APAC Server Merge and 'Myths' about Ping

[PseudoScience]

I have responded to specific comments made by you in this thread of yours. You want the thread on a narrow focus of discussion, then do not introduce your own snarky seqway commentary.

 

It seems like you want to narrow the discussion to "just accept it" whereas everyone has a different perspective to add in this discussion. This thread offers another key piece of the story and it is very hypocritical of you to complain about our complaining.

Edited March 30, 2013 by PseudoScience

[spectreclees]

This post... I like this post. It's a good post. Great information here and it brings light to some issues this game needs to have addressed.

[Dire-Wolf]

If WoW's being brought into the conversation it should be noted that playing pvp as melee is impossible in the game and that WoW's auto-attack helps make the ping less noticeable, though it is still noticeable. If BW goes through with this, expect half the classes (the melee classes) to be unplayable in pvp and suffer in pve.

 

I remember what it was like to play TOR on the American servers, it wasn't good. Play experience is significantly better playing at 30 ping instead of 200.

[MouldyCrow]

Bioware don't care. If you go by the APAC forums most people aren't unsubbing over it either, just sucking it up.

 

There comes a point where you have to walk away from an abusive relationship, I think our relationship with EAWare has been really abusive over the last 12 months. To the point where if there isn't a reversal of this decision I will never pay money for anything they ever make again. I wish more APAC players were doing this instead of whinging, we already know they don't listen or care, do the thing they do listen to - don't pay them!

[PseudoScience]

Bioware don't care. If you go by the APAC forums most people aren't unsubbing over it either, just sucking it up.

 

There comes a point where you have to walk away from an abusive relationship, I think our relationship with EAWare has been really abusive over the last 12 months. To the point where if there isn't a reversal of this decision I will never pay money for anything they ever make again. I wish more APAC players were doing this instead of whinging, we already know they don't listen or care, do the thing they do listen to - don't pay them!

 

To keep the analogy, I have 15 days until my divorce from Bioware comes in. I hope EA and Bioware are happy together.

[Lasica]

All I'm reading is "blah blah blah ice cream blah blah blah."

[MouldyCrow]

All I'm reading is "blah blah blah ice cream blah blah blah."

 

All I read is "troll troll troll"...... but no lol.

Edited March 30, 2013 by MouldyCrow

[Cryssai]

You guys do realize that Andryah is a confirmed EA shill right? Andryah is Andrea Perry and she mastered voice-over work for TOR.

[Arkerus]

You guys do realize that Andryah is a confirmed EA shill right? Andryah is Andrea Perry and she mastered voice-over work for TOR.

 

I think you need to get a new tin foil hat. That current one is a little worn out.

[Arkerus]

I have responded to specific comments made by you in this thread of yours. You want the thread on a narrow focus of discussion, then do not introduce your own snarky seqway commentary.

 

This thread, IMO, offers nothing constructive to the discussion about the APAC server decision by Bioware. It is simply an attempt to create yet another thread for people to complain in. Server ping for SWTOR is what it is for you. WoW server ping, which you now admit never having played, is not relevant. That said, if you bother to read the latency history on the internet for WoW, it reads remarkalby the same as it does for SWTOR.. with one exception.... WoW never gave you low latency local servers to begin with. It was a business and commercial mistake on the part of Bioware to ever provide localization of servers for APAC. Bioware might disagree with my assessment of that failure, but hindsight (which is always 20/20) shows me to be right on this. They took a risk.. they reached out to give improved service to APAC. It failed. They now have to clean up the mess. It's NOT the first mess they have had to clean up where server populations are concerned. But there track record on addressing server population issues is positive over the last year. Was everyone pleased by how they went about it in each case? No. But that is the way it works in real life.

 

Pretty much this.

 

Any movement now to fix the apac mess will take some sacrifice on all parts. These things are never clean and a business decision had to be made. That's how real life works.

 

The truth of the matter is this:

 

Packet loss is way more important than ping time. If you can sustain a ping time under 200 with minimal packet loss the game is more than playable. Years ago when I moved home from college I still played final fantasy online but the only Internet my dad had was dial up. Yes. Dial up. I was able it play final fantasy with a 300ms ping but the packet loss was very low so it was playable.

 

If you can sustain a low packet loss you can play on a NA server. Is it perfect? No. Does it work? Yes.

[TravelersWay]

Outside of the obvious trolls, I don’t think there are many players who don’t sympathize with the plight of the APAC players, because we have had the same issue of server pops and have suffered through the same solutions. However, the information you post supplied notwithstanding, your tone does carry an air of self-importance (which will naturally attract trolls). Ultimately, if APAC is not happy with the current decision, then it should have been up to APAC to self-regulate and organize a thread to better communicate their desires (even if it had to be one outside of the official forums). But of course, we see what we see in every gaming forum – everyone thinks their post is more important than everyone elses regardless of the content of said post. Again, the very fact that some of the solutions from APAC come from the desire to maintain character names, and anger that it isn’t taken into consideration – something that the rest of us (again) had to endure and have since survived can rub the rest of the community the wrong way (the whole self-importance thing again).

 

Both Andryah and Arkerus have made valid points, as you also have attempted to do. Ultimately, as Andryah said, Bioware tried to take the APAC player’s into consideration when they opened up those servers to enable you to play locally. As she said, it backfired, and the blame can only lie with those APAC players who left the game. Agreed, if this ultimately comes down to a logistics and financial decision that prevents an APAC server from being kept up, Bioware should come out and state that. But to blame them for the condition that the servers are in currently and their attempts to correct it in the manner they think best is a bit unwarranted in my opinion. If APAC players want to unsubscribe because they no longer find the game fun or to their liking, that is completely acceptable, but unsubscribing because you don’t like the current decision is kind of shooting yourselves in the foot – kind of like an American complaining about taxes and the state of politics in the country when never exercising your basic right to vote.

[AshlaBoga]

You guys do realize that Andryah is a confirmed EA shill right? Andryah is Andrea Perry and she mastered voice-over work for TOR.

 

There's no proof of that. You can say "confirmed" all you like, but that doesn't make it so.

[-IceHawk-]

As I understand it anyone who wishes to understand Bioware and EA's point of view, refuse to outright condemn this decision as inherently irrational and unduly avaricious, or make mention that much of APAC's issues are due to APAC's own limited community size must be some form shill....

 

My hats off to Andryah, Arkerus, and TravelersWay.

 

Certain individuals put a lot of effort into baiting posters who are not willing to outright condemn Bioware and EA for the APAC decision and you all have done a great job keeping things civil and articulating reasonable and logical responses.

 

The shift from APAC to NA servers is not ideal and it will negatively impact some individuals' enjoyment of the game. A lot of players will likely make the shift and adapt as best they can. Those that wish to unsubscribe will do so unfortunately.

 

Personally, I think a plurality if not an outright majority of APAC will eventually find new homes on the West-Coast Servers, Latency non-withstanding.

Edited March 31, 2013 by -IceHawk-

[MeisterBabylon]

Indeed, I think that is the case. I know I’m staying on.

 

But it doesn’t preclude me doing my bid to, if the decision is final and the shift inevitable, at least stall the devs at best or just make sure my voice is heard.

 

I was F2P and playing on Dalmorra before the decision to merge with US came to being, and decided to resub and protest the decision.

 

I’m voting with my wallet to stay on Dalmorra, and I hope that other APAC players who, when faced with choosing between low pop or low ping, will do the right thing: resub and/or spend on the cartel shop with your Dalmorra characters while posting and protesting the US merge every step of the way.

[odonoghuet]

Post makes sense to me, Bioware have only ever stated that they want the best player experiance going forward and so they are taking an action that will give poor player experiance. The specifics of how the increased latency are in the OPs post.

 

Other than that they have been saying the servers are making money, not losing them.

 

Anyone who says that they made a mistake in APAC servers or this is a business decision made to save money is making assumptions based off no offical words from any developer.

[JediJonesJr]

I play with the highest settings i can on wow and never an issue, swtor i could do that but issue some bad coding causes video card gpu to warm up pretty fast..

 

I can stand in the middle of stormwind on a busy day on stormrage server and no issues no lag.

 

who knows it might also be the drivers nvidia keeps spewing out... but thanks for info .

[CaptRavenous]

I play at full settings, well, I COULD play at full settings, but I don't like shadows or ground clutter much, so I keep them off as a personal preference.

 

I get an average of 90 ms latency while playing in most areas. In high traffic areas, such as the fleet station, 150 ms at most.

 

And I live all the way up in Edmonton, Alberta; Canada. I'm further from my server than most Americans are, yet I keep hearing of latency issues.

 

I really do believe it has more to do with your Internet Service Providers than Bioware. Perhaps a mix of your ISP and the ISP Bioware uses.

 

Even with my awesome 50 Mbps fiber-optic internet connection with dedicated router (not modem), I still find it hard to visit certain websites during peak user hours, such as early evenings, and especially weekends, due to high internet traffic. Sites such as Netflix or Youtube.

 

I have less problems with latency in SW:TOR than I do other websites / MMOs.

 

In fact, I remember having more latency issues playing WoW, than I ever have playing SW:TOR, but then again, I had a less powerful internet connection & PC during my WoW days (2005-2010). Still, I would get frequent lag spikes of up to 1000ms during peak hours while playing WoW. Only 150 ms at most with SW:TOR.

 

So, you can lay the blame on Bioware on the Hero Engine as much as you want, but really, it comes down to a mix of multiple factors that can affect your gaming experience, not all these factors can be pinned as blame on Bioware.

Edited May 12, 2013 by CaptRavenous

[odonoghuet]

So, you can lay the blame on Bioware on the Hero Engine as much as you want, but really, it comes down to a mix of multiple factors that can affect your gaming experience, not all these factors can be pinned as blame on Bioware.

 

As much as I am envious that you have a situation that is close to ideal, the OPs post clarifies why this engine doesn't handle increased latency well.

 

Eric has specifically said that closing the APAC servers is to increase our player experiance, for most APAC players, playing on the west coast servers will increase our ping by a large margine.

 

Our ISPs do influence things, no doubt. I am only an hours drive to the physical location of the APAC servers, but I sit generally at 90 ping while alone standing still. That doubles in OPs and goes regularly to 300+ in WZs.

 

I have already tested Black Talon and other WZs on Harbringer and I get noticable lag jumps in every fight.

 

Biowares less efficent coding of the game is not the only problem. But it is the root problem when you combine it with closing down APAC servers claiming it will increase my player experiance when it clearly won't.

[M_A_White]

I dunno if it's relevant and I know others have given examples already but I'm gonna bore you with another to state my opinion of this server merge crap.

 

I play on DALBORRA (APAC PvE server) and in the busiest area at about the time when everyone's playing (usually fleet) I usually rank about 30-40ms screwing around (dancing, emote whoring, random healing and rescuing on my sage, engaging in random GENERAL channel banter and babble). When I heard about the server merge and that most Dalborrans would be going to Harbinger I decided to roll a character there and play around with it for a bit. Got it high enough to get to fleet and my ms rating was jumping around anywhere between 300-500. Completely unacceptable because if this changes the rate at which my packets are going to be sending (since I'm my guild's top interrupter during ops) interrupting must-interrupt-or-get-one-shotted abilities is going to be nigh impossible to pull off in time.