No rage : Logic why the west coast would have been a better decision.

[ekwalizer]

They chose the east coast because they will be closing the EU servers next and migrating the European players to the consolidated servers in Virginia. This will be a huge saving as it allows them to cut German and French voice overs and translations.

 

This game is in a death spiral, the only question left is how long it can hold on before it closes. You don't take drastic actions like close the west coast servers and alienate a good portion of your player base if the game is healthy and has a bright future.

 

I suspect the edict has come from EA, either cut costs or close.

 

They legally cannot do that. EU privacy information laws are much more strict than US. Simply put, it would be illegal for them to merge the EU players' information onto US based servers.

[ekwalizer]

Why do you think that they won’t merge the EU with the US?... they actually have better ping to the east coast than most west coast people have to the east coast

 

As I said above, it's a legal issue that they cannot get around. This has been answered hundreds of times on these very forums.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=869228&

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=832760&

 

In fact, I used to keep that as a spoiler in my signature block.

Edited October 30, 2017 by ekwalizer
additional information

[Tsillah]

You may have just hit on the reason for no communication prior to the move. If there is enough backlash they may bring transfers back at a reasonable price, otherwise I expect they'll go back to 1000 cartel coins so they can make the $ off of the transfers. For them it's basically free money, there is no cost to the transfers, no payroll costs, no new equipment or software, just free money.

It's not free money because that would cost them more customer than whatever they would gain from those CC. I really don't get why people overestimate the gains Bioware could get from such a move. It seems to me they would lose more over that then they would gain.

 

Now if you would tell me that that hasn't stopped Bioware before then I'll have to admit I have no counter for that.

 

Who knows, maybe in the near future they'll force us to do ops and pvp for gearing in another way just as we thought UCs from disintegration would solve that problem.

[Kassandross]

I miss the days when the US servers and call centers were in the mid-west and everything was on central time. It was a nice middle ground and resolved most of the east vs west nonsense.

 

So I am a returning player. I guess I should keep looking for a game based on this thread. Game is dying why come back?

 

Edit 1: Already annoyed with the one time password implementation. No, I am not going to save my cookies.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Kassandross

[aerockyul]

The thing about Bioware that people have to learn is that:

 

1. They give you what you want if you whine enough

2. When they give you what you want they mess something up

3. When they give you what you want they will do it in a way thats always not 100% for everyone

 

The creativity in how they go about #2 always gets me. Even when you think you're prepared for what could possibly go wrong...

[orangenee]

The creativity in how they go about #2 always gets me. Even when you think you're prepared for what could possibly go wrong...

 

Corrupt a wish market leaders since 2010.

[Icykill_]

Listen Icykill... even if you start countless threads about your Personal feelings or about how BW screwed up (i did that in the past aswell)

It will not change something - learn to accept it or leave...

BUT please stop spamming the Forums with your bull****.

 

I tried that a very long time ago (8vs8 ranked) and BW abolished it anyway.

Accept that APAC players are screwed now.

Well i feel sorry for you.

 

Thank you

 

Are you telling me not to post?

[Icykill_]

I am curious about something. We have had a guild member since day one play with us and he is located in London and he plays on the Eastern server (Ebon Hawk) and rarely have we heard him complain about his connection and he does some pvp as well.

 

You say that no one that lives outside the US can connect right or play right but yet our guild member has since day one, so why does he not have any problems.

 

EU is completely different to APAC...

A. The Atlantic crossing is about 80ms

B. The Pacific crossing is about 170ms (before you hit the west coast infrastructure (about 200ms to the old west coast servers)

C. Traveling across the US adds about 100+ms for some APAC players.

D. A major percentage of APAC players end up with between 290-350ms Ping

E. Poor server and internal network optimisation causes big lag spikes... these exacerbate the high lag even more

Edited October 31, 2017 by Icykill_

[jimmorrisson]

I think there is unlikely to be any exodus of RPers from Ebon Hawk.

 

Firstly because Ebon Hawk is far and away the most populated East Coast server so people who RP are still gong to be a very sizable portion of Star Forge.

 

Second because neither Shadowlands or Jedi Covenant has a toxic playerbase overall. There will be trolls on Star Forge of course, but Ebon Hawk has those as well. There isn't going to be much of a difference.

 

The majority of players don't care that RP exists and people who are worried about it being trolled out of existence are being paranoid.

 

The merger may even be a net positive for the Ebon Hawk RPers as they'll now be on the same server with the RPers who've stuck it out on Jung Ma. Since all servers are physically located on the East Coast Star Forge will likely benefit from Beregon Colony's RPers transferring away from "Harbinger" to Star Forge.

 

Second because neither Shadowlands or Jedi Covenant has a toxic playerbase overall.

 

Shadowlands

 

 

I'm don't know what Shadowlands you are on - however the one I have been on since 2013 has a general chat consisting solely of accusing one another of having autism on the regular when not questioning one another's gender preference or national origin.

 

Whereas Ebon Hawk has a Imperial Fleet consisting of 75% "female" characters wearing no pants engaged in RP.

 

 

Here is whats going to happen:

 

Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant will dominate the East Coast mega-server "Star Forge" rolling over the larger Ebon Hawk's native conquest and pvp playerbase.

 

Harbinger's substantial East Coast playerbase will migrate back to new East Coast mega server Star Forge.

 

Former Ebon Hawk RP'ers will migrate to "West Coast" mega server "Satele Shan" who will replace APAC players who will no longer play the game due to their 300 to 500ms latency.

 

"West Coast" server "Satele Shan" will then become the de facto RP server since the server is located on the East Coast anyway.

Edited November 1, 2017 by jimmorrisson

[Grieverheart]

Icy is still on the hate train eh? Seems pretty entitled to think that Asian Pacific players should be given special treatment when they never had a server to begin with. But hey, that's just me.

[Galsarus]

Icy is still on the hate train eh? 2.Seems pretty entitled to think that Asian Pacific players should be given special treatment when 1. they never had a server to begin with. But hey, that's just me.

 

1. When SWTOR launched in the APAC region (which was a few months after NA/EU launch if memory serves me correctly) there were 3 Servers - Gav Daragon (RP-PvE), Master Nala (PvP) and Dalborra (PvE). The server were shut down back in 2012 when BW made what could be argued to be a financial decision.

 

2. BW has a history of misleading statements when it comes to the APAC region players. Please note - APAC region is not only Australia and New Zealand, but also covers SE Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong etc.), Korea, Japan, Hawaii and number of other countries (my old guild had members from Russia's Eastern Seaboard who reported better latency to APAC servers, India and even Bangladesh) We were strung along for over 6 months wondering whether we are being merged with Dalborra or we are being merged with NA West servers. Around Dec the final decision was to merge with NA West servers ( GD got merged with BC, MN got merged with Bastion and Dal got merged with Harb). During this period, communication from BW was next to Nil. End result, only a fraction of APAC region players shifted to their "new home". Even more left after they experienced the significantly increased latency affecting their PvP/PvE performance.

 

So yes, APAC region got burnt once before. It has left such a bad taste in our collective mouths that we are distrustful, and dare I say, somewhat hostile towards BW right now. In the end, This is a business decision. But, as members of major stakeholders in this system, BW has done a poor job of taking into account the impact on APAC region players. BW maybe able to coordinate with their infrastructure providers to reduce the latency spikes and/or stabilise the latency by rerouting traffic through more stable and less bottle necked pipeline, but they will not be able to address the actual latency itself for APAC region. THAT is the main gripe Icy has.

 

Have a good day and Happy Hunting.

[americanaussie]

Icy is still on the hate train eh? Seems pretty entitled to think that Asian Pacific players should be given special treatment when they never had a server to begin with. But hey, that's just me.

 

Speaking out your bum, eh? You have ZERO clue what you're going on about, but if you need email proof that APAC had 3 servers, then I can provide such as I'm a founder. I know. Icy can go on for however long she wants. She's paid a sub and got screwed over by BW. BW has since admitted to LYING so I think Icy is justified. I'm still upset too. Don't worry, I'm sure APAC complaints will be drowned out after Nov 8 when people whinge about decos and names. Be prepared for that.

[Tsillah]

Icy is still on the hate train eh? Seems pretty entitled to think that Asian Pacific players should be given special treatment when they never had a server to begin with. But hey, that's just me.

Well, I guess now she can't play the game, she has all the time in the world to post here.

 

I do agree though that it's gotten excessive and to be honest, I think it won't help her.

 

However, I do want to point out an inconsistency in your comments...there used to be APAC servers, so to say they never had a server to begin with is actually a false statement...they did have servers to begin with. They just got closed down at some point and the reason must've been that there weren't enough players to sustain them.

 

Personally, I feel for the APAC players but there can't be that many of them. In the larger picture they may be statistically insignificant. That sounds cold but that's business for you I suppose. A business cares more about numbers than people. Icykill's rage about the situation is understandable but I do miss a certain sense of realism.

[Icykill_]

Speaking out your bum, eh? You have ZERO clue what you're going on about, but if you need email proof that APAC had 3 servers, then I can provide such as I'm a founder. I know. Icy can go on for however long she wants. She's paid a sub and got screwed over by BW. BW has since admitted to LYING so I think Icy is justified. I'm still upset too. Don't worry, I'm sure APAC complaints will be drowned out after Nov 8 when people whinge about decos and names. Be prepared for that.

 

I used the ignore feature... people like that aren’t worth responding too... it’s obvious they are looking to troll...

I’ll be here till my sub runs out and I don’t intend on letting this issue rest until they either fix it or my forum access expires... Im assuming the forum access will expire first after Xmas...

 

I did get a PM response from Keith (nice surprise), thanking me for the information I sent him about hops and pings from Australia...

Thanks. We've been working with our EADP and Network providers to determine why APAC jumped so high. All their previous testing showed 50-70ms increase, so they are looking at hops from a variety of ISPs.

I’m glad he responded, but it’s obvious that he (they) knew we would be getting an extra 50-70ms ping added to our normal ping on the west coast servers... so if you already had 220ms like lots of us did... they expected and planned for us to have 290ms... which is completely unacceptable.

I can’t see how they thought that wasn’t going to affect our ability to play or enjoy the game... I wonder if Keith or anyone making the assumptions that would not affect us, has ever played pvp or NiM Ops on that sort of ping before??

Edited November 1, 2017 by Icykill_

[merovejec]

I did get a PM response from Keith (nice surprise), thanking me for the information I sent him about hops and pings from Australia...

 

Well yeah, for them to count on 300ms for you guys isnt that appealing

[xxpcwizardbetaxx]

EU is completely different to APAC...

A. The Atlantic crossing is about 80ms

B. The Pacific crossing is about 170ms (before you hit the west coast infrastructure (about 200ms to the old west coast servers)

C. Traveling across the US adds about 100+ms for some APAC players.

D. A major percentage of APAC players end up with between 290-350ms Ping

E. Poor server and internal network optimisation causes big lag spikes... these exacerbate the high lag even more

 

if you were using wtfast setup and live in Melb and internet leaves from Sydney what be best server locations to used to get lowest latency to swotr before on west coast with nothing i could get as low as 185ms 210ms most areas but now east 230-250 ms up to 300ms

[Icykill_]

if you were using wtfast setup and live in Melb and internet leaves from Sydney what be best server locations to used to get lowest latency to swotr before on west coast with nothing i could get as low as 185ms 210ms most areas but now east 230-250 ms up to 300ms

 

WTFast doesn’t work for me..

[americanaussie]

Well, I guess now she can't play the game, she has all the time in the world to post here.

 

I do agree though that it's gotten excessive and to be honest, I think it won't help her.

 

However, I do want to point out an inconsistency in your comments...there used to be APAC servers, so to say they never had a server to begin with is actually a false statement...they did have servers to begin with. They just got closed down at some point and the reason must've been that there weren't enough players to sustain them.

 

Personally, I feel for the APAC players but there can't be that many of them. In the larger picture they may be statistically insignificant. That sounds cold but that's business for you I suppose. A business cares more about numbers than people. Icykill's rage about the situation is understandable but I do miss a certain sense of realism.

 

Time will tell. I think it's going to hurt them a lot more than they anticipated.

[Shivax]

All APAC players should ofc cancel sub and ask for refund.

 

Its like managing game in 5.0 didnt go as well as they planned, chase the players away, so they did this

[DiamondDove]

 

They just got closed down at some point and the reason must've been that there weren't enough players to sustain them.

 

You will find an earlier comment from me addressing this. It is worth contemplating that there seems to be less players on Harbinger now (in late October 2017), then on the main APAC server when BW decided to shut it down (in 2013). I am just making an observation, and based only on my own limited experience. I am not claiming the game is doomed or in maintenance mode, but BW will make business decisions based on the data they have, and their profit targets. We can't know any of those parameters, and the APAC servers would probably have cost more to maintain back then, than the new east coast servers are now. We all know these are necessary business decisions, and hopefully this one will keep the game viable for years to come.

 

Personally, I feel for the APAC players but there can't be that many of them.

 

Tsilah - thank you for being supportive of the APAC case, and not letting your 'discourse' with one APAC player interfere with that support.

 

After our initial APAC losses, I fear you are correct - there are not enough of us playing anymore to mount a business case to keep WC servers just for APAC players. I hope that the APAC head count by BW included the (potentially large) number of APAC players using a VPN and appearing to be located elsewhere.

[DiamondDove]

I did get a PM response from Keith (nice surprise), thanking me for the information I sent him about hops and pings from Australia...it’s obvious that he (they) knew we would be getting an extra 50-70ms ping added to our normal ping

 

Thanks for posting this Icy. That increase in Ping seems about right for my connection. If anything, I am lucky enough to be on the lower side of that increase. Hopefully they can smooth the spikes, and some APAC players may still have a (mostly) playable game.

[Icykill_]

Thanks for posting this Icy. That increase in Ping seems about right for my connection. If anything, I am lucky enough to be on the lower side of that increase. Hopefully they can smooth the spikes, and some APAC players may still have a (mostly) playable game.

 

Yes... maybe... some people who were playing with ping under 200ms to start with and aren’t as reliant on good ping like pvpers and progression raiders might be ok ... if they just do story stuff... then 250ms would be ok for them..

But a good deal of APAC players were already playing with 220ms or higher ping... so adding 50ms makes it 270ms and adding 70ms makes it 290ms... which makes lag sensitive content difficult... to impossible to play...

But don’t forget the lag spikes and the bad game engine... they say they are going to have that side ironed out in another week... but if they don’t... then people playing 250ms-290ms end up with constant 400-600ms lag spikes... which makes the game unplayable....

I hope they fix that for those players who will try and stay... because if they don’t... they will drive even more people away.

 

Edit : It’s impossible to count how many APAC players were already using VPNs to try and improve speed... one would hope they didn’t rely solely on where the connections were coming from to make their business case to shut the west coast or they maybe in for a very rude shock... One would hope they also used subscription locations to find out

Edited November 1, 2017 by Icykill_

[casirabit]

I'm don't know what Shadowlands you are on - however the one I have been on since 2013 has a general chat consisting solely of accusing one another of having autism on the regular when not questioning one another's gender preference or national origin.

 

Whereas Ebon Hawk has a Imperial Fleet consisting of 75% "female" characters wearing no pants engaged in RP.

 

 

Here is whats going to happen:

 

Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant will dominate the East Coast mega-server "Star Forge" rolling over the larger Ebon Hawk's native conquest and pvp playerbase.

 

Harbinger's substantial East Coast playerbase will migrate back to new East Coast mega server Star Forge.

 

Former Ebon Hawk RP'ers will migrate to "West Coast" mega server "Satele Shan" who will replace APAC players who will no longer play the game due to their 300 to 500ms latency.

 

"West Coast" server "Satele Shan" will then become the de facto RP server since the server is located on the East Coast anyway.

 

Not sure what roleplayers you know but Ebon Hawk roleplayers are tougher than that. If they are like me they probably tell the few jerks to stuff it and get on with life. Most of the roleplayers on Ebon Hawk are not some scary cats of a few people that come from Shadowlands or Jedi Convent and listen to what they say and furthermore I have met some nice individuals from those servers that are respectful.

 

As far as Ebon Hawk and the imperial side, it really shows what little you do know about roleplayers. Sure there are some that act like that but not 75%.

 

It just seems you want to wish that was going to happen. You seem like that is what you are hoping. Most of the roleplayers I know from Ebon Hawk are tougher than that and they can give back as much as some people want to dish out. So No I doubt your "ideas" will come to pass.

[Qouivandes]

i have no intention of tranferring any more toons so this Ebon Hawk native will remain where he is right now. disclosure: i do have three toons on BC that will be on SatSha soon, so i do have wiggle room. now if only i could find it in me to actually join the RP community i would be set. point. score...woohoo.

[Tsillah]

You will find an earlier comment from me addressing this. It is worth contemplating that there seems to be less players on Harbinger now (in late October 2017), then on the main APAC server when BW decided to shut it down (in 2013). I am just making an observation, and based only on my own limited experience. I am not claiming the game is doomed or in maintenance mode, but BW will make business decisions based on the data they have, and their profit targets. We can't know any of those parameters, and the APAC servers would probably have cost more to maintain back then, than the new east coast servers are now. We all know these are necessary business decisions, and hopefully this one will keep the game viable for years to come.

Harbinger and other servers are all but dead. I think that they simply waited with server merges in the hope that 5.0 would bring a turnaround. Unfortunately that didn't happen and they couldn't salvage the damage done. So the server merges are overdue but I get why they waited.

I just hope that 6.0 will bring something that will be good for this game. It certainly is needed.

Tsilah - thank you for being supportive of the APAC case, and not letting your 'discourse' with one APAC player interfere with that support.

 

After our initial APAC losses, I fear you are correct - there are not enough of us playing anymore to mount a business case to keep WC servers just for APAC players. I hope that the APAC head count by BW included the (potentially large) number of APAC players using a VPN and appearing to be located elsewhere.

I would find it rather unfair of myself to condemn or judge an entire group of people because I don't always get along with someone.

 

I really wish and hope there is a solution for you guys although at the moment I don't see any. I mean I really hate business case thinking but I also am aware of it and that it's generally inescapable in certain types of companies. EA is one of those types and Bioware's biggest mistake was to sell themselves via the stock market. Big money is enticing but the cost is high as they found out I think. The original owners who left Bioware years ago, probably realised this.

 

EA invests into games, they don't actually care about them. But even there I can understand that you do need to make a profit as a company, so you can't escape business thinking. Still, giants like Square Enix and Blizzard are able to do more than that. The question comes down to why can they and why can't EA? The simple answer is what I already said: EA is an investment company, not a game developer. From my point of view Bioware still decides a lot about the games they make but they can't stand behind their products as they could've done when they were still their own bosses.

 

I think it's a real shame for APAC players and ok I even feel bad for Icy in spite of everything, but again, I don't see a solution at this moment and I would really be upset myself if I lived in the APAC region and I couldn't play this game anymore because of high latency. I guess I wish there was a solution but I really just have no answers.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Tsillah