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It seems very likely that a lot of the issues with the game are caused by lag. Poor hit detection, warping, random disconnects, etc. There's no question that the current system with only single centralized server in Canada gives a huge advantage to North American players over players elsewhere in the world. Currently it doesn't matter very much with the only official game mode being 12vs12 pug team death match variations. However, this is not sustainable for long term competitive play, not for tournaments and especially not for community warfare where every battle matters and has some kind of persistent effect in the game world.
A common argument against regional servers is that it would split up the playerbase. This is not true, at least if the regional servers are implemented in sensible manner. The playerbase is already split up as it is, as people from different time zones play at different times. I have no hard data about it, but I'd imagine that European prime time is somewhere around 16:00-24:00 GMT, while American prime time would be some 8 hours later and again, Asian/Australian players play mostly when it's evening over there, or about 8 hours before Europeans.
But of course there are going to be people who are playing at odd hours, with not many players online in their region. This is why the regional servers shoud be made so that everyone connect to the same "lobby server" with the same account we have now and then we pick which region we want to play in or if we don't care at all at the launch screen, much like we pick the game mode we want to play. This way there wouldn't be any significant playerbase split from what it is now and competitive scene would be able to have their matches at level playing field. Of course it would also serve to improve the game experience for everyone else.
Edited by Pineapple Salad, 11 March 2014 - 07:04 AM.
