DiamondDove
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Posts posted by DiamondDove
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They just got closed down at some point and the reason must've been that there weren't enough players to sustain them.
You will find an earlier comment from me addressing this. It is worth contemplating that there seems to be less players on Harbinger now (in late October 2017), then on the main APAC server when BW decided to shut it down (in 2013). I am just making an observation, and based only on my own limited experience. I am not claiming the game is doomed or in maintenance mode, but BW will make business decisions based on the data they have, and their profit targets. We can't know any of those parameters, and the APAC servers would probably have cost more to maintain back then, than the new east coast servers are now. We all know these are necessary business decisions, and hopefully this one will keep the game viable for years to come.
Personally, I feel for the APAC players but there can't be that many of them.
Tsilah - thank you for being supportive of the APAC case, and not letting your 'discourse' with one APAC player interfere with that support.
After our initial APAC losses, I fear you are correct - there are not enough of us playing anymore to mount a business case to keep WC servers just for APAC players. I hope that the APAC head count by BW included the (potentially large) number of APAC players using a VPN and appearing to be located elsewhere.
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First let me say right up front.... I understand the distance based ping for APAC players from Australia since the last maintenance cycle.. so do not waste time telling me I do not understand.
That said.... A number of players from APAC are making claims that the APAC servers were busier then today's Harbinger back when they shut them down. Yet.. readily available information on the internet proves this to be completely wrong:
Snip
Note: This post is for objective information purposes only. I will NOT respond or engage in dialog with anyone looking to personally attack or pick a hyperbole based fight just for the buzz.
Ah Andryah - I feel privileged to have brought you out of your forum slumber. If you trawl through the posts, you will see one from me wondering where you had gone, and hoping you are OK. Every forum needs a contrarian, and I sense that you enjoy the role
Onto more serious matters - thank you for the links. They do not provide numbers, but do portray the issue as it was in 2012/13.
I stand by my numbers as what I genuinely recollect before the mass exodus started from Dalborra. I did not play on any other servers, so I cannot make any comparisons with their populations at the time. This also means that the APAC players were expressing great concern about group activities with a fleet population of around 200-250. Many people started to leave before the official BW announcement. I am not sure when you joined APAC, or what population you saw. It did get down to about 10 on Dalborra fleet between the announcement forced merger and the actual date, which was dire indeed.
Did I provide a little hyperbole? Maybe
. I was not trying to scaremonger, however, but to provide context. I really have seen the Harbinger pub side fleet sitting at 25-50 players each time I have logged in for the last week. I doubt (hope its not, really) that is a true representation of the total player number.Thank you for your considered rebuttal - if you do any have any numbers from that period I would be genuinely interested to see them.
PS am I am annoyed APAC customer? yes! I will try to play up until Christmas, and hope that I can find a way to do group content. If not, I will have about 70 baby toons by then to run through the story, which is still playable at 300ms or so.
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Yep, yep - understand you there Nostalgia. I was just trying to provide context for many of the previous posters - and possibly context for future decisions that BW may yet make.
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TL;DR my own experience is that the main APAC server (Dalborra) was about 5 times as busy prior to it being shut down, as Harbinger has been for the last week.
Re when the APAC servers were shut down:
- this was obviously a business decision to reduce costs (servicing, rack leasing etc) for what was perceived to be too small population to financially support an APAC server
- we were told by BW that the merge was to improve player experience, as there were not enough players for group content to pop as quickly as intended (at the time this was true - we did get better pops once we merged with Harbinger)
- if memory serves me correctly, the APAC servers were removed before F2P was introduced, so all players represented income (mind you, the Aussie dollar was strong - so maybe that enticed more of us to play as well??)
- my own anecdotal evidence of the APAC population is that the largest server (Dalborra) used to average a medium load, with a fleet population of about 200-250 in the evenings. This was before strongholds, so the fleet was not diluted like it is now. (NB the population tanked after BW announced that we would be merged with Harbinger, as people flocked to Harbinger for shorter queues. Pretty much only myself and Gazza the Aussie intern stayed until the end)
- the closing of the APAC servers reduced my guild population by some 30-50%, and it never really recovered
- I assume the APAC/WC server merge lost at least 30% of the APAC players, based on how many our guild lost
- the shorter queues at that stage did compensate, in part, for the slower ping (I jumped from 40ms to 240ms) in terms of gameplay
- the current anecdotal evidence is that there are far fewer players on Harbinger now (I have seen fleet as low as 25-40 players) than there were on Dalborra when it was shut down, and Harbinger has not risen above a light server load for a long time
- very roughly, the population on Dalborra, that was perceived as unsustainable by BW at the time, could well have been 5 times what Harbinger currently seems to be.
Caveats:
- I know that my numbers are only based on personal observation, that fleet population is now diluted by strongholds, and that F2P has changed the population as well. I merely present this as my experience to inform the discussion.
- I also realise that price structures have changed a lot, and that player numbers are only one aspect of BW's decision making matrix.
- Many WC players may be waiting for the dust to settle before trying to play and the population for the last week may be much better than the fleet numbers suggest. Or Harbinger may have had more APAC players than anyone realised, and this is the new population after most of APAC have unsubbed.
- this was obviously a business decision to reduce costs (servicing, rack leasing etc) for what was perceived to be too small population to financially support an APAC server
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I did assume that Snow White is an APAC player, as all NA still have a playable (albeit in many cases inconvenienced/downgraded) service. Following the link, however, it is to USA consumer law. This may be a very different case to the grievance that APAC (and possibly Hawaii) players have.
I would like to take different line to most of the posters in here, though, and thank SnowWhite for their large investment that has helped keep the doors open on the game so far - and hope they find the game is actually still playable and keep investing in its future, as that helps all of us (or at least those who still have a ping <300 or so and are still able to play).
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To all of the USA residents who have no sympathy for the plight of Snow White, please understand two key points:
the latency now experienced by APAC players (even from major cities like Melbourne) makes the game unplayable-this is actually in breach of Australian consumer law, which is far more protective of customers than USA consumer law;
EA themselves are forced to acknowledge the extent of Australian consumer law in their ToS, and state that Australians are "entitled to a replacement or refund for a major problem".
See EA's full text here.
"Under the Australian Consumer Law, you are entitled to a replacement or refund for a major problem, and compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. You are also entitled to have goods repaired or replaced, and services resupplied if the goods or services fail to comply with one of the consumer guarantees, and the failure does not amount to a major problem. These rights apply to both physical or hard copy games as well as digitally downloaded games."
Now, us Aussies will probably all agree that a latency of 300ms+ makes the game unplayable, that there was no warning of this change in service, and that the change in service is a major problem. Our perception is that we are actually entitled to a refund under both Australian consumer law and EA's own ToS.
If a court of law, or the Australian Consumer Ombudsman agree is a different matter entirely.
Otherwise, to those who are showing no empathy towards Snow White or the rest of the APAC community, I would implore you to do some research and find out just what our problem actually is, but TL;DR we can longer play most elements of the game.
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I am now reluctantly hopeful. As an APAC player distant from Sydney, my previous Harbinger ping was 220-260 (with massive spikes at times). My immediate reaction after this maintenance was that the game was now unplayable, with ping sitting at 380-390 (with frequent spikes).
My ping running around fleet, on both Harbinger and Shadowlands is now 255-265. I am not an IT professional - I have no idea how they might have brought my ping back down close to where it was (for me at least), but if it stays around 260 then the game is playable again. We probably wont be competitive in PvP, and we might have to be carried in Nim Ops...
Thanks to all the supportive comments on the forums rallying behind us APAC players - we all appreciate it, and some of us may be able to continue to play after all.
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well, as an APAC player all my mounts are as fast as Kai Zykken's unparalleled log mount. It will be faster to hitch a ride on the Tatooine balloon or a
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I guessed there were three of us left in another post - seems like there might have been 10 or so of us left playing from the APAC region. We are just not a big enough market to be commercially viable to EA. They really don't care about our enjoyment of, or attachment to, the game after 5 years.
Maybe an Aussie or Kiwi company can produce a Mad Max MMO, and only have Auckland, Brisbane and Perth servers
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Am I the only Aussie now experiencing an unplayable game?
I have gone from a (barely) playable 280 ms to (basically not playable) 390 ms on what was the west coast. The only reason I kept all of my toons on Harbinger was to keep my marginal ping - which is now lost. Actually, this is even slower than Shadowlands was for me previously. If I had known there was no speed advantage to staying, I would have moved to Shadowlands (for a number of reasons).
I do hope that you guys can restore the ping to what it was for us Aussies. I have never wanted to unsub, and I still don't, but most group play is inaccessible at such slow speeds. Paying for a game I can't play will be rather pointless.
PS apologies if there are already posts on this from others down under - I haven't had time to scan the whole thread.
PPS you could always recommission Dalborra, the 'good old days' of 40 ms were awesome!
PPPS having now read the thread, I see the last three of us APAC players all have an unplayable game, and can either watch the game as SWTOR PowerPoint or unsub .. it was fun while it lasted. So long, and thanks for the fish.
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Random observation:
I was away for the last 5 days or so.
I have the impression that there are only 10 or so people left who post here.
SNIP
I rarely post (the forum kicks me at random times, and I'm usually too lazy to re-enter my security code), but I read a lot of these posts. I agree Jatta - a lot of regulars have left recently. I hope its only because they have moved games, rather than anything having happened to them in real life. As asinine as some of the regulars could be, they did (for better or for worse) keep the forums lit up.
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Most Aussies can only dream of sub-200Ms these days. I think Icy does speak for all of us down under, we miss our APAC servers. My red X has been every night this week, peaking at about 20,000Ms or so, before DSing. Lucking our companions carry on the fight, or I would be dead in heroics at the moment. PS I am off topic, since most Aussies were migrated to west coast...
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bump to go with the companion expansion thread (coz I don't know to link this one sorry!)
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18 people on Imp fleet and 30 on pub side during prime Aussie time (8 pm) on Harbinger tonight. I have never paid any heed to the threads requesting server mergers before - but now I am sitting up and taking notice.
I know that fleet numbers are only one possible surrogate for server health, and that gree is currently on, but I must admit these numbers have me worried. It seems like only a few months ago that there were multiple fleet instances.
If this is a real population collapse, then I think server mergers are the only realistic solution.
I know how people on 'dead'' servers feel - we were all kicked off Dalborra (APAC server) when the fleet population was still 200+ each night. I stayed until the end and the server never felt dead because I still had friends there to do FPs, OPs or dailies with.
The game has not felt the same since, and not just because the ping is now 10 times slower. You build up a community on a server, and when you are forced to merge that community is shattered. Harb is certainly nothing like Dalborra was. Even though our guild transferred over intact, it was never quite the same again.
If the heaviest pop server is this low, however, I don't know that we have a choice but to vote for mergers.
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Oh well, I guess people would rather discuss if it's generosity or nepotism for Keith to give away freebies, than a suggestion for short side stories that might leave enough resources for new group content.
PS free wine spritzer's sound great too - as long as its available for all. Maybe there should be a wine spritzer fountain deco?
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I think the concern being expressed here by some, is that the live-streamer knows a BWA employee who asked Keith on her behalf. Keith then pops into her stream and delivers a gift - I perceive it as being in good faith and out of generosity, as a genuinely nice thing to do. They perceive it as nepotism.
This is a bit different to give-aways on a BW livestream, or a competition, as there is a suggestion that she only received the armour because of who she knows. I don't believe this personally - I think she was given it because Keith was being nice, and knew how to contact her. It just so happens that Keith found out how to contact her through a mutual BWA friend.
I say give Keith the benefit of the doubt, and watch him drop into more live-streams as he finds out how to contact them. If this remains as a once-off, then the suspicion of nepotism may be warranted, but let's assume Keith is just nice
Who knows - he might even start to do some random in-game or forum gifts?
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We have all seen many threads requesting new class and companion stories, and we were rewarded with a snippet of story on Rishi to tidy up some loose ends and more recently a snippet of conversation with Master Ranos hinting at where our lost companions are.
There has been much debate if BWA have the resources to implement 8 new class stories, and based on the implementation of the one-story fits all approach, it would seem they currently don't. However, we were treated to the HK side-story - which seemed to be generally well received on the forums.
What if BWA took a side-story approach to hark back to our individual classes? There could be two options:
1. we play as our companion, following adventures during the 5+ years of separation - and set independently from the Outlander saga
2. we play as our character, searching for these companions, after Iokath is wrapped up - the Outlander could leave Lana and Theron in charge and undertake these as personal missions.
Either approach would be a compromise between totally new story content and class stories, could use existing assets and (perhaps) require less resources to implement. If this style required less resources, the team could focus on delivering new group content, but at the same time release a new class-related story (say) quarterly. It would not be the attempt at bold new story telling of KotFE and KoTET, but might allow story, PvE group and PvP group content to progress at the same time. It could also tie the new stories back into the original class story lines.
With the number of companions we have now, there is almost unlimited potential for approach one to delver story content, but the initial focus should be the missing ones, or current ones to fill in the gaps.
With 8 classes to build on, the second approach would yield at least 8 new stories. If the release was quarterly, that's two years worth of stories as each class is worked through.
What does everyone think about the potential for this approach?
TLDR instead of huge galaxy-impact stories, story telling is personalised for the Outlander's class and companions for 12-24 months, allowing story, PvE and PvP to be developed concurrently.
PS also posted to the suggestion thread.
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We have all seen many threads requesting new class and companion stories, and we were rewarded with a snippet of story on Rishi to tidy up some loose ends and more recently a snippet of conversation with Master Ranos hinting at where our lost companions are.
There has been much debate if BWA have the resources to implement 8 new class stories, and based on the implementation of the one-story fits all approach, it would seem they currently don't. However, we were treated to the HK storyline - which seemed to be generally well received on the forums.
What if BWA used the HK approach to introduce story-lines for our lost companions, which hark back to our individual classes? There could be two options:
1. we play as our companion, following adventures during the 5+ years of separation - and set independently from the Outlander saga
2. we play as our character, searching for these companions, after Iokath is wrapped up - the Outlander could leave Lana and Theron in charge and undertake these as personal missions.
Either approach would be a compromise between totally new story content and class stories, could use existing assets and (perhaps) require less resources to implement. If this style required less resources, the team could focus on delivering new group content, but at the same time release a new class-related story (say) quarterly. It would not be the attempt at bold new story telling of KotFE and KoTET, but might allow story, PvE group and PvP group content to progress at the same time. It could also tie the new stories back into the original class story lines.
With the number of companions we have now, there is almost unlimited potential for approach one to delver story content, but the initial focus should be the missing ones, or current ones to fill in the gaps.
With 8 classes to build on, the second approach would yield at least 8 new stories. If the release was quarterly, that's two years worth of stories as each class is worked through.
What does everyone think about the potential for this approach?
TLDR instead of huge galaxy-impact stories, story telling is personalised for the Outlander's class and companions for 12-24 months, allowing story, PvE and PvP to be developed concurrently.
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I'm leveling toons to 70 through PvP, FPs and dailies before I start their story, so that I get the group activities in before gear really matters. I can then go back into the good stories and can enjoy getting CXP. The DvL event helped, as I had 8 toons at level 50 already!
My approach to CXP is simple - I am doing stuff that doesn't need it until they fix it...I would go crazy if I was on the CXP treadmill for gear. I am just playing my alts like usual, and none are above Command level 15 yet. Will this suit everyone? Definitely not. Should I have to ignore a broken system instead of enjoying a well designed one? Definitely not...but I have found a way to play post 5.0 that suits me.
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NB the keybinding and UI saves can be ported between computers as well, as long as you can find where SWTOR has saved them. That should all be in the link Dr_Mike linked.
NB2 the UI and elements like tab targeting behaviour can all be customised - a lot. New players often miss this, and find the targeting frustrating until they tweak it to suit themselves.
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I guess at least the devs weren't parading around with droid helmets on for the cantina event, like they did for poor Alex_Fortescue and his (very reasonable) request for Jedi robes!
.......and now we just wait for the request for the tracer missile animation to start again.
Given how long these two things have been requested, plus hood toggle (by many people, not just the same people frequently), I wish you luck with your request.
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There is another possibility - the only way that Eric and the team can try and push back against upper management decisions is to 'let slip' how poorly resourced they are, inviting customers to lobby EA for greater resourcing in a way that Eric et al. can't as EA employees.
As strange as it might seem, the whole GC debacle may be another example of their team pushing back against upper management. If I recall correctly, there was a new upper management appointee last year with a background in pay-to-play RNG games. The SWTOR team may have voiced their concerns about RNG crates, but told to implement it nonetheless (Ben may not like RNG any more than the rest of us). The only way they could push back is through lost subs and forum feedback.
Equally, the SWTOR team may have signaled the need to replace their team-mate some time ago, but their request could have been refused. 'Letting-slip' how poorly resourced they are in a live-stream may be a long shot for them to push back against upper management decisions that are strangling the game.
I am quite obviously speculating here, and if I am even partially correct, then the player base is a being used a pawn within the company's internal politics.......and hopefully used in a way that leads to improved resourcing, a better game experience and growth for SWTOR in the future.
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Well, I am posting just as frequently as ever in here (which makes this my third post, I think)
Others, however, do seem to have dropped right off!
. I was not trying to scaremonger, however, but to provide context. I really have seen the Harbinger pub side fleet sitting at 25-50 players each time I have logged in for the last week. I doubt (hope its not, really) that is a true representation of the total player number.
No rage : Logic why the west coast would have been a better decision.
in General Discussion
Posted
Thanks for posting this Icy. That increase in Ping seems about right for my connection. If anything, I am lucky enough to be on the lower side of that increase. Hopefully they can smooth the spikes, and some APAC players may still have a (mostly) playable game.