Okay thanks! I'm currently playing a new sith warrior, and my plan is to skip everything after Ziost. So if I go straight to Jedi Under Siege I'll have to assume all bad choices? Will Quinn be dead? Will I be empire or alliance? To be honest, neither skipping or playing those story arcs sound appealing....

I quit swtor several years ago as I was unhappy with the server merge but more so because I hated where the story went after Shadows of Revan. I've returned because I really miss playing the original class stories, and they are still as good as I remember. My question is this, after SoR what can I safely skip to catch up to the current storyline (Onslaught?)? Are there certain stories I must play so the current story makes sense? From memory I played up to Umbara but I wasn't enjoying any of it. I missed being a dark council member or a smuggler and the whole Alliance thing made me miserable. I know I'll lose companions, that's fine I can head cannon that away. But is everyone going to still call me that damned Outlander or Commander? Will it feel like Zakuul just never happened or will it feel like a disjointed mess?

After the hurt of being kicked out of swtor because of the server relocation, the wow expansion has taken some of the edge of it. It looks fantastic and I'm hyped. Even tho I still have a couple of months left on this sub I've already decided to stop playing and I've gone back to wow to prepare for the expansion.

Really jealous of you guys, so wish I could be a part of it.

I wonder if they made this change to allow for the fact that with increased ping for half their players meant that few people would be able to get 2 skills off in the precision/ferocity window.

Blizzard put wow servers in about 2 years ago. I get 40 ms and I'm on the other side of the country. Most east coast players get between 10 - 25ms. Its very similar to your US pings

An overwhelming number of online games I've played (GW2, Rift, Archeage etc) have been located in central US because it's central. Typically Texas. It's logical because they cater to customers on both sides of the country. I average 200 to west coast, 250 to central and 300+ to east coast. 250ms is about the upper limit for things like raiding and pvp or other high end game activities. So yes central US is bearable, East Coast is not. If Bioware had chosen Texas I'd still be unhappy but would have continued my subscription and eventually got over it because I could still play. Blizzard has servers in Australia, but they are one of the few companies that actually care about their customers outside of the USA.

I select Washington form the list of East Coast servers, so I assume that's DC and closest to the VA data centre.

nah, I don't need or want a refund. Services provided up to this point have been good so Bioware can keep what I've spent on their products, no regrets there. And my subscription is cancelled so no issues their either as I'm not going ot quibble over 2 months sub. I did buy a $100 cc pack right before this announcement ($138 after conversion) so I wouldn't mind that back as it's useless to me now Despite my anger I don't want this game to fail or see Bioware close, even though i can't play anymore I know there are thousands of northern hemisphere players who still can and for you I hope the journey continues for a long time yet.

Good points, although from what I understand most roleplayers just do their thing in Strongholds now because it's the only safe place to do so. Roleplayers have been shafted just as badly as us APAC/west coast players in this whole debacle.

With the new warzone coming out soon it kills me that i won't be able to enjoy it

Um no, I think the other way around. West coast pvper's will not want to move to Starforge because they know they will be playing against east coast players with better ping. But east coast pvper's will definitely want to move to where the west coast players are so they can exploit their advantage. I can see Starforge being the more mature pleasant server and Satele Shan become pretty much what Harb was before. If I was a roleplayer, I'd move to Starforge.

I suspect the RPers won't have it too bad because all the pvpers will migrate to Satele Shan server. You will have a lot of east coast players wanting to exploit their ping advantage over the west coast players. So my guess is the Starforge will become a sort of default PVE server and all the PVP actions will be happening on Satele Shan server. Bioware really should extend the 90 cc server transfer sale so those who do roleplay can escape Satele Shan and move to the more likely friendlier Starforge.

Depending on the time of day I have seen it come down to as low as 270, but more often than not it sits over 300 with 320 the most common number. I'm with Telstra on the NBN. I'm not home until next week so cant do a Tracert. With my VPN server selection I've got it pointing to Washington, I assume that's the closest to the VA servers.

Even if you are right, 280 is still unacceptable when last week I was a steady 200-210. And when you are playing against people who have 20ms it's the definition of misery.

*sigh* I have it, always have had it, living in Perth it's a necessity when most games are in the US. Without :350 with regular spikes over 500 With: 320 and fewer spikes. On the west coast I have a steady 210ms. It's the tyranny of distance, nothing else.

Out of curiosity Icy did you only test it with the trial version? I know it sound weird but I tried the WTFast trial version and it did absolutely nothing but I took the risk and got a months subscription to Battleping and that actually did work.

On reddit a thread was created about the new jedi robes and Eric made a post in there and that's been it. So I imagine they have put the muzzle on him and they are not allowed to comment about this issue until Keith says something or at the very least until some of the heat has come out of it. This is standard practice for this forum, you will remember the same thing happening after the slot machine fiasco, the ravagers exploit, pretty much every contentious issue.

Battleping brings me down from 350 to about 320ms. Still not playable for the content i enjoy but it does seem to reduce lag spikes.

I'm extremely sceptical any one person has spent 22k on cartel coins but it's irrelevant anyway. The only fair solution is for BW to undo the damage and restore West Coast servers while maintaining the east coast server. Basically do what everyone thought they were going to do in the first place and keep a server in each region. But it's too late for that, it's done and BW has spent too much already relocating the servers. What I expect will happen now is we will get a short forum post from Keith next week saying he understands people are upset but to please be patient while they complete the mergers and to give them the benefit of the doubt. By the time Nov 28th comes around Keith will be hoping the loudest of the forum whiners will have left and those remaining will be complaining about something else. He will then come back and claim the merger was a huge success and if there is anyone still having issue to put in a ticket. The beauty of this is once the mergers are done there will be increased populations on each server, giving the illusion it was a success. When in reality there will be fewer players than there is now.

Don't you feel a little bit slighted that your gaming experience has been degraded through no fault of your own and yet Bioware expects you to continue subscribing as before? I mean, if you were a subscriber to pay tv and one day you get an email saying they are removing some channels but they expect you to still pay the same, wouldn't you still be a little angry even if you didn't watch those channels? Don't get me wrong, I don't expect Bioware to come out and say all APAC players can have 50% of subscription costs due to the degradation of your playing experience, but it would be a nice gesture.

Thanks Nuff. With my experience with latency regular pvp is perfectly fine with anything under 250 ms, it's not easy and you are at a disadvantage but you can still compete and have fun. Ranked pvp, basically forget it if your ping is higher than 200ms. Everything just happens too fast and every millisecond counts. I'm not saying it's impossible but I really struggled so I didn't persist. I'm in two minds about whether to just make a clean break and go through a swtor de-tox or to just take a break and come back as f2p. I guess you don't need a decent ping to do basic story chapters but I just know I'm going to get frustrated trying to do something simple like interrupt a flashpoint boss.

Brilliant comment, thank you. Yes we are playing into EA's hands, yes everyone not affected by the merger just wants us to shut up and go away. That will happen eventually anyway as our subscriptions expire and we can no longer post. EA wins again, they always win.

You are right, I could keep playing but just not do the content I enjoy but it feels wrong to pay a subscription for a partial service. I could go f2p but I'll be excluded from new content so I'm better off playing a different game. But more importantly, if we continue to sub then this injustice goes unpunished and Bioware are rewarded for unscrupulous acts. Cancelling my subscription is a small drop in the ocean I know, but at least I'll sleep better at night.

Apart from no longer being able to enjoy the game, this is what hurts the most. That EA doesn't really care if a loyal player continues or not. Their total indifference towards people who have supported them for years is pretty hard to take. I really understand the EA hate that exists in the gaming community now, and their reputation is well deserved. They will get no further business from me.