Consolidated Post: APAC/Oceanic Server Concerns

[DonkeyPlough]

And do you honestly expect that to make a difference?

 

No you're right, we should all just roll over and let 'the man' get away with whatever he wants. Wouldn't the world be a great place if it were full of people like you, who are happy to be a doormat and be walked all over...

[avimeso]

i still think one oceanic server should of been given a go for 6months.

maybe people stopped playing because there toons couldn't play with anyone.

i know on master dnarla that is the case for my toons.

also why cant we transfer to any server we like? if we are going to play on west coast, east coast lag is hardly any different.

I want to see 16 slots per server also.

Edited March 27, 2013 by avimeso

[AndbeKeper]

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

 

Hello again Eric.

 

While the above address some of the concerns your APAC customers have, it does not address the primary concerns raised in this thread. Your failure to even mention the other concerns is disheartening and does nothing to calm your affected customers nor increase your trustworthiness. The ping time issue and the name related issues are so concerning to your customers because you are taking something away that they currently have - which is worse than never having it. You are "altering the bargain" and your customers are not simply going to "pray you don't alter it further".

 

Secondly, the fact that this decision is still hidden in the forums does EA/Bioware no credit. Your messages in these forums are still the only official announcement of your plans. As I stated yesterday, you need to inform all your APAC customers about the change. It will affect customers' decision to renew subscriptions so you should inform them immediately.

 

Thirdly, you should make a statement with regards to EA/Bioware's refund policy regarding the change. There will be customers seeking refunds; the more hoops you make them jump through, the more irate they will get, with proportionally more negative blow-back from this decision. I would think that EA would be looking to avoid this, given other events this month.

[Scorpiooooo]

In Eric's original post, he flat out stated that according to their numbers and analysis, even merging all the servers would not lead to a sustainable population. That's what their months of collected statistics- characters, accounts attached, login numbers, time spent playing, GTN transactions, pop times and who knows what else - show. Yes, you can have a nice big assembly on Dalborra and say "see, we had X people on fleet" but do you really think one event is going to make a dent in the data that they have been collecting since launch, or their interpretation of it? Do you even understand how these decisions are made?

 

Knock yourself out, I suppose; it seems like a waste of double-XP time to me ...

 

Hi Vian,

 

I read what Eric posted and there are a number of us that have flat out called Eric a liar on this. They would like us to assume that Bioware have been spending months calculating and gathering statistics, but the sad truth is that it is a financial decision and they would rather shaft us all back to the US rather pay to have a sole server out here. People on this thread and others have spent hours calculating and posting current server populations (myself included) to prove that a merger of APAC would vastly outstrip servers like The Bastion for AU Peak time alone.

 

I know that I've asked Eric to show us the figures, but he is just ignoring anything that will draw light on the real decision.

 

At the end of the day, this may or may not work, but it's worth trying. It's only for 4 hours on a Sunday Night so not taking much away from double xp. And even if it doesn't work, everyone that participates will have had a good time.

[Infernixx]

Hi Vian,

 

I read what Eric posted and there are a number of us that have flat out called Eric a liar on this. They would like us to assume that Bioware have been spending months calculating and gathering statistics, but the sad truth is that it is a financial decision and they would rather shaft us all back to the US rather pay to have a sole server out here. People on this thread and others have spent hours calculating and posting current server populations (myself included) to prove that a merger of APAC would vastly outstrip servers like The Bastion for AU Peak time alone.

 

I know that I've asked Eric to show us the figures, but he is just ignoring anything that will draw light on the real decision.

 

At the end of the day, this may or may not work, but it's worth trying. It's only for 4 hours on a Sunday Night so not taking much away from double xp. And even if it doesn't work, everyone that participates will have had a good time.

 

Call the BW posters liars -> Wonder why they stop talking to you at all -> Gamer Logic.

[anicca]

I don't think this has been posted yet, and I just received it. But this is the response I got via an in-game ticket requesting a refund for my pre-order of RotHC:

 

Greetings,

 

I am Protocol Droid M0-T0, Human-Cyborg Relations.

 

Thank you for contacting us to express your concerns regarding the plans for our Asia-Pacific servers.

 

While the post from our Community Manager Eric Musco on the official forums at http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=6048072&postcount=3178 gave some detail about our plans to transfer players to higher-population servers in the USA, and explained why we could not offer a timeline for these transfers at this point – we know that the solution proffered may not be to the liking of all players from the region.

 

We are aware that our Asia-Pacific players have been asking for a solution that will allow each of you to experience Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ to the fullest, with Warzones and Group Finder queues that pop more readily, and with planets full of other players to adventure alongside. When we asked you for your suggestions, we found that many players expressed a desire to move to servers in the US which already have higher populations as a result of the server consolidations, while others liked the idea of an Asia-Pacific “super-server”.

 

When considering what would ultimately work best for all players, we took a number of factors into account. From our experience with server consolidations, we learned that asking players to “give up” the RP, PvE, PvP or RP-PvP aspect of their server in exchange for higher population caused a great deal of upset – with many players feeling like they were unfairly being asked to sacrifice their chosen play-style in order to have others to play with. Merging all of the APAC servers into one would most likely lead to players who like their PvP or RP having to play on a pure PvE server, or PvE and RP players having to play on a PvP server, and we were not about to ask you all to do that.

 

An additional concern was that, even with the populations of three servers merged in to one, the number of concurrent users may not be as high as you would expect it to be, and you might not see a dramatic improvement in population throughout the game – and we would like you all to have players to play with at all levels and not just at the elder game stage.

 

We did also consider the impact of geographical distance on the play experience, and found that West Coast USA servers will offer a playable experience for players connecting from the APAC region. With higher populations and a server type that suits each individual player, we hope that any performance degradation will be mitigated by an improvement in the overall play experience.

 

We do accept that this solution is not ideal for everyone, and that in trying to provide a better experience for more players we may also be upsetting others in the process. We do honestly regret any disappointment caused by the solution we are offering, but we must restate that this is the solution we intend to implement.

 

Please keep an eye on the forums and swtor.com for more information on the timeline for these transfers.

 

Once again, thank you for your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again if you have any further questions or encounter any issues.

 

Galactic Support is our Specialty....

 

Sincerely,

 

Protocol Droid M0-T0

 

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Customer Service

[Scorpiooooo]

Sorry Scorpio, you did great organising the RAW contest - it was entertaining, but this decision is financial.

 

They arent shutting the servers down because they think there isnt enough population for 1 server they're doing it to save cash. If 3 servers had enough population then the cash would be there. 1 server is probably too much hassle.

 

Its not about the players its about the $$$, that's all.

 

Completely agree about the $$$. However this morning they've already backtracked on one of their decisions and are now opening up server transfers rather than forcing people onto Bastion/Harbinger.

 

It's not a guarantee of anything but depending if there is a substantial turn out, well you never know.

At any rate, it's going to be people converging from all three servers to protest the decision and prove that what Eric has said is a lie. It'll also be a hell of a lot of fun, really looking forward to all the cool community things we'll be able to do.

 

:-)

[Macropodmum]

 

It's like we were complaining about APAC population issues..then they bring in a fix so now we're complaing about ping/ primetime?..we can't have our cake and eat it too

 

 

No apparently a couple of people were here on the forums whining about population, the rest of us were never even asked (and totally unaware some people felt there was a problem). It would be far better if they allowed transfer off and onto APAC servers for those who wanted to and consolidated the rest of us.

 

Personally I think we can do without attitudes like yours on our servers

[Icykill_]

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

 

Eric,

 

You have completely avoided the main concern for 90% of us... what about the LATENCY...

How do we continue to PUG/RANKED PVP or do HM Flash Points and OPS... we certainly can't PUG them... the North American players will vote us out of the matches/OPS for being unproductive... can you imagine their response and Rage towards the APAC players... this used to happen in WoW... one reason I stopped playing on the American servers... And another reason why I switched to playing SWTOR... our community is Vibrant... not full of Trolls.

 

PLEASE GIVE US AN ANSWER TO OUR MAIN CONCERN AND NOT THE LEAST OF OUR CONCERNS... That was a weak reply

 

IF the Latency issue is addressed you will find less rage... but the only options I see are to -

1. Keep 1 combined APAC server (best option)

2. Create extra LAG for your North American players so that we are all on a lvl playing field (least likely to happen and certainly not one the community on either APAC or NA servers would want)

 

APAC CONSOLIDATED SERVER EVENT

7th April 2013, 5PM AEDT Dalborra - http://www.zer0ping.com

 

KEEP THE FAITH... SIGN THE PETITION FOR A COMBINED APAC SERVER

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/...em-into-1.html

[Jonnara]

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

 

This is great news as i am a pvp server in apac and my re rolls are on the pve server in US west.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Jonnara

[ChuangTzu]

Sorry dude I've just never seen so much tear sheddery over a postive action.

 

It's like we were complaining about APAC population issues..then they bring in a fix so now we're complaing about ping/ primetime?..we can't have our cake and eat it too

 

Because we just look like entitled gamers with unwarranted self importance and unrealistic expectations with the petitions and server gatherings etc.

 

Positive action??!! Haha, I'm done talking to you. What a joke!

[vian]

Hi Vian,

 

I read what Eric posted and there are a number of us that have flat out called Eric a liar on this. They would like us to assume that Bioware have been spending months calculating and gathering statistics, but the sad truth is that it is a financial decision and they would rather shaft us all back to the US rather pay to have a sole server out here. People on this thread and others have spent hours calculating and posting current server populations (myself included) to prove that a merger of APAC would vastly outstrip servers like The Bastion for AU Peak time alone.

 

I know that I've asked Eric to show us the figures, but he is just ignoring anything that will draw light on the real decision.

 

At the end of the day, this may or may not work, but it's worth trying. It's only for 4 hours on a Sunday Night so not taking much away from double xp. And even if it doesn't work, everyone that participates will have had a good time.

 

1. I could call Eric a cocker spaniel; it wouldn't make him one. I do not think he is lying; I think he believes what he says. I also think he's the messenger, with a pretty unenviable task in this matter, and abusing him won't help.

 

2. You have collected a bunch of stats with the aim of proving a particular conclusion. I know your heart is in the right place, but that's not a statistically valid method - it's not going to convince anyone who wasn't already on your side. BW, who in all likelihood can't release their raw data because such things are confidential, have months of stats collected with no preordained result in mind. Their analysis differs from yours. That doesn't make them liars, or evil, or anything. It's a disappointment - I wanted a merger myself - but if their analysis of their collected data says that a merger won't solve our problems, your event won't either.

 

Still, have fun. Think of it as a house-cooling party, because that's surely all it'll be.

[odonoghuet]

Jack, really glad you are writing with some thought now instead of the pages of trolling that have been your mark till now.

 

This thread was made by chippy to address the population issues that the APAC are facing right now not ping, not timezones or prime times or playstyle POPULATION ISSUES!, and EAWARE have stalled and used scumbag leave us in the dark tactics in which really it was about local server contracts that most likely were up for renewal and EAWARE decided to pull out but they've finally revealed their solution.

 

Let's assume that we are right that this is a purely financial decision.

 

Considering that this is an EA game, we can also assume it is being hosted in the EA server farm for Australia.

 

Now I don't like the assumption that the cost in contracting that server group is so high it isn't being paid for by the current player base on the servers, especially with the F2P markets increased revenue. What the real issue here is having to pay any Australian workers, or Australian advertising costs.

 

Those Advertising costs were cut shortly after the game was even released to Australia, in April/May last year. They obviously didn't get the influx they were hoping for with a couple TV adds during sporting events, and so cut losses. I don't think anyone would begrudge them that.

 

But it seems to me they obviously made the call that these servers were temporary back then. Hence why when the rest of the world got server mergers to super servers, we didn't. When the rest of the world got F2P, they got advertising for it to get people in the door, we didn't.

 

They choked us off, and have continued to do so, because of a decision pretty clearly made nearly a year ago.

 

You are dead right that it is unlikely that EA will change thier minds based of a decision no one has questioned for that long. But there is a window for this change, in that they still have to transfer us with this aweful incomplete character transfer system. As long as it will cost them man hours (=$) to transfer us, we have a window to try and reach someone to re-evaluate the call.

 

EA does listen to the market enough that if we show on Sunday there was enough of us for our own server, that had they advertised there was money they have cast away on a bad business practices, they may look at alternatives rather than have more bad press.

 

Sunday is a positive action we can take that may be for naught, but declaring it will 'never work' because big business can't move quickly just absolves the business of ever moving quickly on any issue.

 

It would likely bring more negative press on EA to show up to PAX Melbourne and heckle thier booth and hinder thier presentations. It would likely hurt EA a few manhours by each making accounts and new characters on these current servers just to increase load on the transfer and destination servers. But those are just negative reactions, that will be forgotten well before the memory of a day we showed them what we could make if they had let us try.

 

That is what Sunday is, Jack.

[Spinikar]

So, 2 issues with your idea. First issue, Playstyles. I origonally went PvP for world PvP, which is absolutly pathetic in swtor, but I thoroughly enjoy your PvE. With this said, I became a supporter for a merge to the APAC PvE server as this is what my guild does now. PvE, and we would very much like to move to a PvE server to play with like minded players, but it looks like we are being forced to play on a server we no longer want to be on. Secondly, have you heard of ping? We have. Its the little annoying latency that causes raid wipes, makes warzones unbalanced and basically sucks. You screwed this up from the begining. You should never have put the servers in Australia. Sure, its great for us, but all our oceanic friends had bad ping. Somewhere like singapore would have been better. Did you even look at the idea of moving the Oceanic servers there? Oceanic dose included a lot bigger area than Australia. We may be a large chunk of landmass, but we barley have the population to support a large city, let alone three servers for an mmo. The islands and Asian countries around us have more players, but those guys got screwed over by your pathetic management and business decisions. Well, thats my rant. Off to unbscribe two accounts, as your decision, although I am very glad you made one, just doesn't suit me unfortunatly. Thanks to Eric and his community team. You guys put in a super effort the past couple of weeks, and this, as a consumer, have greatly appreciated.

 

Spinikar, signing of from Swtor for the last time.

[jackdaley]

No apparently a couple of people were here on the forums whining about population, the rest of us were never even asked (and totally unaware some people felt there was a problem). It would be far better if they allowed transfer off and onto APAC servers for those who wanted to and consolidated the rest of us.

 

Personally I think we can do without attitudes like yours on our servers

 

Im not happy about it and agree with you that it would be better to transfer off to what ever server we wanted but they've made their decision and that's bottom line.

 

No amount of forum posting, petitions or server gatherings is going to change that

[Afieri]

So... a lot of people are worried about the latency, but what about the fact that The Harbinger seems to have issues every second week? If you look in Customer Service as of now, there are complaints about the chat service being laggy, along with RE and mail. We have all seen The Harbinger take a rollback or two, the APAC servers may not have the highest of populations but at least we have stability in our server. I don't know much about how these sorts of games work, but I can only assume adding more players to a server would increase the strain on that server. Not particularly sure if I want to wake up one morning to find that my server is the only one to have crashed and now I have to repeat the last 3 - 4 hours of gameplay.

 

If you could assure us that these server issues are literally the freakiest of freak occurrences then it would make a happier man.

[Icykill_]

Hear me out for a second eric.

 

1. Give free transfers to all on APAC.

2. Everyone from Darnala and Gav Daragon transfer over to Dalborra.

3. Merge the remaining data/players to dalborra after a few weeks.

4. Profit!!!

 

THIS IS WHAT WE ALL WANTED YOU TO DO. SIMPLE.

 

ERIC... PLEASE LISTEN

THIS IS WHAT 90% OF US WANT... IT'S SO SIMPLE... LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

 

 

KEEP THE FAITH... SIGN THE PETITION FOR A COMBINED APAC SERVER

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/...em-into-1.html

[SeoYeonji]

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

 

one of the main reason people play in APAC server is because of the ping. heck, the reason i played this game is because of that only. I would've gone playing TERA or GW2 if it weren't for the great ping. The reason why I'm still QQing is because this is the only game that still has APAC server and I dont want that to go, imma QQ til the end, dun care if it wont change anything

[sabbey]

I would still like to know whether we are going to get free character slots, I have 8 on harbringer already and 13 on Dal.

 

For me harbringer will be the better choice, but I'll be pissed if I am forced to delete characters as well.

 

I am wondering about that as well, this is the first game I have really went heavy with playing alts and have already bought the max amount of character slots already which won't be enough with the merge coming...

[Jonoku]

I wanted to give an update on some things and answer some questions we have seen in the thread. First, one of the things we have seen multiple people suggest is that if we are going to merge the APAC servers into the NA West servers that we should give you the option to choose which NA West server you transfer to. Knowing that some APAC players have existing characters and Legacies on some NA West servers already, we agree. When we open free transfers we will allow you one time transfer from your current APAC server to any one of the NA West servers. Note: The actual server merges themselves will still happen based on server type, so once we open transfers make sure you move all of your characters to the server you want before the merge happens.

 

We have also seen some concerns that we “haven’t considered what NA West’s populations are at offpeak times.” Actually, this is part of the reason we are making the decision to move APAC into NA West. Currently the equivalent NA West servers are seeing higher populations at offpeak times than their APAC counterparts. Meaning that even during offpeak NA times, the APAC players should see an increase in population after the transfers/merges.

 

-eric

 

 

The merge last year in the summer didn't get their opportunity to consolidate their characters. Get this running now. Server Transfers now........I'm being as civilized as I can but nothing happening in that studio concerns me. Get a bigger team and get **** done faster. Look how fast you guys produced cartel market content but yet you guys don't do it that fast when it comes to issues like server transfers.

[ChuangTzu]

Lol, just had a look at Jack's posting history and it consists of 72 posts just trolling this thread and 1 or 2 other related threads!

 

He is a troll, pure and simple.

[Macropodmum]

Im not happy about it and agree with you that it would be better to transfer off to what ever server we wanted but they've made their decision and that's bottom line.

 

No amount of forum posting, petitions or server gatherings is going to change that

 

Well that is your opinion and you are entitled to it but quite frankly the rest of us are not ready to lie down and take it

[Andryah]

Im not happy about it and agree with you that it would be better to transfer off to what ever server we wanted but they've made their decision and that's bottom line.

 

No amount of forum posting, petitions or server gatherings is going to change that

 

Yeah, the negative upset protest block of the APAC community are fighting the wrong windmill right now.

 

They should be positioning for freedom to move to any server of their choice (EU/US) after the mass merger move and it actually sounds like Bioware is going to do that at least in the context of the US server farm. But some have said they want to transfer to EU... and that is the windmill you guys should be spearing after.

 

This protest gathering on one server to "show Bioware" does nothing except encourage them to tune you out.

[zainmastron]

I don't think this has been posted yet, and I just received it. But this is the response I got via an in-game ticket requesting a refund for my pre-order of RotHC:

 

I came on to post exactly the same response Anicca.

 

After submitting a ticket asking for a refund on my pre-purchase of Rise of the Hutt Cartel, I received the same completely unsuitable response. Not only does the response not answer my actual question, but it tries to spin the merger in a positive way.

 

I'm so enraged that I am seriously considering unsubbing immediately. This enforces the fact that in no way is Bioware going to change their mind. I was going to take a wait and see approach, however now I see this is pointless and there is now no reason to continue playing.

[Infernixx]

I came on to post exactly the same response Anicca.

 

After submitting a ticket asking for a refund on my pre-purchase of Rise of the Hutt Cartel, I received the same completely unsuitable response. Not only does the response not answer my actual question, but it tries to spin the merger in a positive way.

 

I'm so enraged that I am seriously considering unsubbing immediately. This enforces the fact that in no way is Bioware going to change their mind. I was going to take a wait and see approach, however now I see this is pointless and there is now no reason to continue playing.

 

Have you had many experiences with huge corporations changing their financial decisions based on minor petitions and online protests?