17 replies to this topic

[SilverlightPony]

In Ask the Devs #31 Answers, Bryan said that once regional servers are introduced, there will be no cross-regional play. If you're on the EU server, you can only play with other people on the EU server.

Quote

Nash - You mentioned that EU servers may be introduced at 2013. My question is: Will your pilot name be available on both servers (North America and Europe) or only on one of them? (I ask because otherwise it could happen that 2 different people are taking the same pilot name one at North America and the other at Europe
A: Each region is has its own database and unique user names. Regions do not play with or against each other.

Regional servers are good, as it gives those who live outside North America a chance to have the better pings for once, but I believe segregating the user base is an extremely bad idea.

This is the Internet. The digital world is growing more connected every day, and keeping people separated based on where they are geographically located is constantly becoming a more and more outdated concept.

The better way to handle it would be to create regional servers for hosting games, but have all regions use one central user database, and let players choose any region they wish to play on.

[Apoc1138]

in an ideal world, the community warfare metagame and player database would be global, allowing the possibility of players joining games being hosted on the NA servers, or Euro servers depending on where you could get the better connection and group to join at that particular time

however, I understand that there might be technical and/or legal reasons why this isn't the easiest option, so most likely if they do create segregated Euro servers, I will probably stay with my North American allies on the NA servers, as my ping is 110-150 from the UK, and my experience of connecting to many Euro servers for other games is that it doesn't get much better than that (unless it's actually a UK server, which is pretty unlikley for MWO)

[Durkan]

I'm with silverlight.
A move to split the player base with a hard division between them would be incredibly destructive.
If that's the option I'd rather live with my current ping rate from the UK and keep the servers stateside.

[Itsacon]

Indeed. Having a centralized profile server, combined with localized game servers should not pose too much technical difficulty.

[Koshirou]

SilverlightPony, on 12 February 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

Regional servers are good, as it gives those who live outside North America a chance to have the better pings for once, but I believe segregating the user base is an extremely bad idea.

Absolutely in agreement.

[Father Dougal]

Koshirou, on 12 February 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Absolutely in agreement.

Here here! I also agree.

[Sesambrot]

Itsacon, on 12 February 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

Indeed. Having a centralized profile server, combined with localized game servers should not pose too much technical difficulty.

Might even be less work than setting up two completely independent databases etc.

As much as I'd like to play with a low ping for once, I figure once the netcode is fixed the game should be playable with 100-150ms... I mean it basically already is aside of the occasional lagshield on fast moving targets, so unless I can keep playing with those buddies from overseas, I'm not going to move...
And I don't have time/money to play on two accounts...

[focuspark]

Given that this is a twitch game and the speed of light is finite, there have to be region servers. That said, people should given a recommendation to their best server but the allowance to any server within the legal limitations of blah'da'blah'da.

[Fiachdubh]

I am EU on a crappy connection but experience 130 - 220 ping most of the time. Below 250 is fine but even a bit higher is still playable. I played WoT on EU server and it was no better. Would happily trade a little ping if it meant avoiding segregation and the whole mess it will cause all those multi-region units.
Host on local servers but keep it as one community, none of that MMO multiple world SW:Galaxies/WoW crap.
Constant poor ping is often due to the local crap internet services so a local server may not help some that much.

Edited by Fiachdubh, 12 February 2013 - 02:01 PM.

[focuspark]

Fiachdubh, on 12 February 2013 - 01:52 PM, said:

I am EU on a crappy connection but experience 130 - 220 ping most of the time. Below 250 is fine but even a bit higher is still playable. I played WoT on EU server and it was no better. Would happily trade a little ping if it meant avoiding segregation and the whole mess it will cause all those multi-region units.
Host on local servers but keep it as one community, none of that MMO multiple world SW:Galaxies/WoW crap.
Constant poor ping is often due to the local crap internet services so a local server may not help some that much.

Agreed and you should have that option, but those who can't stand any lag should have the option of playing on the EU local severs.

[z3a1ot]

Regional servers yes but no to segregating community. Well see what future brings.

[Karl Split]

Im UK, ill stay with my american buddies thanks, 100 ping is manageable.

Never liked games splitting up, 100 ping or 30 ping neither will stop a bad player dying horribly

[Fiachdubh]

Yes, best of both worlds and everyone is happy. Except for those people who are never happy.

[Corvus Antaka]

We need a unified player base!

[Aedensin]

Every time I see regional segregation in a game, especially a niche game, it makes me sad.

Most games with regional servers allow you to choose which you want to use while only requiring one "master" account. The ones that build a giant wall and tell you that you can't play with your friends on the other side tend to sink into obscurity and eventually die before their time.

It's good that PGI/IGP recognizes the EU players that would prefer a local server but they shouldn't make it an all or nothing decision.

[Sesambrot]

Aedensin, on 12 February 2013 - 10:38 PM, said:

Every time I see regional segregation in a game, especially a niche game, it makes me sad.

Most games with regional servers allow you to choose which you want to use while only requiring one "master" account. The ones that build a giant wall and tell you that you can't play with your friends on the other side tend to sink into obscurity and eventually die before their time.

It's good that PGI/IGP recognizes the EU players that would prefer a local server but they shouldn't make it an all or nothing decision.

I don't get this either!
I'm really curious to know the reason why they think they need a completely separate database for their EU-players...
All that is needed is a gameserver that makes it possible for people to play with a low ping from time to time.

Hawken does exactly that! You have one account, and just before you drop into a match, you can choose whether you want to drop on a EU, US or "I-don't-care"-server... All those international servers need to be are gameservers. We don't need a database for EU-players so we can feel special, frankly, I couldn't care less whether my data was stored in NA or Germany.
If the userdata is stored on servers in a single country then there are not going to be any issues even if I play on a server outside of that country...
Hawken does it, Planetside 2 does it, hell, if you think about it, Valve has been doing this for years with steam...

The point being there is absolutely nothing that forces you to split the community like that, so why?

Here's another thing; look at the international forums... Evidently Germans are the biggest part of of the EU community (not counting UK coz they don't have their separate forum...), then there's the Russians and the Spanish, but the rest is basically nonexistent if the topic-count is anything to go by.
So here's the question; Who the hell is supposed to play on those EU-exclusive servers?
Even if all of us where to move, I doubt the resulting community would be big enough to sustain itself...

I'm all for trying to expand the community beyond where it's already the most popular (NA and Germany) but in order to do that; get out of BETA and start advertising the game! Splitting the community like that, hoping that the Euros will find enough newbies to form a community completely separate from the one in NA, is just a really really bad idea.

[James Warren]

I'd like accounts to be global, with the game client placing players on local servers by default where possible. You should still be able to play on another region's servers if you wish. Better to have all the player accounts in one pool.

A lot of multiplayer games die off in Australia (and other smaller countries I'd assume) because there isn't a large enough player-base. You need that critical mass where at any given time of the day there will be some people online.

I know there are a lot of MWO players across the Asia-Pacific region but I'd still like the security of being able to play against Europeans and Americans. With the HSR mostly working (I'm looking at you, lasers ) its not such a big deal playing with a high ping anyway. I'd rather have a sub-optimal game than no game at all.

Edited by James Warren, 21 July 2013 - 05:04 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

splitting the playerbase is a terrible idea. my unit has players from all over the world, and they wont switch to a euro server unless its globally free switching. imho PGI needs to keep this game global, dividing regions by chinese/western/russian "might be acceptable" with the language barriers, but beyond that i think its a terrible idea to split the playerbase at all.