

I don't see this as being much of an issue for anyone thats not a founder.

Founder status is something very diffrent then just owning a hero mech. For one we get shiny gold/orage/blue banners. We also have 4 mechs no one else can ever own....again. If we made another account to play on XX server, we would lose our founder mechs and....well everything. Making a new account and then having to get new hero mechs may be annoying, but it dose give you a chance to maybe get a diffrent hero. (going on the basis of getting 1 hero mech on an account). So it might not be all bad for people who already have mechs (non founder).


However I am for a free choice of swapping servers, maybe make it a 3 or 4 hr delay between swaps of servers (issuing the change from here on the site) so as to not completely melt down the two of constant swapping.

I am NOT regrinding my 16 mechs AND rebuying all the mechbays. No freaking way.

[T0RC4ED]

Lets see... real money spent on paint, camo, hero mechs, 30+ mech bays, and in my case a founders account... No im not going to create another account to play on a different server. Im sure as heck not going to pay for a server transfer or wait hours for it to happen either.

From a Merc corp unit leader standpoint, I verry much enjoy playing with our players from all over the globe and it would be terrible to see them having to choose between playing with their real life friends and playing with our unit.
Also, fracturing a game's community rarely turns out to be a good thing when the overall life span of a game is considered.

The Best way to go about it would obviously be to have global accounts that can join any server at any time (like battlefield 3 or blackops 1).

Edited by T0RC4ED, 11 March 2013 - 02:36 AM.

[SWGoldie]

Phaesphoros, on 10 March 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

Dunno why this is an issue at all:
Use ONE server (location) for accounts and MM, multiple servers for games. Include ping in MM. MM distributes matches to the different regional servers. You could even add a player-controlled weighting "I accept to wait longer for better ping".

No one time transfer whatsoever, no issues with groups formed from people at different locations, better average performance but no splitting of community.

I agree with the above post. Why not have a single account server, with distributed match servers. That way when CW comes along there is only one global community, rather than separate fragmented communities.

Living in the UK (100 to 110 ping), but playing with the US based Highlanders it would be unlikely that I would migrate my account to a EU bases server (Unless that is the decision the Highlanders make for my battalion). But for sure i will not be setting up a second account on a new server. I don't have enough time to unlock all I want on one account, let alone two, and there is no way i am paying twice for things. I currently support the Devs and will continue to do so, but please don't take the ****.

I love this game, and love playing with the Highlanders, and don't want to see the community broken up, when in reality it does not need to be.

[Furmansky]

Well I will just boycott the transfer and will stay on current server. There is no other option for me. Its quite simple... if all will do that, and EU server will be mostly empty and NA will stay without change PGI will be forced to react in a proper manner.

THOSE WHO WOULD GIVE UP ESSENTIAL LIBERTY
TO PURCHASE A LITTLE BETTER GAMEPLAY.
DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY NOR BETTER GAMEPLAY.

And thats my wee stand on that. If it would be not technically possible for some reason then maybe it could be a viable option... But just to remind you all we are in XXI century now, single account and various battle regional servers can be perfectly done. I will not agree in any point to be freely put and closed in a ghetto, neither will majority...

[Moromillas]

A resounding no to segregation and grinding on multiple accounts.

[KinLuu]

Of course I would prefer a system that lets me decide on which server I want to play at any given time.

But if that is not realistic/possible, split servers are the next best thing. I do not want to play with 150 ping forever.

Edited by KinLuu, 11 March 2013 - 04:18 AM.

[The Gunman]

I might have supported a server split if there was ever a chance of getting a server in my region, Australia. However the chances of getting a server here is unlikely at best. Therefore a North America / Western Europe split does nothing for us here other than split the community.

Also, the latest patch has dramatically improved our experience here down under, so I'm not sure what you guys are complaining about, I have a 350ms ping and the game runs fine.

[Dandyman]

I sincerely hope that this position changes. I very much enjoy dropping with my EU counterparts in the Windbourne and would hate to lose any of them to the EU server. I drop with players from Australia, Germany and the UK all the time and we rarely encounter network issues.

A simple solution would be to decouple the account/profile management servers from the match servers. These A/P servers could be distributed to various regions to speed up the login process (not sure that's even an issue for anybody) and configured to replicate on a schedule. The replication would most likely have to be performed daily at a minimum and players would need to be informed that their profile may not update in other regions for 24 hours. Of course, thats if regionalize account management is even needed.

The second part of the solution would require that "ping" become a variable in matchmaking. The default behavior would simply assign inidividuals to the "best available" server while groups would be determined based on what is best for the group as a whole. Ultimately, , allowing for outliers to play at a sub-optimal rate in the interest of sticking together with their Clan/Merc mates.

[Furmansky]

KinLuu, on 11 March 2013 - 04:17 AM, said:

Of course I would prefer a system that lets me decide on which server I want to play at any given time.

But if that is not realistic/possible, split servers are the next best thing. I do not want to play with 150 ping forever.

Oh absolutely Sir.
But it is possible to have one account and play on different regional servers with it.
Experience improved lately for everyone, great it can be done, and still can be improved with just one server.
But here are fishy politics showing up. I'm told It is OK to create a new account and play with you on your server with 150 Ping? But it is not possible to play on that server with my main account with same 150 Ping?
This has one and only one purpose... second launch, new founders program possibly?... new grind... basically if you can sell something twice... ££££££££££££££££ and £££££££££££.
This is not something that is planned with consumer satisfaction in mind...

[Corvus Antaka]

I have a ping of 10-20MS, I've never had any issues fighting anyone, be there ping 50ms or 500ms. Splitting Asian region I can understand, languages, etc. splitting NA/Europe - NO WAI!!! It'll just mean we all play on the NA servers or the Euro ones, and it'll suck cause we'll lose the ability to play with friends.

It sounds like PGI thinks this'll make them more money, like people will be dumb enough to create multiple accounts and spend MC on both - more than likely it'll just hurt the game and make people laugh at PGI for splitting a small community in the age of globalization and a world wide web.

Being able to freely move between servers would be acceptable.

It's wierd when you consider CW too - is PGI going to run multiple instances of the btech universe and how things unfold with CW then? Seems like a lot of extra work creation right there too instead of having a global btech universe and 1 cohesive universe with all server regions able to connect with each other.