44 replies to this topic

[Inappropriate849]

Founders Program FAQ mentions that "if we are able to set up servers in [Europe]..." This strongly implies that it is unclear even to the devs when EU servers are up, if ever. I strongly urge to launch with EU server(s) due to latency concerns and to capitalize on launch hype.

I believe beta testers are under NDA, so any EU players can't comment on how lag impacts the game. But from my 15+ years of FPS experience I can say that playing across the pond is not an option. MWO is of course "slightly" more deliberately paced than, say, Tribes:Ascension, so latency might not play such a big role. One can hope.

Nevertheless, I'm still quite concerned that EU players haven't been taken into account this late in the development cycle. If latency is so bad as to make it unplayable for many or most EU players (it varies a lot across the continent), it might appear to Piranha that setting up EU servers is not financially viable, while in fact there might be many more EU players who would play if there was an EU server.

Perhaps more importantly, I feel it is imperative that there is at least one EU server up at launch to benefit from launch media hype. Getting the word out in Europe is much easier at launch, rather than doing it in a few months with a press release announcing an EU server. Also, today's gamers are incredibly whiny and would badmouth the game's latency, thus making it so much harder to have a successful later launch with EU servers.

Therefore EU servers at launch would be a win for Piranha and for the entire MWO community

[BFalcon]

Patience... if they can release euro servers, they will... they need to get the open beta out of the way first and see how much hardware they actually need to sustain the population they will be expecting to play.

Once that is done and they know how much they need to spend to build and maintain the servers for any given region, they can start to work out a policy. I would hope that they would have at least 3 servers worldwide - USA, Europe and Asia/Australia.

Not least, they need to decide on how to integrate the servers - do they allow duplicate merc unit names or keep them unique (I suspect the latter).

They intend to make an EU server, the time is just not yet here where they are able to make final decisions about it.

[Future Perfect]

With this new type of internet connection labeled "broadband" it will be fine... you just need to have 20+ Megabits per second.

/sarcasm off

Edited by Future Perfect, 25 June 2012 - 03:16 AM.

[SparkSovereign]

That's a very reasonable argument. I'm not sure what all would be involved for them to do it (legal, logistical, etc.), but if they can do it you've made a good case that they should. The activity in the international forums is certainly evidence of a playerbase resource in Europe. I hope for everyone that capitalizing on that is feasible.

[John Clavell]

My biggest concern is that future region servers will end up being closed systems. I hope that at the very least there will be a single meta-game. That to me seems way more engaging than North America and European servers being closed, and instanced Inner Spheres running in tandem.

Edited by John Clavell, 25 June 2012 - 03:14 AM.

[chumppi]

OP... no - they fixed and commented that the EU servers are a matter of WHEN not if.

[BFalcon]

Future Perfect, on 25 June 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

With this new type of internet connection labeled "broadband" it will be fine... you just need to have 20+ Megabits per second.

/sarcasm off

When we get it, I'll let you know... some of us are under 8 still - and the trans-atlantic latency increase has nothing to do with the speed of your connection - more to do with the volume of traffic trying to squeeze through the trans-atlantic cables.

[Inappropriate849]

Future Perfect, on 25 June 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

With this new type of internet connection labeled "broadband" it will be fine... you just need to have 20+ Megabits per second.

/sarcasm off

You should have kept your sarcasm off since you don't seem to understand very basic things about physics. Latency has no (or very little) to do with how fast your connection is, but with physical distance and # of hops between you and the server.

Also, note that many EU countries have a much higher broadband penetration, and much faster transfer rates often with no capping, than in the US.

[Ozric]

I'm more worried about regional servers splitting the community. I would prefer PGI to invest in another way to do things, single world-wide accounts for everyone, and people can play from whatever time zone they like. A little lag is a small price to pay for the good of the metagame.

If I have to switch my account over when we eventually get EU servers, I may have to decline the move. Merc Corps, friends and rivals may be lost otherwise, and if indeed there are separate metagames all the work I would have done in the NA servers will have been for nothing.

One community please, it's worth the cost.

[Scilya]

CaptainSodom, on 25 June 2012 - 03:01 AM, said:

But from my 15+ years of FPS experience I can say that playing across the pond is not an option.

15 year ago you would be right but now,.. your taking rubbish if you have a bad connecion well to bad but for the rest of us we can play almost anywhere lag free. i mostly play on american servers because there are more people. never had a lag problem
i have a kiddy problem when they think anything over 50Ms = lag and a fiew outher realy strange thing but there stupid

[costi]

Ozric, on 25 June 2012 - 03:29 AM, said:

I'm more worried about regional servers splitting the community. I would prefer PGI to invest in another way to do things, single world-wide accounts for everyone, and people can play from whatever time zone they like. A little lag is a small price to pay for the good of the metagame.

If I have to switch my account over when we eventually get EU servers, I may have to decline the move. Merc Corps, friends and rivals may be lost otherwise, and if indeed there are separate metagames all the work I would have done in the NA servers will have been for nothing.

One community please, it's worth the cost.

This. EU server sure sounds nice, but in a later stage, when there's enough players to populate it. There's nothing worse that having a regional server where noone's playing.

Ideally, the user database would be synced across all regions, so I can play on EU, but if there's very few players I can switch to US server and play there.

Edited by costi, 25 June 2012 - 03:36 AM.

[Future Perfect]

BFalcon, on 25 June 2012 - 03:21 AM, said:

When we get it, I'll let you know... some of us are under 8 still - and the trans-atlantic latency increase has nothing to do with the speed of your connection - more to do with the volume of traffic trying to squeeze through the trans-atlantic cables.

It's actually more likely that your internet service provider is throttling your internet connection speed.

I had 8 some seven to eight years ago but I guess that some countries are slower than others with getting good broadband.

[SinnerX]

Ozric, on 25 June 2012 - 03:29 AM, said:

I'm more worried about regional servers splitting the community. I would prefer PGI to invest in another way to do things, single world-wide accounts for everyone, and people can play from whatever time zone they like. A little lag is a small price to pay for the good of the metagame.

If I have to switch my account over when we eventually get EU servers, I may have to decline the move. Merc Corps, friends and rivals may be lost otherwise, and if indeed there are separate metagames all the work I would have done in the NA servers will have been for nothing.

One community please, it's worth the cost.

Agreed 100%

Hopefully they'll have one master server that everyone connects to for player data and matchmaking and whatnot, and the matches themselves will be delegated out to regional servers. Of course there's still the chance of being put in a match where you're the only US player on a EU server(or vice versa), but it's better than the alternatives, imo.

[CCC Dober]

Ditto on the one-community notion. Regional servers are just means to an end, not necessarily a limiting factor. At least I hope so. If regional servers could be linked together to allow playing against neighboring regions, now that would be sweet.

[Besh]

Ozric, on 25 June 2012 - 03:29 AM, said:

I'm more worried about regional servers splitting the community. I would prefer PGI to invest in another way to do things, single world-wide accounts for everyone, and people can play from whatever time zone they like. A little lag is a small price to pay for the good of the metagame.

If I have to switch my account over when we eventually get EU servers, I may have to decline the move. Merc Corps, friends and rivals may be lost otherwise, and if indeed there are separate metagames all the work I would have done in the NA servers will have been for nothing.

One community please, it's worth the cost.

+1.

[Squeak]

i understand the OP and everyone else on this, but lets face facts this has been a major issue for all MMOs since they came into exsitence.
very few have set up in both EU and states at launch for a game, and as this is not a company on the same leel as say blizzard to expect it is just not reasonable. if it happens it happens if not be happy knowing that they have stated that EU servers will be up soon after lanch if not at lanch

P.S. this has been one of the main topics for every MMO in beta i have seen in beta for close to 10 years now

[BFalcon]

Future Perfect, on 25 June 2012 - 03:35 AM, said:

It's actually more likely that your internet service provider is throttling your internet connection speed.

I had 8 some seven to eight years ago but I guess that some countries are slower than others with getting good broadband.

The local exhange is due to upgrade to 21CN WBC in the next few days, so should see 20+ MB/s at last - it's because we're a low-population county, well away from high-population areas and a small town, which is why we were left until last, pretty much.

As for the broadband - same on both our connections - we've got the home broadband (Plusnet) and my business broadband (BT Unlimited - Business grade). Used to be the same for our old ISP (Demon) too...

If it's being throttled, it's being done by BT itself.

[Zack Delphirian]

I agree with Ozric.

BUT, that's probably because I live in a super-fast-internet city and therefore know that even on a USA server, my ping would not be that bad (it's way playable). But people in the countryside or in less plugged countries might not think the same...

[Lumpi]

I like the idea of having one community, but the game will connect to the best suitable server for you. For example when you play in the evening in europe you will connect to an european server to play with your fellow european people. But if you connect at 3am (some people work until late in the night) and there is no one online you will connect to a US server, as there a enough people online.
Ideally this would be all automatic, without you even notice (except maybe ping).
My fear is that european servers would be pubished by another company, what always lead to problems. Like patches will, if ever, arrive days/weeks later, you either have to follow 2 forums, or have an layer, in form of the publisher, between you and the devs. Oh, and of course, we wouldn't give our money to Piranha directly
And there are some deals going on atm I really dislike, like SOE is giving their F2P games to 7games in germany/europe. Now you can't get the Station all access pass as an european gamer, and there is no way I give one of the worst TV-broacasters out there my money....
So, please, dont segregate your community!

[Nik Van Rhijn]

It also depends on where the NA servers are located - 100ms to East Coast with up to 250ms on West Coast, depending on the time of day.
If PGI have good netcode then the game should still be playable at those levels. Of course the matchmaker may put all European PUGs together so we all have lag together