Dear APAC Players

[Ylliarus]

You do realise they closed the APAC servers when we had more people than what the whole of the American servers currently do...

 

That might be correct, yet if that is truly the case (before I can believe you I'll need some numbers/proof that your claim is a fact and not an assumption based on subjective findings) then apparently there were not enough subscribers in the APAC region to make up for the cost of maintaining the servers and datacenters there. If most of the players there were free-to-play players, then it is not difficult to imagine that they are "acceptable losses" as they do not provide any income for the company, especially if the amount of subscribers and the income those provided was lower than the costs it took to keep all of it going there. The amount of players might have been bigger than what currently is the whole of the American servers, they were likely a downweighing part of the playerbase. In other words, a playerbase has to be profitable in order to be provided for with servers and such, a sad truth but nonetheless a truth.

 

It is one of the reasons why I find it so important that people do end up subscribing to this game, because the game is not run by a charity, but instead by a company. Losses will be cut to maximise profit.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Ylliarus

[Icykill_]

That might be correct, yet if that is truly the case (before I can believe you I'll need some numbers/proof that your claim is a fact and not an assumption based on subjective findings) then apparently there were not enough subscribers in the APAC region to make up for the cost of maintaining the servers and datacenters there. If most of the players there were free-to-play players, then it is not difficult to imagine that they are "acceptable losses" as they do not provide any income for the company, especially if the amount of subscribers and the income those provided was lower than the costs it took to keep all of it going there. The amount of players might have been bigger than what currently is the whole of the American servers, they were likely a downweighing part of the playerbase. In other words, a playerbase has to be profitable in order to be provided for with servers and such, a sad truth but nonetheless a truth.

 

It is one of the reasons why I find it so important that people do end up subscribing to this game, because the game is not run by a charity, but instead by a company. Losses will be cut to maximise profit.

 

Completely pointless talking to you and a few others... you weren’t playing on those servers and have zero idea what you are talking about

Edited October 29, 2017 by Icykill_

[Ylliarus]

Completely pointless talking to you and a few others... you weren’t playing on those servers and have zero idea what you are talking about

 

You are being very unfair in your reasoning right now.

 

I am just relaying a truth, an ugly one yes, a very ugly one, but that doesn't make me a bad person. I don't know how it was on those servers, yes, so explain it to me. Don't judge me for not having played on the APAC servers when I am based in Europe, there is little I can do about that.

 

I am just trying to figure out what the reason was for shutting down the APAC servers. I am convinced it was not malicious intent on the part of the developers. Were there more subscribers on the APAC servers than F2P players? What were the population numbers on those servers? Show them to me and I might form a different conclusion, but now I am forming conclusions on the base of the knowledge I have and what I can objectively deduce. You can't blame me for that or dismiss me as a bad person for it, if you're the one who is unable to provide the necessary proof and facts to show the truth to me.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Ylliarus

[aerockyul]

This! so much this!

 

People got shafted in the last merge, people will get shafted in this one, and, if there is another one, people will get shafted too.

 

It's about saving costs. Profit is what matters, not feelings. When people started to demand the merge, the company saw an oportunity to save costs. This is a business. They're not here to cater to the "gamer", they're here to make money out of you. And if you happen to be from somwhere where the revenue isn't enough, the company deems you as an accepted loss.

 

It's all acceptable until you are the one getting shafted

[Ylliarus]

Completely pointless talking to you and a few others... you weren’t playing on those servers and have zero idea what you are talking about

 

Another note: if you dismiss me this quickly and provide no counter-argument, then I wonder how well-founded your point of view is and how much of it is merely trying to enforce "my point is the one true one and no one else can be right".

 

I have not played on the APAC servers, yes, true. Why? Because I am based in Europe, you can't blame me for having played on the EU servers instead of the APAC ones. Instead of dismissing me, which weakens your arguments, you could have explained the situation on the APAC servers which would have altered my point of view. Instead you provided no counter to what my assumption was, which leaves me believing that my deduction must have been correct.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Ylliarus

[Sareeph]

Another note: if you dismiss me this quickly and provide no counter-argument, then I wonder how well-founded your point of view is and how much of it is merely trying to enforce "my point is the one true one and no one else can be right".

 

I have not played on the APAC servers, yes, true. Why? Because I am based in Europe, you can't blame me for having played on the EU servers instead of the APAC ones. Instead of dismissing me, which weakens your arguments, you could have explained the situation on the APAC servers which would have altered my point of view. Instead you provided no counter to what my assumption was, which leaves me believing that my deduction must have been correct.

 

 

From another thread

I need to make a point here... why does everyone think there aren’t many APAC players?

Sure there aren’t as many as the US or EU... but APAC isn’t just Australia... it’s Asia, pacific, Australia and NZ...

There are certainly more than 100 people playing from Australia and NZ... I know about 20 NZ players and 60 Australian players... there are many more I don’t know... it’s only been since this happened that I discovered 3 people who have been posting on the forums that live within 10-15 mins from me and I live outside of any major cities...

Then add the Asian players... and pacific players... ie Hawaii and other pacific locations

There are far more people living in just Asia alone than America and EU.... Add the rest of APAC and it dwarfs the US... Obviously there aren’t heaps of Asian players compared to US players... but it only takes a tiny fraction of the Asian population to play swtor and there are more players than you think...

I have a few friends in India and Indonesia who used to play with 280-300ms ping on the west coast and for some reason they put up with it... but now it’s impossible for them to play at all because they are into the 400-500ms range...

 

India population 1.324 billion (2016)

China population 1.379 billion (2016)

Australia population 24.13 million (2016)

NZ population 4.693 million (2016)

Quote : “Asia-Pacific, with over 4.5 billion people in 2016, is home to nearly 60 per cent of the world's population.”

 

North American Population

USA population 323.1 million (2016)

Canada population 36.29 million (2016)

Mexico population 127.5 million (2016)

European population (total) population (2015)

 

As you can see... the APAC population dwarfs the NA and Europe combined...

Of course there aren’t as many of us playing swtor because they removed our servers... even when we had APAC servers there weren’t as many on them as the US because lots of Asia-pacific connected directly with the US because it had better ping.. so there would still be a percentage of those players who have stayed through swtors naturally declining population for the whole game...

 

There may not be as many APAC players now as in the US and EU... but that doesn’t mean we have so few that Bioware should throw us away or not take us into consideration.... and this is something EA does a lot (and other NA producers)... why do you think there are so many “Asian” only gaming companies now... the NA/EU gaming companies are missing out on at least half the globe’s players because they treat our region with disdain... like Bioware are doing now... I would say a higher percentage of APAC players hate EA as an entity than the US/EU players combined...

I think sometimes Americans and EU write off our region because you don’t understand it and some of you have a superiority attitude towards us...

 

So let me finish by say... those of you who are making stupid statements like there are only 100 APAC players need to stop... you are not helping matters and frankly... you make yourselves look conceited and foolish

 

So Icy states that population in the APAC region of the world is higher than what is in the States and EU combined so she seems to be coming to the conclusion that there were more people playing this game from APAC than playing the US and EU before the APAC servers were dropped.

 

 

You do realise they closed the APAC servers when we had more people than what the whole of the American servers currently do...

 

Maybe this will give you insight to where Icy is trying to come from.

 

*Disclaimer* I am in no way stating that population density directly relates to actual player base statistics.

[Ylliarus]

From another thread

 

 

So Icy states that population in the APAC region of the world is higher than what is in the States and EU combined so she seems to be coming to the conclusion that there were more people playing this game from APAC than playing the US and EU before the APAC servers were dropped.

 

 

 

 

Maybe this will give you insight to where Icy is trying to come from.

 

*Disclaimer* I am in no way stating that population density directly relates to actual player base statistics.

 

But one cannot base how many people are playing a game merely on the numbers of global population... For example, Kenia has a population of 46.790.758 (as of 2016) while the Netherlands has 17.016.967 (as of 2016). However, I can guarantuee you there are more SWTOR players in the Netherlands than in Kenia. A large population doesn't equal a large percentage of players playing a game.

 

Yes, the APAC region may have more people living there than the entirety of North America and Europe combined, but it is an extremely faultive assumption to say that means there have to be more SWTOR players there than in Northern America. Yes, the chance there might be more players increases due to the larger population number, but that is merely the chance not the truth or actual situation.

 

If the APAC servers truly had a large amount of subscribed players, I am convinced Bioware would not have shut them down years ago (note, they may have had more players, but I am talking about paying customers as those are the one generating an income for the game). Had there been enough players there who were bringing in enough income, the APAC servers would have existed up until this day. Based on how things have gone and what decisions Bioware had made, it seemingly was more profitable to close those servers, meaning there were too little subscribers there to overcome the costs and thus provide a profit.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Ylliarus

[flavmad]

It's all acceptable until you are the one getting shafted

 

That is why I was always against the merge. All people had to do was to create a toon in a highest populated server (we all knew which were), or transfer their existing toons there. But no! People demanded merges, and then act surprised when the company cuts cost to accomodate the new requests.

 

One of the last times it was done APAC servers got shut down. I'm just wondering why people thought it would be different this time.

[Eshvara]

Does anyone think that without players asking for a merge, they were somehow going to continue paying indefinitely for something that doesn't make sense financially, according to them? Edited October 29, 2017 by Eshvara

[Rebamcfan]

From another thread

 

 

So Icy states that population in the APAC region of the world is higher than what is in the States and EU combined so she seems to be coming to the conclusion that there were more people playing this game from APAC than playing the US and EU before the APAC servers were dropped.

 

While the population of Acia-Pacific is highest in the world, I wonder how many from there played the game? I'm just thinking on cultural differences (that different type of MMO/or game might attract people there instead of SWTOR) + that some people may not have access to internet at all, depending from where they live.

I can see people from Australian and NZ playing the game, but what about people from China or Korea, they might have very different taste in gaming.

[IoNonSoEVero]

More lies and propaganda from Bioware... you can keep believing in their lies... but most of us can see through them now.

 

First you said that they didn't say anything. When it is pointed out that they did, it is 'lies and propaganda.' We won't know until Nov. 9, will we? It is unfair to demand a solution and then call it propaganda when they tell you they are trying, it just won't be this nanosecond. What, exactly, do you want them to do? Even if they were to completely reverse track tomorrow it would take time to implement anything.

Edited October 29, 2017 by IoNonSoEVero

[DanNV]

That is why I was always against the merge. All people had to do was to create a toon in a highest populated server (we all knew which were), or transfer their existing toons there. But no! People demanded merges, and then act surprised when the company cuts cost to accomodate the new requests.

 

One of the last times it was done APAC servers got shut down. I'm just wondering why people thought it would be different this time.

 

you do realize that merging servers and consolidating data centers had nothing to do with player demands one way or the other, right? Those decisions are purely financial. The game population has been in decline, generally, since launch. The game died just after launch and was resuscitated by F2P at the demand of EA to keep it from shutting down then. Now it's down to enough NA players for what BW believes will be 2 servers (Note, that means they didn't make mega servers, just Harby sized servers.) I expect it's really not enough to fill one. That small a population does not financially warrant two data centers or the hardware and database assets to run all the servers they have now. I would contend it hasn't justified the expense for at least 2 years and maybe longer than that.

 

SWTOR will last as long as EA wants to say they have a SW MMO. That might be 6 months (they are still selling 180 day subs) or 10 years. But it will do it on a minimal budget with minimal support and content releases. We're there now and have been since before 4.0 launched. Don't believe me, go look at what a healthy game puts out in a content patch (ESO just dropped a quarterly DLC with a full zone (think planet maybe double the size of Yavin, maybe more, 2 dungeons (that i have found so far,) think Heroic a Trial (think operation just shorter, two smaller bosses and a big one), two world bosses and the normal missions and dailies you'd expect. Again, that's a quarterly DLC (Each quarter seems to focus on different things, so each DLC is different.) That DLC is more than SWTOR has put out between the end of 3 and now. There's no way to spin that into making SWTOR look healthy or well supported budgetarily by EA. Go look at content patches in WoW or patches and updates to FFXIV. You'll find the comparison to be just as bad.

 

Merging servers had nothing to do with player demands, it was all, obviously, financial as was writing off the APAC players. The only thing that would save SWTOR is a large financial investment and relaunch. I don't see that happening, EA is going the other way and reducing costs and resources..

[DanNV]

While the population of Acia-Pacific is highest in the world, I wonder how many from there played the game? I'm just thinking on cultural differences (that different type of MMO/or game might attract people there instead of SWTOR) + that some people may not have access to internet at all, depending from where they live.

I can see people from Australian and NZ playing the game, but what about people from China or Korea, they might have very different taste in gaming.

 

They never did a Japanese or Chinese version of the game, they had to play the English version so that player base was never as high as it could have been.

[Keta]

...

Don't mistake that for me being happy about the situation though. I'd rather it had never come to this point, but I fear 5.0 did entirely too much damage to a game that needed a turnaround and not another exodus of players.

 

 

Regarding the last part of your post, imo it wasn't 5.0 that got the game to this point. It's partly the natural evolution of mmo's, it's partly the vastly varying expectations of a Star Wars game online, it's partly 4.0, 5.0 6.0 ... it's a huge combination of events and decisions. None of them alone would have driven the game to it's current state,some would have put the stake through SW:TOR's heart far earlier, others would have pushed this far further back. All of the missteps contributed. Just my 2 credits worth, I've been known to be wrong.

[Zhedzaban]

Some of us only play pvp... so yeah... not being able to play it is out of the question

 

With the new warzone coming out soon it kills me that i won't be able to enjoy it

[americanaussie]

With the new warzone coming out soon it kills me that i won't be able to enjoy it

 

Yes. And it does affect PvP. It affected PvP when it was 186-220. I saw the effects but you could manage it ok, especially on ranged classes.

 

The thing is it takes away things like PvP which forces people to gear up through the solo cxp grind. Screw that.

[cyrusramsey]

"smoothing out kinks" could mean to watch how their new setup behaves and tweak the configuration some, it could mean looking at specific routing issues and attempting to solve those.. but it will not mean causing Australia to be closer to the US east coast..

 

I fully believe that they are taking a few weeks to sort things out, but it's foolish to believe that that will be of any help to people whose only issue is that they simply live very, very far away from the datacenter.

[RagnarAugustus]

Depending on the time of day I have seen it come down to as low as 270, but more often than not it sits over 300 with 320 the most common number. I'm with Telstra on the NBN. I'm not home until next week so cant do a Tracert.

 

With my VPN server selection I've got it pointing to Washington, I assume that's the closest to the VA servers.

 

That would depend if you are using Washington State (west coast) or Washington DC which is in VA (East Coast).

[Zhedzaban]

That would depend if you are using Washington State (west coast) or Washington DC which is in VA (East Coast).

 

I select Washington form the list of East Coast servers, so I assume that's DC and closest to the VA data centre.

[DiamondDove]

TL;DR my own experience is that the main APAC server (Dalborra) was about 5 times as busy prior to it being shut down, as Harbinger has been for the last week.

 

Re when the APAC servers were shut down:

• this was obviously a business decision to reduce costs (servicing, rack leasing etc) for what was perceived to be too small population to financially support an APAC server
  
• we were told by BW that the merge was to improve player experience, as there were not enough players for group content to pop as quickly as intended (at the time this was true - we did get better pops once we merged with Harbinger)
  
• if memory serves me correctly, the APAC servers were removed before F2P was introduced, so all players represented income (mind you, the Aussie dollar was strong - so maybe that enticed more of us to play as well??)
  
• my own anecdotal evidence of the APAC population is that the largest server (Dalborra) used to average a medium load, with a fleet population of about 200-250 in the evenings. This was before strongholds, so the fleet was not diluted like it is now. (NB the population tanked after BW announced that we would be merged with Harbinger, as people flocked to Harbinger for shorter queues. Pretty much only myself and Gazza the Aussie intern stayed until the end)
  
• the closing of the APAC servers reduced my guild population by some 30-50%, and it never really recovered
  
• I assume the APAC/WC server merge lost at least 30% of the APAC players, based on how many our guild lost
  
• the shorter queues at that stage did compensate, in part, for the slower ping (I jumped from 40ms to 240ms) in terms of gameplay
  
• the current anecdotal evidence is that there are far fewer players on Harbinger now (I have seen fleet as low as 25-40 players) than there were on Dalborra when it was shut down, and Harbinger has not risen above a light server load for a long time
  
• very roughly, the population on Dalborra, that was perceived as unsustainable by BW at the time, could well have been 5 times what Harbinger currently seems to be.
  

 

Caveats:

• I know that my numbers are only based on personal observation, that fleet population is now diluted by strongholds, and that F2P has changed the population as well. I merely present this as my experience to inform the discussion.
  
• I also realise that price structures have changed a lot, and that player numbers are only one aspect of BW's decision making matrix.
  
• Many WC players may be waiting for the dust to settle before trying to play and the population for the last week may be much better than the fleet numbers suggest. Or Harbinger may have had more APAC players than anyone realised, and this is the new population after most of APAC have unsubbed.
  

[NostalgiaBytes]

TL;DR my own experience is that the main APAC server (Dalborra) was about 5 times as busy prior to it being shut down, as Harbinger has been for the last week.

 

Thats all well and good but Overall POP counts are meaningless. It really matters not if the APAC region DID have the largest population. Especially if its population was made up primarily by F2P players who didnt spend a dime on the cartel market. The west coast servers and APAC players have been shafted for one very simple reason.

 

Regardless of how many of you there were, you werent bringing enough revenue for EA/BW to justify operating the servers in that region. Thats the ONLY factor that matters. Are we making enough money from these customers? No? Kill em off.

[DiamondDove]

Yep, yep - understand you there Nostalgia. I was just trying to provide context for many of the previous posters - and possibly context for future decisions that BW may yet make.

[NostalgiaBytes]

Yep, yep - understand you there Nostalgia. I was just trying to provide context for many of the previous posters - and possibly context for future decisions that BW may yet make.

 

Hey no worries, and apologies if I came across sounding curt, wasn't intentional!

[merovejec]

Thats all well and good but Overall POP counts are meaningless. It really matters not if the APAC region DID have the largest population. Especially if its population was made up primarily by F2P players who didnt spend a dime on the cartel market. The west coast servers and APAC players have been shafted for one very simple reason.

 

Regardless of how many of you there were, you werent bringing enough revenue for EA/BW to justify operating the servers in that region. Thats the ONLY factor that matters. Are we making enough money from these customers? No? Kill em off.

 

Yup, this is sadly the most important thing here. I mean you can have 5 ppl on the server but if they spend 2k euro per year on the game instead of just the 156 euro just for the yearly sub they will keep it running!

 

You dont have to be a math genius for this. As you can see its the way the game is developing, why do you think they canceled ops and other passes? I dont know the numbers, but I knew tens of players that were preffered, even guilds which had like 30 members and only 2 subs buying the stuff for all guildies to raid. The population is one thing, but what they do in the game is another.

 

I spent quite some time on T3M4 (german server) since I was surprised by the many ppl online, but then I noticed that nothing pops! I dont know what those ppl were doing, but it surely wasnt quing for group content. So it really varies.

 

I am not saying to hurl your money at Bioware now but I just want you to understand how it works, its sadly so.

[pwhdavey]

With the new warzone coming out soon it kills me that i won't be able to enjoy it

 

Yeah I'm from Perth as well. 400-600ms ping rarely goes below 400ms. Can't do anything in the game.