Consolidated Post: APAC/Oceanic Server Concerns

[Thornsbane]

 

This thread has also now asked for everyone's suggestions on what they want. I believe it has been generally successful that everyone has had there voice heard without too much trolling and non sense.

 

Also, let us not concern ourselves with what our severs did or did not get. They want to hear what WE want, with NO restrictions placed on that. They didn't say "what do you want? oh btw, u can't have transfers so anything else please..."

 

.

 

Totally.

 

But transfers open a can of worms. Its not like BW cant do paid transfers now. They dont want to, and shouldnt. Think about it........paid transfer are allowed. Huge amounts of people leave any server that isnt Harbinger or Bastion and move to those servers......destroying everything except for the 'most popular' servers. And over crowding those servers. I mean, you guys did it.

 

BW arent working on transfers, they just think its a **** idea. And I agree. As a dev you need to think only of the game, I imagine. Thats my take on it anyway.

 

Again, I feel your pain of wanting all your toons together......but you left APAC when it was struggling and made toons elsewhere. Choices made. Tough love, blah blah.

 

I vote for a merge of all three to make an awesome Oceanic community. Maybe allow transfers off? Ya why not. Dunno if it will help though.....

Edited January 18, 2013 by Thornsbane

[scaramunja]

Thanks for the timely reply BW. I dont think you too long to reply, as you (BW) said you would review the situation after F2P and you are now asking for input to move forward.

 

Before I offer an opinion regarding server mergers I'd like to say that I like this game and have played since Feb 2012. I am a subscriber. I am, however, a little dissapointed at the overall game performance - crashes are common since 1.6. That is my only real gripe. As I work in software I thoroughly understand what it takes to make a Project like SWTOR work.

 

My opinion regarding APAC Servers and population:

1. The best solution for Master Dar'Nala (PVP) is a merge with the 2 other Oceanic Servers. I play exclusively on Master D (in Oceanic). Losing 'World PVP' is not a big concern for Master D because there really isn't any due to low population.

2. If the new super-server is PVE then Master D players will be ok with that - the population is what counts.

3. I understand that Dalborra players will naturally be happy with a new PVE super-server aswell.

4. I am not certain that RP players will be happy being 'merged-into' PVP and PVE players. I dont play RP. My understanding is they enjoy a 'friendlier' community through RP (this may really be true). I dont know what can or should be done so that RP players do not lose their RP community.

5. It may be prudent to merge PVP and PVE and then later consider merging the RP Server as those players may be happy with their current situation.

 

Thanks for your time.

Edited January 18, 2013 by scaramunja

[zXBurntToastXz]

I have to admit that the game has fallen apart since when a lot of issues and high hopes were shattered in a matter of months. However since we still have a fair size community left over, it hasn't really lifted the hopes of Free to Play players either.

 

In terms of the server transfers, I'm going to say it like this and these are my thoughts. I would recommend looking at merging the APAC servers to the US Servers.

 

1 - Merging servers. Lets say Harbinger for example, all three APAC servers goes to Harbinger. Great server, lots of people, very active and would like to be there.

 

If you want people to be content on keeping their character names and legacy, you guys probably should look into the idea of have a 'reserved' naming convention zone thus allowing multiple character names with same alias like Carth or Mission or Jolee etc. But they will all appear with different legacy surnames. Having something like this would heap ease the pain of renaming characters

 

2 - Abolished this idea of PvP and PvE and RP servers. Merge them all together into an all rounder PvE server serving for everything. This helps you control and maintain the services at hand, makes the answering of tickets easier and the server would always be heavily focused on being maintained and updated

 

3 - Server/Guild Transfers must be free service. People have invested a lot of time and money, we don't want to feel like EA/Bioware are robbing us or forcing us to change.

 

How and why we felt robbed is where the server transfers had become available, people transferred and we were all left behind to rot in a corner with the inability to return back. Back then going to the APAC servers was a good idea but since the community is slowly dying, Bioware I would highly recommend getting us back onto the US/EU servers. We all found it more enjoyable there minus the lagging issues but we can live with it.

 

4 - Revise the times when there are a lot of people on and not online, look at the general concepts of Looking for Groups for either raiding and dungeon finder, or PvP should be stretched across all servers across the board. You are lacking on this.

 

5 - The new content on the upcoming expansion for Free to Play players should be more flexible, expand on the idea that they can play and create 12 characters on a server to level 50 without having to force themselves to go onto Subscription. We need to bring more diversity out there to them that's pretty much it, expand on the companion storylines, they need more story's as in 'the aftermath' of Chapter 3 and beyond!

 

In case you have been living under a rock, very few want to go to the US servers cos of the lag you mention. If you want to, good for you, but, like the others who have posted dumb ideas, please stop...

[OGsam]

3x APAC server's merged into 1 PVE server and a free transfer service to allow any APAC player who started fresh on a US server to bring those toons to the new APAC super server!

[GHoppa]

Totally.

 

But transfers open a can of worms. Its not like BW cant do paid transfers now. They dont want to, and shouldnt. Think about it........paid transfer are allowed. Huge amounts of people leave any server that isnt Harbinger or Bastion and move to those servers......destroying everything except for the 'most popular' servers. And over crowding those servers. I mean, you guys did it.

 

BW arent working on transfers, they just think its a **** idea. And I agree. As a dev you need to think only of the game, I imagine. Thats my take on it anyway.

 

Again, I feel your pain of wanting all your toons together......but you left APAC when it was struggling and made toons elsewhere. Choices made. Tough love, blah blah.

 

I vote for a merge of all three to make an awesome Oceanic community. Maybe allow transfers off? Ya why not. Dunno if it will help though.....

 

I don't think transfers open a can of worms at all. Your not giving transfers to the entire swtor community, only the people on the dead servers (which isn't many people). If transfers were allowed to everyone (free or not) populations would sort them selves out after an initial period. Some people would not mind que times, and others would go to other servers to get away from them.

 

But i digress, this thread isn't about debating the legitimacy of anyones opinion or what they want. Simply to state it, and make your voice heard. We'll just agree to disagree on what transfers would do, and not ditract from the main point of the thread.

 

For the record, i stuck around on APAC a hella long time, only left 2 weeks ago (3 max). What i have found on the Basion is much more enjoyable for me, and i wish i did it sooner. So i don't really feel the tough love comment is justified, i have felt the pain of MDN for a long time. I just happen to have a few old toons close to 50 from the swiftsure days i did not transfer to APAC, which made my transition smoother.

 

I believe that transfers along with a merger at the same time are thinking of the game, the entire game, and not just 1 server on its own. To not offer transfers as well would be IMO detrimental to the entire games long term health.

[Obirayy]

3x APAC server's merged into 1 PVE server and a free transfer service to allow any APAC player who started fresh on a US server to bring those toons to the new APAC super server!

 

Love it!

[Lucas_Sorrell]

Hi everyone,

 

I know it’s been a while since we've updated this thread, and I wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about our Oceanic players. Now that we’re at a more stable point in time (post Free-to-Play transition and post holidays), we wanted to re-examine this issue. We’re going to be completely honest with you: there doesn't seem to be an easy solution for anyone. We've seen many ideas from you folks such as merging all three servers into one, allowing for transfers to North America servers, and even not doing anything at all, but none of them seem to be an ideal solution for all. This is why we are now opening up this dialogue with you.

 

In this thread, please let us know what you think the best solution will be for your servers. I know there have been many suggestions already, but I would like to collect the most current ideas for us to consider. After that, our team will review and discuss what is feasible and what makes the most sense to do. Please remember to follow all forum rules and be respectful of each other’s ideas, even if you disagree with it.

 

Thank you all, and we look forward to your ideas.

 

Ultimately I feel cross server qing would solve the issues, allowing players to make use of the GF more easily and giving everyone access to more PvP. However I've heard this has it's draw backs as well and I don't know if it'd be an easy thing to implement, I assume the fact that it hasn't already means it isn't.

 

I would personally prefer transfers over a merge as I'm not a fan of being forced onto another server when I'm happy where I am, especially when it's likely I'd have to change character names, which though a small issue to some is a big one for me as an RPer who puts a lot of effort into creating each of my toons. With that said, offering transfers would most likely take a large chunk of the server making it impossible to do anything, which despite what people complain about isn't the case at the moment. PvP pops regularly (Just spent the entire night up till 4am PvPing) and though the GF is a bit slow it still pops, my guild runs operations three times a week, usually doing multiple ops each night, with the possibility of maybe running more, and I RP at least once a day for five minutes to five hours, depends on what's going on. I personally don't feel the Gav is in danger of 'dying' though it could use with an increase in players, if you were to merge others into us I feel that would be best, I just don't think it'd be good to drag RPer's onto a PvP server, PvE I guess, we still get griefed while RPing on an RP server, can't see a PvE or PvP making it much better.

 

I suppose I'd much rather free transfers over a merge, but I feel a merge would be best for the server, though it'd be a 50/50 chance of making the game unenjoyable for me.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Lucas_Sorrell

[fushnchips]

!. Merge all 3 into a Mega server ( Only if vocus has the hardware to

do such a thing because even with the servers as they are Vocas has issues.)

 

2. Allow carbon copies (not transfers) of our players to be sent onto

other servers of our choice like you would copy to the PTS and I know this can be done right now

 

3. Free transfers to any server of the players choice if Bioware can't do option 2 with also a free return ticket to the new " Down Under " Mega Server.

 

Now with options 1 and 2 is something I would love but if it's impossible then give people the option to transfer to any server if they don't like it they get that return option only after 10 days and that's it your stuck on the Down Under Mega Server until paid transfers.

[Nerfington]

I'm getting >100 ping today and it has made me realise how bad playing on the US west coast would be, when everything feels so delayed compared to my usual 30ms ping.

 

My vote is only for:

Consolidated APAC.

No Changes.

 

In that order.

[Nullack]

Hi

 

Thanks for addressing this issue. Its greatly frustrating to wait forever in the flash point group finder oftening going without. And on the planets, I have a long list of heroic quests that I cant even get random pick up groups for.

 

My suggestions in order of preference are:

 

1. Introduce a megaserver technology in your architecture across the board. Meaning, five hundred people on the one planet. Not just instances being shared across your various domains but the entire set of planets across the entire game. Combined instances wont help low populations with planetside heroics that arent instanced.

 

2. Just merge the Pve and RP servers into one for Oceanic. Allow the PVP folk to goto the US or Europe. On this I notice the latency is typically 35 ms to Oceanic and to the USA it jumps to around 150ms. Im not sure what impact that latency has on game play as I havent non OCeanic servers.

 

The game is fundamentally broken when there isnt many people on and something needs to be done please.

[Soulsnake]

Merge the AP/Oceanic servers into one server.

or even cross server PVE/PVP within the AP/Oceanic servers.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Soulsnake

[Bethykins]

3x APAC server's merged into 1 PVE server and a free transfer service to allow any APAC player who started fresh on a US server to bring those toons to the new APAC super server!

 

This. Exactly what is needed.

[Sildanar]

Hi everyone,

 

I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated this thread, and I wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about our Oceanic players. Now that we’re at a more stable point in time (post Free-to-Play transition and post holidays), we wanted to re-examine this issue. We’re going to be completely honest with you: there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution for anyone. We’ve seen many ideas from you folks such as merging all three servers into one, allowing for transfers to North America servers, and even not doing anything at all, but none of them seem to be an ideal solution for all. This is why we are now opening up this dialogue with you.

 

In this thread, please let us know what you think the best solution will be for your servers. I know there have been many suggestions already, but I would like to collect the most current ideas for us to consider. After that, our team will review and discuss what is feasible and what makes the most sense to do. Please remember to follow all forum rules and be respectful of each other’s ideas, even if you disagree with it.

 

Thank you all, and we look forward to your ideas.

 

Wow, thanks for finally getting back to us Joveth, I had lost hope weeks ago.

 

My proposed solution, merge all APAC servers into one PVE super server, please note I play on the pvp server, and while I will miss the opportunity for open world pvp, a thriving population trumps all for me.

I want the fantastic ping of an oceanic based server, but we need to achieve a critical mass of players which has not been achieved on Master Dar Nala pvp server.

I strongly feel this critical mass will be achieved with a single Oceanic server. Of the three types a PVE server is the most accommodating for everyone.

Plus allow free transfers from other servers to the new APAC super server, further helping us to achieve critical mass.

 

Dizzle put it very well

 

3x APAC server's merged into 1 PVE server and a free transfer service to allow any APAC player who started fresh on a US server to bring those toons to the new APAC super server!

 

Thanks for coming back to this issue, the lack of population has been very disheartening, I look forward to your solution in the near furture. Please bring the game back to life for me

[Sinrei]

I think one apac super server is the way to go. We have the population for it and with the expansion coming along more people will come back as well. So there is definitely a chance for a big pop server. Add in the fact a lot of players are hesitate to comeback because of the current pop issues, this will just add to the pop.

 

I don't know how the RPers will like it. PvE megaserver and the RP one would work if the RPers don't want to join the rest of us.

 

----

 

Option 1: One super server with free transfers available for those that don't want to join it.

Option 2: Two servers. PvE megaserver. Open tranfers for MDN players to Dal. Leave RPers on their own.

 

I'd love to see the RPers join the rest of us to increase pop to maximum but I have no idea how serious RPers are in SWTOR and how annoyed they'd be with a lot of the non-RP elements of the server.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Sinrei

[Declan_Vee]

I suppose the question is: do Bioware even want to have APAC servers?... the massive delay has given many of us the impression that you're deliberately stagnating the servers for the purpose of shutting them down. Prove me wrong. Please.

 

If you do want to keep them running then a single APAC PVE super-server is the solution here.

 

If the RPers want to RP, they're welcome to it.

If people want open world PVP they're welcome to flag themselves for it, while this may eliminate a lot of dynamic PVP, it could certainly encourage a lot of organised open world PVP; Dalborra has done this in the past and it was a lot of fun.

 

Open up free transfers to and from this new server. I doubt the combined population would be that much more enticing than any US/EU server and anyone who isn't a local would be out of their mind to transfer considering the latency. This gives deserters a chance to come back, and anyone who truly wants to be on their preferred server type a ticket out.

[fushnchips]

Also Bioware needs to setup some type of Official Poll with it having the choices and you can only choose your selection 1 time per account this way the numbers will show the true outcome of what we want because this thread is going to be out of control and hard to keep tabs on what all people would like.

[Ulantees]

2. Just merge the Pve and RP servers into one for Oceanic. Allow the PVP folk to goto the US or Europe. On this I notice the latency is typically 35 ms to Oceanic and to the USA it jumps to around 150ms. Im not sure what impact that latency has on game play as I havent non OCeanic servers.

 

Let me preface what I'm about to say so that you can understand I'm trying to comment with an unbiased opinion; I am a PvE player who plays on the PvP server because I enjoy the unpredictable nature of open world PvP, it's these sudden encounters that get my adrenalin pumping.

 

That said, without trying to be disrespectful, that is probably the least logical suggestion I've seen so far. The people who are impacted most by latency are PvP players. The play styles that align most closely are PvP and PvE when you consider the fact this game has almost no open world PVP, and RP'ers are bound to get trolled by both PvE and PvP players alike.

 

In addition to that, the RP server consistently has a higher pop than PvP, and on some nights even the PvE one, which suggests the community suffering the most and at the greatest risk of continuing to lose players is Master D'N. From what I've ascertained in following this thread, most PvP'ers are willing to make the sacrifice of 'potential' open world pvp to improve their overall experience, why punish them even further when their playstyle is so latency dependant??

 

What I think is most important now is to communicate with the RP players and ask them how they would feel finding themselves amongst a mass of players who will very likely harass them for their choice of playstyle. If they feel it is something they can cope with, merge everyone into one PvE superserver. If it stands that there is division in the camp, roll PvP into PvE as the RP server seems to have a population that could remain self sufficient.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Ulantees
incorrect quote.

[Cheezfriend]

Also Bioware needs to setup some type of Official Poll with it having the choices and you can only choose your selection 1 time per account this way the numbers will show the true outcome of what we want because this thread is going to be out of control and hard to keep tabs on what all people would like.

 

A good suggestion however I think it's pretty clear what the majority of people want.

 

In my opinion they have prolonged this enough, a decision must be made and implemented sooner than later. The longer they sit on the fence with this the more complicated its going to get. We will see the same issues recycled in one form or the other regarding this situation.

 

ive said it before and I will say it again. BW/EA... Make a decision about this and make it happen. You will win back the APAC community if you act now.

 

I acknowledge that no matter what happens people will be upset.... Failing that we can continue with the same old "what if" scenarios and be back to where we started... Under populated servers and an APAC community divided.

 

Anyone else agree??? If so let put the pressure on them, after all its what we pay them for.

 

<3 Chippy

[OwenBrooks]

I support a merger, but moving the PVP Server MDN to another PVP server maybe another viable option for those dedicated pvpers.

[Obirayy]

A good suggestion however I think it's pretty clear what the majority of people want.

 

In my opinion they have prolonged this enough, a decision must be made and implemented sooner than later. The longer they sit on the fence with this the more complicated its going to get. We will see the same issues recycled in one form or the other regarding this situation.

 

ive said it before and I will say it again. BW/EA... Make a decision about this and make it happen. You will win back the APAC community if you act now.

 

I acknowledge that no matter what happens people will be upset.... Failing that we can continue with the same old "what if" scenarios and be back to where we started... Under populated servers and an APAC community divided.

 

Anyone else agree??? If so let put the pressure on them, after all its what we pay them for.

 

<3 Chippy

 

Sweet. So what is the final answer so we aren't sitting on the fence with what we want? Then the ball is 100% on Biowares side and have no excuses

 

Edit: forget what I just said. I just reread his response and he just wanted to see our suggestions and they will make a Decision.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Obirayy

[Ignicity]

Sweet. So what is the final answer so we aren't sitting on the fence with what we want? Then the ball is 100% on Biowares side and have no excuses

 

Edit: are we just going for the quick and simple 3x server merge and see what happens from there?

 

It's not our decision.

[Chaoswielder]

The decision is server merge. I have read about 150 odd pages of these replies and this is the #1 solution. The PvPers on Master D do not mind giving up world PvP for this to happen.

 

Your move BioWare!

[Leweegibo]

ok, we are ready, lets do this...

[Blitz-wing]

For me (yes, I know I sound like a broken record): Merge all 3 APAC servers into 1 AND transfers for APAC PvP/RP players to a US/EU server of their choice, if they wish.

 

Server Merge FTW.....

 

Transfers. They will come in time. It has been stated that:

1st character copy to PTS (1st half on 2013) followed by (as it's the base of) open transfer service.

 

Stop posting in this thread. You have stated that no matter the action BW takes you will not play on the APAC servers again. This means you are no longer in the target market for this inquiry.

Stop trying to get special treatment. The rest of the world (of swtor) want transfers to consolidate their legacies too. Why should you get that chance before others in NA/EU regions get to?

 

Do i think that accounts with legacies on the APAC super server should get the chance to transfer their NA/EU characters to the APAC super server? Yes, i do.

Why? How is that different? Simply. They re-rolled on the NA/EU servers because of this issue that has taken far too long to resolve. It will help to build the APAC community, not destroy it like your selfish wish will.

You time to leave the APAC community behind will come. Mean while you are still able to play your new legacy on the NA/EU server that you chose to play on.

[VDA_AU]

Another vote to merge all 3 APAC servers into 1.