STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™ Asia Pacific Launch

[RicoFrost]

Maintenance times are of no concern for me 1 night a week is not a big deal. But the fact that they will have servers sitting in Australia is simply awesome, something wow said they were going to do and then changed their minds. This is fantastic, we will be looking at under 100ms ping times maybe even 50ms.

[RicoFrost]

You guys rock Edited February 15, 2012 by RicoFrost

[Herboss]

Awesome news! Playing with a 220 ping blows. Hopefully the legacy system update will coincide so I can get benifits from rolling a new char til xfers are sorted.

 

Seeing as the servers will service AUS, NZ, HK, and SP the servers should be decently populated, they have probably already checked to see who/how many is connecting from what country on the current servers anyway.

[Dire-Wolf]

1: The game will be launching in Hong Kong and Singapore alongside Australia and New Zealand. Presumably we will be playing in the same server set. I am curious whether or not we will have servers in that set clearly marked as Australian, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore?

 

The reason this is such a big deal is, and I mean no offence to Hong Kong or Singapore here, that many Australians and New Zealanders would rather be playing with people whos primary language is English and I'm sure people from Hong Kong and Singapore would rather play with people who primarily speak their own language as well.

 

2: How will cross server groups for warzones and maybe one day flashpoints and operations be handled on these Asian Pacific servers? Will we all be part of the same server group or will we be seperated by country?

 

This question comes back to the same reason as the one above. Queueing up for group content and then getting placed with a bunch of people who don't speak your language isn't an enjoyable experience for either side of the fence. Just look at how many threads pop up on the WoW forums about people not enjoying getting placed with groups of Brazilians.

 

3: How soon after the launch will we be able to transfer our characters to these servers?

Once these transfers are available how long will it take for our character to transfer over?

 

I understand not having it available day one but I'd like to see it available at least a week after the launch. My main concern here is simple making sure my characters keep their names when they transfer and every day that goes by is a day someone might create a character with my name on an Aus server and force me to change mine when I come over. I'm also slightly concerned about how long it will take to actually transfer the character since the Asia Pacific severs physical location will be a long way away from where the US servers currently are.

 

4: Speaking of which where are these severs actually going to be located?

 

5: Will my Legacy level transfer over with me?

 

6: Any plan to launch some sort of CE in this region? I already have mine but I'm sure a lot of people who held out for the official release here will be quite disappointed they can't get one.

[Astralll]

Does Hong Kong mean all of China?

[Decreed]

Likes this

[Evgen]

I'm also curious if it will only be those 4 countries.

I am in Japan playing with an Oceanic guild.

Will I not be given the option to transfer with all my friends?

The pedantic mentioning of those 4 countries leaves me to believe it will only be those 4 countries. Some clarification would be great.

[Evgen]

The reason this is such a big deal is, and I mean no offence to Hong Kong or Singapore here, that many Australians and New Zealanders would rather be playing with people whos primary language is English and I'm sure people from Hong Kong and Singapore would rather play with people who primarily speak their own language as well.

 

You mean like all the British Hong Kongese?

Should they have 2 servers for Hong Kong then?

Or you mean people with accents?

I'm sure a lot of American's feel the same way about playing with Australians and New Zealanders

Seriously though, both countries are very mixed culturaly, which means multiple languages.

Annoying thing about the internet huh

Can't we all just get along?!?!?

[Dacce]

You mean like all the British Hong Kongese?

Should they have 2 servers for Hong Kong then?

Or you mean people with accents?

I'm sure a lot of American's feel the same way about playing with Australians and New Zealanders

Seriously though, both countries are very mixed culturaly, which means multiple languages.

Annoying thing about the internet huh

Can't we all just get along?!?!?

 

 

Just don't talk to fast ok?

[kasa]

As a guild leader, and we all know there's a large number of Australians that have set-up within the "unofficial" servers and others.

 

All I question is, like at the start of this game, in terms of guild support with server selection.

 

Will we get the same set-up or at lest options to transfer guilds?

 

Because manually transferring a guild around 100-150 members is a nightmare!!

[Dire-Wolf]

You mean like all the British Hong Kongese?

Should they have 2 servers for Hong Kong then?

Or you mean people with accents?

I'm sure a lot of American's feel the same way about playing with Australians and New Zealanders

Seriously though, both countries are very mixed culturaly, which means multiple languages.

Annoying thing about the internet huh

Can't we all just get along?!?!?

 

Despite you trying to spin what I said to make me sound like some ignorant racist it's a legitimate concern that BioWare needs to address.

 

If they don't you can expect many forum posts along the lines of "BW I transfered to this server but it's full of people who don't speak my language and that's no fun. I did not know when I transfered here the server would be like this. Why don't you give me a free transfer off this server? If you don't I'm quitting!" or, if cross server FP/OPs are implemented, "BW I am sick of getting stuck with a bunch of people who I don't understand and who in turn do not understand me. It makes completing this content very frustrating. Please lock out these servers from being grouped up with my server or I quit!".

 

Obviously the actual posts will be much less polite and much less coherent. They also wont all be in English. It's something that always happens when countries that are geographically close but are culturally very different, and we are very different despite some mixes of our cultures here and there, and who have a language barrier. Once again I refer to the Americans in WoW who complain about being grouped with Brazilians. Perhapes a better example would be all the Australians and New Zealanders in Starcraft 2 who don't like being grouped with the rest of Asia.

[Rebirdhk]

First of all, question: Is the AUS region accessible if I am already a subscriber of US/EU version (without migrating our characters at the moment)

 

 

I' not quite sure why they decided to make Hong Kong specifically a target in the new regional server.

 

I'm a Hong Kong player who currently playing in The Swiftsure. And as i know, swtor is not that famous in Hong Kong (Sooooo hard to find a copy of swtor during release) and the pool of player in Hong Kong is not that big at all. Most of them are usually experienced MMO players who used to play on US servers. And rather staying on US for higher population and quality player interactions.

 

Anyway, my point is launching a new region that includes Chinese-speaking-Asia without localization hardly attracted new group of players, pumping new bloods into servers. Language barrier is still a problem especially games like swtor that text takes up quite a large proportion of the gaming experience.

 

Of course i appreciate a lower ping and better connection quality , and probably will also benefit current mainland China, Taiwan and Macau players. But I am just concerned about possible problem of population divergence which end up in degradation of gaming experience and loss of populations....

 

 

Btw, i heard that EA China is working on the CN version of swtor with Simplified Chinese localization, any confirms from BW/EA people ?

[Toodumb]

Despite you trying to spin what I said to make me sound like some ignorant racist it's a legitimate concern that BioWare needs to address.

 

If they don't you can expect many forum posts along the lines of "BW I transfered to this server but it's full of people who don't speak my language and that's no fun. I did not know when I transfered here the server would be like this. Why don't you give me a free transfer off this server? If you don't I'm quitting!" or, if cross server FP/OPs are implemented, "BW I am sick of getting stuck with a bunch of people who I don't understand and who in turn do not understand me. It makes completing this content very frustrating. Please lock out these servers from being grouped up with my server or I quit!".

 

Obviously the actual posts will be much less polite and much less coherent. They also wont all be in English. It's something that always happens when countries that are geographically close but are culturally very different, and we are very different despite some mixes of our cultures here and there, and who have a language barrier. Once again I refer to the Americans in WoW who complain about being grouped with Brazilians. Perhapes a better example would be all the Australians and New Zealanders in Starcraft 2 who don't like being grouped with the rest of Asia.

 

If BW feels that this is a concern that's worth addressing, then the obvious solution is to not group people by country (which gets peoples' backs up as you've seen) but to group by language in the exact same way as the European servers are currently arranged.

 

And English is one of the four official languages of Singapore, FWIW, and is the only language that everyone in the country is fluent in. The same is not true for Hong Kong, but I would strongly suspect that the number of players in HK is much lower than SG+AU+NZ, and if I'm wrong then, hey, Chinese-language servers etc.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Toodumb

[Cormey]

Will the Oceanic DDE come with the ingame CE goodies since you're refusing to sell us the CE?

[Varteras]

Server transfers is a good start.

 

Now where's the faction transfers?

 

Faction transfers will probably never be an option. Considering that this game is focused on telling particular stories with its classes Bioware probably doesn't like the idea of you being a high ranking Jedi and then suddenly (as far as story goes) becoming a low ranking Sith Warrior (not by level but by story). Even if they came up with a way to transfer your character and make a point for point equalization of every choice and action you made as a Jedi and overlayed it on the Sith story, then when you get expansions everyone will be going "hey you killed that one guy! hey I remember when you did that one thing!" and yet you never did any one of those things. Not to mention how do you explain what happened to all of those companions you befriended along the way? Why can't you choose to keep your Defender ship instead of being forced to take the Fury and why did they force you to take a transport ship to Dromund Kaas instead of giving you back your ship? It would really cause a lot of issues with the story which Bioware seems very intent on sticking to.

[mmogaddict]

From the Games On Net Q & A

 

http://games.on.net/article/14905/SWTOR_Australian_Launch_Details_We_Speak_to_BioWare_About_All_Thing_Oz

 

What plans are in place for maintenance routines on the Australian servers? Will they follow the same downtime patterns as the US and European servers?

 

Grant: Any game updates or general maintenance will be performed across all worldwide locations simultaneously. Minimizing service downtime is something that we take very seriously and we will continue to evaluate the timing of all of our maintenance windows to ensure that they are performed at times that will impact the fewest players possible. Our goal is to continue to offer the same quality and reliability as we have up to this point.

[Ajahax]

Does the server transfer count for players not in those regions? For all! More details would be great! ^^

[mmogaddict]

Does the server transfer count for players not in those regions? For all! More details would be great! ^^

 

As per the FAQ the transfers are only open for accounts that have nominated that they are in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

See- http://www.swtor.com/info/faq/game#q400115

 

How do I know if I qualify for the free character transfers?

 

To qualify for free character transfers, players must meet the following requirements by Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 5:01PM EDT, 7:01PM NZDT, 2:01PM HKT, 2:01PM SGT:

 

You specified that your country is Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, or Singapore during your account registration process.

Redeemed an Official Game Production Registration Code on http://www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com Code Redemption Center.

Have had or currently have entered a valid recurring payment method or redeemed a Pre-Paid Game Time Code.

Only characters created on The Old Republic servers by February 28, 2012, 5:01PM EDT, 7:01PM NZDT, 2:01PM HKT, 2:01PM SGT qualify for transfers.

 

Characters created by qualified players on a non-Asia Pacific server after the February 28th deadline will not qualify for transfers to Asia Pacific servers.

 

We will be sending an email to all qualified players by early March with more details. Stay tuned to http://www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for more information.

Edited February 15, 2012 by mmogaddict

[mmogaddict]

First of all, question: Is the AUS region accessible if I am already a subscriber of US/EU version (without migrating our characters at the moment)

 

From the FAQ - http://www.swtor.com/info/faq/game#q400115

 

I already have an active Star Wars: The Old Republic account; can I play on the Asia Pacific servers?

 

All active accounts will have the ability to create new characters on the Asia Pacific servers.

[Rebirdhk]

From the FAQ - http://www.swtor.com/info/faq/game#q400115

 

I already have an active Star Wars: The Old Republic account; can I play on the Asia Pacific servers?

 

All active accounts will have the ability to create new characters on the Asia Pacific servers.

 

Thanks mate, didn't notice the FAQ.

[yahava]

Will there be an RP server?

[Siha]

Dear Bioware -

 

Please, please give transfer eligibility to people with accounts registered in non-Oceanic locations. Many of us Aussies registered as being in the USA to try and get in the beta or due to people being worried about being locked out for being in the red zone. In addition, many of us have American friends and guildies who operate on Oceanic times (eg shift workers) so they've joined Oceanic guilds.

 

Even if you don't want to open up transfers to all and sundry, can you please at least extend the "free transfers" option to people who are currently in a guild with Oceanic players? That way our American friends can move with us, if they want, and those of us who registered as being from the USA won't be forced to watch as our friends transfer off.

 

Please. Otherwise you're going to fracture a lot of guilds, and cause a lot of unnecessary ill-will and unhappiness.

[JasonFJ]

Round-trip delay from Singapore to Melbourne goes via Perth for Singapore (if not Asia).

 

This means that that server latency from Singapore/HK to Melbourne is the SAME (~200ms) as it is to the US West Coast.

 

Needless to say, I hope people in Singapore/HK do traceroutes to the new server IPs before they transfer their characters.

 

EXHIBIT A: TRACEROUTE FROM SINGAPORE TO MELBOURNE

 

C:\Users\EA_Fail>tracert http://www.telstra.com.au

 

Tracing route to http://www.telstra.com.au [144.140.108.25]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

 

1 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms bb116-14-108-1.singnet.com.sg [116.14.108.1]

2 21 ms 19 ms 18 ms te3-0-1-3450.sake.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.81]

3 21 ms 19 ms 20 ms xe-0-0-0-3000.qt-ar04.singnet.com.sg [202.166.121.129]

4 22 ms 21 ms 19 ms xe-8-3-0-0.qt-cr02.singnet.com.sg [202.166.126.209]

5 23 ms 20 ms 18 ms ae6-0.singha.singnet.com.sg [202.166.120.186]

6 23 ms 20 ms 19 ms ge-3-0-0.corona.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.150]

7 24 ms 20 ms 19 ms 202.166.124.190

8 23 ms 20 ms 20 ms 203.117.4.53

9 23 ms 20 ms 20 ms vlan911-an-cat6k-ts-1-rsm1.starhub.net.sg [203.118.5.2]

10 22 ms 20 ms 113 ms an-ats-int10.starhub.net.sg [203.118.3.176]

11 26 ms 24 ms 21 ms 203.116.5.158

12 21 ms 22 ms 20 ms i-1-0-0.6ntp-core01.bi.reach.com [202.84.243.81]

13 153 ms 204 ms 102 ms i-1-3-0.pthp-core01.bx.reach.com [202.84.141.165]

14 227 ms 204 ms 204 ms TenGigE0-6-0-7.pie-core3.Perth.telstra.net [203.50.13.245]

15 227 ms 207 ms 205 ms Bundle-Pos2.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net [203.50.11.16]

16 227 ms 204 ms 204 ms Pos0-4-1-0.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net [203.50.6.189]

17 226 ms 204 ms 205 ms TenGigabitEthernet8-1.exi1.Melbourne.telstra.net [203.50.80.11]

18 228 ms 204 ms 204 ms telstr310.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.36.186]

19 227 ms 204 ms 203 ms 144.140.109.252

 

EXHIBIT B: TRACEROUTE FROM SINGAPORE TO LOS ANGELES

 

C:\Users\EA_Fail>tracert 208.79.89.243

 

Tracing route to arpnetworks.com [208.79.89.243]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

 

1 21 ms 19 ms 19 ms bb116-14-108-1.singnet.com.sg [116.14.108.1]

2 22 ms 19 ms 19 ms te3-0-1-3450.sake.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.81]

3 21 ms 20 ms 19 ms xe-0-0-0-3000.qt-ar04.singnet.com.sg [202.166.121.129]

4 124 ms 19 ms 19 ms 202.166.120.142

5 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms ae8-0.budweiser.singnet.com.sg [202.166.120.182]

6 22 ms 20 ms 20 ms ae1-0.beck.singnet.com.sg [202.166.124.234]

7 22 ms 20 ms 20 ms 203.208.190.57

8 22 ms 20 ms 25 ms ge-1-0-0-0.sngc3-dr1.ix.singtel.com [203.208.173.134]

9 23 ms 24 ms 20 ms 203.208.152.221

10 206 ms 204 ms 206 ms 203.208.171.190

11 215 ms 211 ms 202 ms 203.208.153.142

12 211 ms 210 ms 204 ms any2-ix.la.arpnetworks.com [206.223.143.166]

13 227 ms 208 ms 210 ms arpnetworks.com [208.79.89.243]

 

Trace complete.

[yahava]

It'd be nice if we had a couple west coast servers.

[obedazza]

BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012! Fans in these regions who purchase the game will be able to experience their very own Star Wars™ saga on regional servers. Players who have already begun their journey will also have a limited-time opportunity to migrate their characters from their current servers to Asia Pacific servers after the launch on March 1st, giving them the chance to take advantage of the decreased network latency by playing on a regional server. All players who qualify for a character transfer will be notified in early March with more details.

 

 

Read More

 

This is good news, looking forward to seeing some buddies online that opted out of purchasing the digital copy and decided to wait for the official Australian release date.

 

Not going to compare to other MMO's or complain about what should be done, and what should be expected, transfers and server locations etc, I am sure the developers have taken all this into consideration and I am looking forward to the progression of the game even if there is a few bugs to iron out. All good. .. The glass is always half full