Maintenance: October 24th, 2017

[aerockyul]

I've created a translation for the latest yellow post:

Why not communicate this ahead of time?

What EA/BioWare said:

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience.

Translation:

We flat out lied by omission. Some of us crossed our fingers and hoped you wouldn’t notice. Others knew there would be posters telling you your experience was wrong, excusable, different from theirs, etc.

 

I think they might have hoped there would be more white knights than affected non-NA, non-EU players to shout them down.

I'm still waiting for a certain forum sheriff to come out of hibernation to tell us (the players) how stupid we all are and we are the cause of the current frustrations many are feeling.

[Darth-Gorog]

for some of us the ping either doubled or tripled, some even more then that. once you go from being used to 250ms for years, and then suddenly dealing with 500ms or more and knowing it cannot go lower now... yeah that is going to make an impact in affected people's gameplay and it will understandably upset them since it rules out, for them, many aspects of the game as they won't be able to perform or play in those (PvP, operations, some flashpoints).

 

That bad huh? guess I just assumed it couldn't beat the 360 or something I get on an East Coast server, wonder how it can be worse when I assumed the east coast server was further away from the new position of the west coast one

[Foambreaker]

It's hard to relate to all this outrage, since I have played with high ping since launch. Even now i notice little to no difference in my ping when I play the game, so is it really just a minor ping increase that has got everyone's knickers in a twist?

 

As soon as you do anything with more than 3-4 people the lag and ping go way up, the x country link pings nice with no data but as soon as there is data it bogs down quickly.

[Icykill_]

just wow. nothing to really say that hasn't been said by others. Looks like the Keith regime is the same as the Ben regime, just with a leader who plays the game.

 

For the second time since this game has been out my sub is cancelled. I'll ride out the time and prob hop into game here and there but I'd rather walk away from the game on my own terms then have it taken from me when the servers get turned off.

 

I'm sorry BW, but when you lie to the player base (and in this case finally admit you did it deliberately) no amount of "we love SW" and "we play the game too" can make up for it.

 

And you can bet Keith’s ping hasn’t gotten higher... it’s probably dropped and is optimised to run through the network to Austin and then to his house.

[Asmodesu]

That bad huh? guess I just assumed it couldn't beat the 360 or something I get on an East Coast server, wonder how it can be worse when I assumed the east coast server was further away from the new position of the west coast one

 

I'm from Australia, East coast for us is bad, connection wise, due to the routes and increased distance across America.

I was fine playing swtor at 200-250ms steady for all activities, and had been for years, but now I'm getting everything from 400-700ms before I even enter a warzone or flashpoint, or do anything at all actually, both of which my game enjoyment just dies from all the rubber banding, lag and 2-4 second delay on what I see on my screen compared to what's actually happening in-game. at a stretch I'd deal fine with a steady 300ms but I like to pvp so anything higher starts really affecting what I can do in the warzones.

 

it's this that people are getting hot and bothered over xD Im jsut in a ultra disappointed in the devs stage now. I don't get riled up too often, I have my days but usually 2 days later I'm over it and it no longer matters so much, but when it's likely a permanent impact on my gaming experience like this is.. yeah I'm disappointed.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Asmodesu

[Ylliarus]

I think they might have hoped there would be more white knights than affected non-NA, non-EU players to shout them down.

I'm still waiting for a certain forum sheriff to come out of hibernation to tell us (the players) how stupid we all are and we are the cause of the current frustrations many are feeling.

 

I honestly hope that wasn't their line of thought. Regardless, the concern of the APAC players is very much valid and should be addressed by Bioware as in the post they posted they didn't touch upon the issue that is the biggest in all of this. The issue is not as much west coast being affected by this (while naturally they are too) but the most important problem is that in the datacenter move the APAC players seem to have been forgotten/neglected. Unless the amount of players from that region is thus low (which I don't think is the case) that the devs decided it was okay to sacrifice that part of the playerbase. Which would be the second sacrifice they'd be making with the server merges, albeit Bioware stated it's working on a solution to the issue of the RP community and potential grievers ingame.

 

I hope that the sacrifices won't backfire in the end as really this game needs a boost in the number of players, not having measures been taken that deter potential new players and force away the current ones playing the game

[Bidli]

I feel very bad for APAC/WC players and I am honestly disgusted. And I thought you treated US players with way more love than you treat the rest (starting with patch times)... Eternal blabling is all that's left...

 

I really, really hope that you guys just bought "new coffin" for the game and that the number of imaginary nails will only increase from now on...

 

Thanks for the fun I had in 2014/2015.

(You may ask why the hell I stayed till late 2017 after what I say. Well it's all about the people I met and had the opportunity to play with. shoutout to one ToFN/TRE guild )

 

 

/unsubbed

Edited October 26, 2017 by Bidli

[Icykill_]

As soon as you do anything with more than 3-4 people the lag and ping go way up, the x country link pings nice with no data but as soon as there is data it bogs down quickly.

 

Got jumped in pvp by 4 guys and a healer running in a tank group... I lagged so bad I couldn’t bubble, stun, move, heal or phase walk... then I died and respawned in my SH with red x lag...

[Icykill_]

I think they might have hoped there would be more white knights than affected non-NA, non-EU players to shout them down.

I'm still waiting for a certain forum sheriff to come out of hibernation to tell us (the players) how stupid we all are and we are the cause of the current frustrations many are feeling.

 

Some white knights appeared and were either converted to our point of view or quickly dismissed or ridiculed... so most stopped posting... the ones left are either trolls or naive to the point of worshipping Bioware or they get paid by Bioware in some way (probably in the influencer program)... so they are easily dismissed as they are talking nonsense and look foolish... I’m just choosing to ignore them because I feel sorry for them.

[Icykill_]

It's hard to relate to all this outrage, since I have played with high ping since launch. Even now i notice little to no difference in my ping when I play the game, so is it really just a minor ping increase that has got everyone's knickers in a twist?

 

But where do you play from?

[sipidous]

[deleted] Edited January 10, 2018 by sipidous

[Ylliarus]

Bioware what are you doing, why did you misinform us? Why don't you just play it open and transparent with us to regain our trust? Doing things like this will not aid in establishing a better player communication, it will tear it down. Have you seen the forums lately? People are angry, they shouldn't be toxic or rude but it has a reason and that is because they're angry with what's happening to the game. Talk to us, be open to us but most importantly talk to us...

[Icykill_]

Bioware what are you doing, why did you misinform us? Why don't you just play it open and transparent with us to regain our trust? Doing things like this will not aid in establishing a better player communication, it will tear it down. Have you seen the forums lately? People are angry, they shouldn't be toxic or rude but it has a reason and that is because they're angry with what's happening to the game. Talk to us, be open to us but most importantly talk to us...

 

Knew Bioware communication protocol

 

#ostrichswithheadsinthesand

 

https://imgflip.com/i/10ojos

[xxpcwizardbetaxx]

Hey folks,

 

As many of you know, on Tuesday Keith explained that in preparation for United Forces we moved all current west coast servers into our Virginia data center. Here’s some of the key questions we have received about the North American datacenter change:

 

Why not communicate this ahead of time?

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience. This meant we could quickly start gathering feedback on what you were seeing in-game (more on this in the next question). However, we have seen posts from players who made specific decisions based on location (such as character transfers) and we will be in touch with them to discuss. To ensure there is no confusion about this update in-game, we adjusted the server selection screen to reflect that all NA servers are on the east coast.

 

My ping has gone up since the change and it is affecting my gameplay, what options do I have?

Please continue to report it! As Keith mentioned in his forum post this is something we are actively tracking and working with our network partners to address where possible. We will be working through this especially over the next two weeks as we ramp up to United Forces.

 

Could there be one data center in the Central US so that pings are more even for each coast?

Creating an entirely new datacenter is a daunting task, even above and beyond the substantial changes we have already made this year. This just isn’t something that was viable in the scope of the changes we made for United Forces.

 

Since all of NA is in one datacenter, shouldn’t we just have one server?

Moving all of NA together would create a very heavily populated server. This would introduce several challenges: 1) Players would likely experience queues accessing the server and 2) It would increase the chances for server instability and downtime. There are also a variety of other issues, but a key concern was combining all of North America would result in substantially more character name collisions.

 

We hope this answers some of your questions and lets you know what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks. Please remember, on November 8th we will move all players to their new servers during an extended maintenance (currently looking like 12 hours). We are also discussing starting a few hours earlier than usual (e.g., 2 or 3am CT), but will let you know a few days beforehand.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

like i said in PM to make thinks fair world wide the datacentre should be in West Coast since everyone outside the US ENTERS from there

 

AND as long as everyone ping is below 250-300 ms and no higher than 350 ms it should be fair. People from east coast going to west coast should be average 60-120 ms

 

Let me know what u thinl

[Trogusaurus]

I think even a fair numbers of East Coasters would begrudgingly agree with you. Unfortunately it appears the decision is final, and EAware won't be making any apologies for it. Edited October 27, 2017 by Trogusaurus

[Seelvir]

If the people who run this game are Gaston, then Eric Musco is like their Lefou. And I mean Emma-Watson-remake Lefou, the one who manages redemption in the end. But at first, he's just the bullied and ridiculous little man who nevertheless idolizes his bully and is willing to shovel any excrement it takes to be part of the cool-crowd, with only the vaguest evidence of shame or regret when innocent people must be harmed along the way. I mean Musco always has that energy when I've watched him in the livesteams, that bumbling giggling hunched-over hanger-on kind of energy. Reading what he produced for the OP here really confirms in my mind that he'd be Emperor Palpatine's PR guy if it just meant getting close to that intricately-decorated lightsaber. I wonder if writing stuff like what he penned today is what he dreamed of when he got started in the Star Wars Video Game business. Did he dream of putting lipstick on pigs? Did he dream of polishing proverbial poos? I've always had some pity for the poor guy, cause I get it.

 

I feel like I understand what he's feeling when he contemplates whether or not THIS is the last time he's gonna be this game's Sean Spicer. For instance, I reject everything about this server situation, from the decision, to the way it was communicated ahead of time, to this ludicrously obtuse explanation Musco gave us today ... but I only reject it in ways that are ultimately irrelevant. The same way Musco will keep doing what he does in exchange for a reliable paycheck in a field he actually cares about, I will keep paying EA to abuse me and my friends like this because I'm hooked on the Star Wars IP and care about the relationships I've formed with other players.

 

My ping is a stable 60-70ms and so the server relocation barely affects me ... but like others have posted, watching this unfold is horrifying. EA literally wrote off every APAC player because an EA beancounter wrote a white paper and maybe backed it up with a slick slide deck showing that the income from APAC player subs and CC purchases is insignificant next to the power of the For ... I mean next to the cost of a west coast server and infrastructure. It's just math, really. It's just business. When players in this thread attack the decision and its communication as heartless, I guess what they're failing to recognize is that EA isn't hurt by those comments ... they're fueled by them. Heart is a lie, there is only Profit.

 

When I was a kid, I wondered what would happen to a mashup galaxy if Ferengi could use the Dark Side. Well, EA is the answer. And despite that, I'm not cancelling my sub.

 

Because Star Wars.

 

Someone has a sig on these forums that succinctly states something like this: EA owns rights to MMOify the most popular IP on the planet ... and this Triple C production is all we have.

 

In a way, I'm envious of APAC players who can't play the game anymore, for whom the decision to unsub is now the only one.

 

Star Wars ... I wish I could quit you.

[Joonbeams]

Just want to add what I mentioned in another thread. It's not just ping. Ping is an issue, and likely THE major issue for APAC. But I now have lag issues even at a relatively modest ping of 70-80ms. I have a stellar rig, dedicated isp, etc. No issues before. And I'm talking about just opening mail, menus, etc. in addition to play. It's by no means gamebreaking for me, but overall performance is worse.

 

I believe (empirically) the servers were actually "downgraded", quality-wise, likely for cost saving reasons. I want to be vocal about this additional issue of bad server response times, and poor optimization so that: a) devs looks into it if this was unexpected, or b)if they already know this, so we can get at the truth of what these mergers really are about.

[Icykill_]

I think even a fair numbers of East Coasters would begrudgingly agree with you. Unfortunately it appears the decision is final, and they aren't making any apologies for it.

 

Yeah... apologies aren’t in their vocabulary... even when they mess up bad there is a reason and never a sorry... it reminds me of people who say... “I was gonna do that in a minute or I’m just about to do that”... always making an excuse... and can never take responsibility (another word not in their vocabulary)

[digimass]

You know they're treating us like mushrooms when they keep us in the dark and feed us bull *#.

 

I'm a west coast player, and I use to enjoy playing with the apac people. But Keith was suppose to come with this new transparency, and consistent connection with the community. We got lip service...

 

CXP is the worse system ever btw, and I have 60 days left on this sub. Not happy right now, especially with the "maintance mode" preplanning to put this on a single farm.

[QuinlanSaathis]

My ping has gone up since the change and it is affecting my gameplay, what options do I have?

Please continue to report it! As Keith mentioned in his forum post this is something we are actively tracking and working with our network partners to address where possible. We will be working through this especially over the next two weeks as we ramp up to United Forces.

 

 

We hope this answers some of your questions and lets you know what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks. Please remember, on November 8th we will move all players to their new servers during an extended maintenance (currently looking like 12 hours). We are also discussing starting a few hours earlier than usual (e.g., 2 or 3am CT), but will let you know a few days beforehand.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

You want to know how I feel.....

This is how i feel.

 

For the first time ever in TOR I am feeling ripped off.

It costs me up to $140 for a 14500 coin pack and I always buy the big one because it is better value.

 

Well between coin buys for all the direct purchase sales this last month and the overall changes to the Cartel Market, I have dropped $420 + my sub renewal at $80. That is $500. I have spent this much before but never have I felt ripped off after doing so.

 

I spent 4 hours online last night and I was even lagging in cut-scenes. Even thou I am in New Zealand, I have good internet and NZ has a better link to the USA that Australia does so my pings were around 90ms to Harbinger. I never saw my lag raise above 2 bars last night and often it was in the red, I was averaging about 280ms.

 

I am quite upset by this, I have literally spent thousands on this game and been subbed since Beta, even when I took a break from the game I was still subbed.

Now I don't group, I don't raid, I don't PvP, I play the game for the story which I still enjoy immensely, yes even the new stuff with Valkorian. I am the least burden on the servers and I would assume in the top 10% of financial contributors to the game, yet even with this limited footprint it is uncertain if I will be able to continue.

 

Please revisit this decision!

[Costello]

As your answering question, can you please explain what the benefit,gain or advantage was from the software and hardware upgrades.

 

Is it better gameplay, better graphics, better more dynamic combat, better more complete worlds and environments (i.e. a day night cycle or living breathing worlds) or open world pvpve planets?

 

It has been suggested than an investment has been made in these upgrades, however it seems the location of the data center has had the biggest, and in some cases negative impact. Its not easy to see how this investment was a good one.

 

Its possible its not an upgrade and simply cost cutting and the future is fairly negative. After the best part of the year spend on focusing away from story to group play, server population has declined so far that server mergers happening along with closing the west coast servers. Will the plan be to continue down this route offering story lite in deference to group play, be that uprisings, flashpoints or operations. Or the non existent story in faction free PvP instances that have no effect on the game in the slightest or relevance to the game.

 

It seems things are looking pretty bad and if the last 8 months is anything to go by very little new content will be coming and what there is wont be great. Just go back and look at the return of Quinn or Elara for how badly the only companion all year has been handled. It is like bad decision after bad decision and for some reason people thought Keith cause he played the game would be amazing for tor.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Costello

[DieAlteHexe]

Well this is a right mess.

 

It's like watching an old friend die from self-inflicted wounds.

[Exly]

Hey folks,

Why not communicate this ahead of time?

We made the decision to not communicate this information ahead of time because we wanted you to have the ability to immediately login and determine the impact to your gameplay experience. This meant we could quickly start gathering feedback on what you were seeing in-game (more on this in the next question). However, we have seen posts from players who made specific decisions based on location (such as character transfers) and we will be in touch with them to discuss. To ensure there is no confusion about this update in-game, we adjusted the server selection screen to reflect that all NA servers are on the east coast.

-eric

 

Are you intentionally trying to insult us with this answer.

 

How would letting us know in advance of this happening prevented us from having the ability to immediately login and determine the impact of our gameplay experience?

 

How would letting us know in advance have prevented you from quickly starting to gather feedback on what we were seeing in-game?

 

Those reasons seem to be contrived to give yourselves cover to mask the true reason(s) that you chose to keep this information from us.

 

Well, I am not that stupid, and I don't believe you.

 

In the future you might want to tell us the truth. You will probably still loose customers in the short term, but in the long run, when you act like this you loose more people, and those that do leave are less likely to return.

 

Intentionally deceiving people is not the best way to earn their trust, respect or loyalty. Maybe you can remember that the next time you are thinking about misleading us.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Exly

[Trogusaurus]

At the rate things are going, this game (and these developers' jobs, for that matter) doesn't have a future.

[dscount]

It's like every time Bioware opens it's mouth lately they lose more SUB's.

 

Dice this PR nightmare any way you want, but they screwed up AGAIN with leaving details OUT on purpose.

 

To me this is very deceptive to tell people about server merges and then find out they moved your servers to a whole other data center in the same space as servers people left for a reason.

 

As a remote user (Beyond West Coast timezone) I'm pretty pissed about this and just another nail in the coffin for Bioware. I tried East Coast servers - they give me LAG (I've awesome upload/download ISP and brand new high end system so it's not me).