West Coast Server

[Neonbamboo]

Please please please EA and Bioware add a West Coast server right now. You've made more than enough money to get and maintain one. With all the new mmos out already you have no choice to attract and keep what you have now. Change must happen.

 

The server has to be actually on the west coast and not in name only. More people need to reply here and get someone at the top to actually change their mind and do this. I thank anyone who takes this seriously and responds here.

[ceryxp]

West coast servers has not been a thing since BW closed them all and moved everything into the same data centre on the east coast in 2017. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that that is going to change.

[Kalnarius]

it is more likely we will get another server than adding another Americas server. Though who knows they may decide to return a Oceanic server but it is very unlikely we will see another Server in the Americas,

[xordevoreaux]

Please please please EA and Bioware add a West Coast server right now. You've made more than enough money to get and maintain one. With all the new mmos out already you have no choice to attract and keep what you have now. Change must happen.

 

The server has to be actually on the west coast and not in name only. More people need to reply here and get someone at the top to actually change their mind and do this. I thank anyone who takes this seriously and responds here.

 

As mentioned, Bioware had one. They killed it, so whatever logic they're working under isn't the logic you've cited.

[TrixxieTriss]

I would love a west coast server again or better yet, an APAC server again. But as other people have pointed out, BioWare are never going to do it.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t be extremely happy if they did, I would be over the moon. So I support the OP’s request, but my expectations are it’s a pipe dream.

[CajunJedi]

I was pretty frustrated when the west coast server was closed back in '17. At the time I was playing SWTOR and WoW and then chose to stop playing SWTOR and move back to WoW full time over it. I've obviously gotten over it now lol, but I would really support them bringing back a server over here. PLEASE...

[ronin_chi_lao]

Remember when there was a whole TAB of asian servers after the game launched? i got on here late 2012 i saw them for maybe a couple of months and I think the first update I received they were gone not long after.

I was still under the impression that Satele Shan server was west coast, was I mistaken?

[denavin]

I was still under the impression that Satele Shan server was west coast, was I mistaken?

 

There are no west coast server any more, since they killed the Harbinger Server. Both U.S. servers are in Virginia.

Edited September 30, 2021 by denavin

[OddballEasyEight]

As someone who doesn't live in the US, I don't understand why companies don't simply put their servers in Fort Worth or something like that when deciding to only have one server on the continent.

 

I mean, it's not like they're unaware of the issues with having the server on one side of the continent.

 

Why not place it in the middle(ish)?

Edited September 30, 2021 by OddballEasyEight

[Tsillah]

As someone who doesn't live in the US, I don't understand why companies don't simply put their servers in Fort Worth or something like that when deciding to only have one server on the continent.

 

I mean, it's not like they're unaware of the issues with having the server on one side of the continent.

 

Why not place it in the middle(ish)?

It's all about what you can get for your money. Apparently Virginia had to best financial picture for what they wanted. I mean it's been this way for years and you only get threads like this once in a long while. Regardless, I guess BioWare sees that most people in NA just keep playing so there isn't really an issue for them.

[ceryxp]

Why not place it in the middle(ish)?

 

Because EA's server farm is in Virginia. Perhaps it is not specifically EA's server farm, but EA has a number of game servers in Virginia.

[mike_carton]

I was still under the impression that Satele Shan server was west coast, was I mistaken?

 

Both the US servers are on the East Coast. However, Satele Shan is the notional West Coast server and a very large percentage of players on it live west of the Central Time. That impacts the scheduling of guild activities and the Group Finder pops.

 

Star Forge - while being co-located with Satele Shan - is the East Coast server.

[turbomagnus]

Please please please EA and Bioware add a West Coast server right now. You've made more than enough money to get and maintain one. With all the new mmos out already you have no choice to attract and keep what you have now. Change must happen.

 

Actually, and I could be wrong on this, I think money is part of the reason they've reduced the number of servers over the years. As servers are upgraded to host more people, they need fewer servers for the same number of people. Each server costs money to maintain (and I don't know if this is what EA/Bioware does, but also to rent space for in some cases since some companies actually use third-party server farms instead of creating their own), so by getting rid of 'extra' servers, they can reduce their costs and put the... I hesitate to use the word 'profit', let's go with 'savings'... put the savings back into development.

[CajunJedi]

It's all about what you can get for your money. Apparently Virginia had to best financial picture for what they wanted. I mean it's been this way for years and you only get threads like this once in a long while. Regardless, I guess BioWare sees that most people in NA just keep playing so there isn't really an issue for them.

 

Well it isn’t just about getting their money’s worth in a location for the server, it also has to do with where they decided their offices should be. They already had offices on both the west coast and east coast. Their location on the east coast offered better financial incentive to stay there so they shut down the offices on the west coast. Hence why they keep the servers over on the east coast now, because it’s with their offices. Still sucks big time. You wouldn’t think EA would have an issue according to give BioWare money to run a server or two in TX and CA with the needed I.T. staff.

[TrixxieTriss]

I still think their long term plan for moving the location to the east coast was in preparation for when they eventually shut the European servers. That way they wouldn’t lose as many players as they would have if EU and Brits had to also contend with excessive lag playing on the west coast. Edited September 30, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[Tsillah]

Well it isn’t just about getting their money’s worth in a location for the server, it also has to do with where they decided their offices should be. They already had offices on both the west coast and east coast. Their location on the east coast offered better financial incentive to stay there so they shut down the offices on the west coast. Hence why they keep the servers over on the east coast now, because it’s with their offices. Still sucks big time. You wouldn’t think EA would have an issue according to give BioWare money to run a server or two in TX and CA with the needed I.T. staff.

Not sure what you mean here. BioWare are in Austin Texas. Whose offices are you talking about?

[Char_Ell]

Remember when there was a whole TAB of asian servers after the game launched? i got on here late 2012 i saw them for maybe a couple of months and I think the first update I received they were gone not long after.

 

If by "whole TAB" you mean the 3 servers that were initially allocated to Asia Pacific area then yes, I remember that.

[MadDutchman]

As someone who doesn't live in the US, I don't understand why companies don't simply put their servers in Fort Worth or something like that when deciding to only have one server on the continent.

 

I mean, it's not like they're unaware of the issues with having the server on one side of the continent.

 

Why not place it in the middle(ish)?

 

Simple reason is it would make no practical difference to anyone.

 

The people in the east would get a unnoticeably higher ping, people in the west would get an unnoticeably lower ping.

 

People in APAC would still suffer about the same amount.

 

And that's assuming we trivialize this down to just geographic proximity. Network infrastructure is not homogenous, different areas with better infrastructure can give faster response times even though it's travelling a further distance.

[turbomagnus]

Simple reason is it would make no practical difference to anyone.

 

The people in the east would get a unnoticeably higher ping, people in the west would get an unnoticeably lower ping.

 

People in APAC would still suffer about the same amount.

 

And that's assuming we trivialize this down to just geographic proximity. Network infrastructure is not homogenous, different areas with better infrastructure can give faster response times even though it's travelling a further distance.

 

Which also leads into the population density issue; from the Midwest to the Pacific coastal states has far fewer people than from the Midwest to the East Coast. The five densest population clusters, in no particular order, are Southern California, the Great Lakes, New England, Southern Florida and the area around Washington D.C.; which means four of those five are in the Eastern US. While it, admittedly, screws over customers in the Western US, most companies tend to put their services, whether distribution centers for physical goods or servers for digital services, in the Eastern US where the majority of the customers will be to make things easier on the companies themselves.

[TrixxieTriss]

Which also leads into the population density issue; from the Midwest to the Pacific coastal states has far fewer people than from the Midwest to the East Coast. The five densest population clusters, in no particular order, are Southern California, the Great Lakes, New England, Southern Florida and the area around Washington D.C.; which means four of those five are in the Eastern US. While it, admittedly, screws over customers in the Western US, most companies tend to put their services, whether distribution centers for physical goods or servers for digital services, in the Eastern US where the majority of the customers will be to make things easier on the companies themselves.

 

That’s all well and good if it’s a NA “only” game. But Bioware have touted swtor as a global game from the beginning and there is more to the globe than 4 US states with the highest population.

 

Sadly we lost our Asia-Pacific servers, which was a mistake because Asia has way more people playing computer games than the whole of the US and EU combined. The problem was locating them in Sydney Australia instead of somewhere like Singapore.

 

So when they shut down those servers we all went from 20-50ms to 150-220ms ping. Which drove many APAC players from the game. Those of us that remained had to deal with excessive ping and depleted players online when it was our prime time, but we mostly made it work.

 

Then Bioware screwed us over again by moving the west coast server to the east coast and added another 50-80ms ping to the already terrible ping we had. Not only did that drive more of the remaining APAC players away, but also a large portion of the west coast NA players. Which totally messed up player density on Satele Shan because those that remained were spread too thin. That’s why that server is dying off slowly.

 

Bioware would be better off merging the last two US servers together and all the European servers together. Ideally they would relocate the US servers to TX so that ping is more fair for everyone (but we know they won’t)

 

I still stand by my reasoning when they moved the servers last time. Bioware will eventually merge ALL servers into one and base it on the East Coast (thats why they moved the west coast server there last time). If they don’t, there won’t be enough player density to allow group content. I also expect this next expansion will drive more players from the game, so a merge will probably be needed next year sometime to keep alive or it will be the last year of the game.

Edited October 3, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[ceryxp]

Ideally they would relocate the US servers to TX so that ping is more fair for everyone (but we know they won’t)

 

Oh no, that would be a terrible idea. The Texas energy grid is utter rubbish. Due to a few reason, but mostly just Texas being Texas, the Texas grid is the only one in the country that is not on the national grid, and Texas has failed to make much needed upgrades to their grid. The big power failure of winter last was not the first time that has happened. Twice before it has happened, for the same reason, and both times follow-up reports indicated that Texas needed to make a number of improvements to their energy production and delivery systems. And they have yet to do so.

 

There are many other reasons to not be in Texas, but that is a rather big one.

[DarkTergon]

Oh no, that would be a terrible idea. The Texas energy grid is utter rubbish. Due to a few reason, but mostly just Texas being Texas, the Texas grid is the only one in the country that is not on the national grid, and Texas has failed to make much needed upgrades to their grid. The big power failure of winter last was not the first time that has happened. Twice before it has happened, for the same reason, and both times follow-up reports indicated that Texas needed to make a number of improvements to their energy production and delivery systems. And they have yet to do so.

 

There are many other reasons to not be in Texas, but that is a rather big one.

 

lol, I can imagine everyone losing their S**t every time the power grid goes down. lol, yup, texas is a bad idea...lol

[TrixxieTriss]

Oh no, that would be a terrible idea. The Texas energy grid is utter rubbish. Due to a few reason, but mostly just Texas being Texas, the Texas grid is the only one in the country that is not on the national grid, and Texas has failed to make much needed upgrades to their grid. The big power failure of winter last was not the first time that has happened. Twice before it has happened, for the same reason, and both times follow-up reports indicated that Texas needed to make a number of improvements to their energy production and delivery systems. And they have yet to do so.

 

There are many other reasons to not be in Texas, but that is a rather big one.

 

LoL, fair enough. What about Arizona?

[ceryxp]

LoL, fair enough. What about Arizona?

 

Lots of solar.

[Char_Ell]

That’s all well and good if it’s a NA “only” game. But Bioware have touted swtor as a global game from the beginning and there is more to the globe than 4 US states with the highest population.

 

Bitter, party of at least 2. But I'm sure it's not just you and your wife.

 

Sadly we lost our Asia-Pacific servers, which was a mistake because Asia has way more people playing computer games than the whole of the US and EU combined. The problem was locating them in Sydney Australia instead of somewhere like Singapore.

 

I can't pretend to understand how EA makes hosting decisions in Asia-Pacific area. However I don't understand why locating the servers in Australia was problematic unless latency from Southeast Asia to the Australia servers was too high for most SEA players. As far as I know EA has never made SWTOR available in China. The issue for the Asia-Pacific players was lack of players, which was the same problem North America and Europe servers had only Asia-Pacific had significantly fewer servers and players than NA and EU did. This caused EA to decide hosting servers in Australia was no longer worth the investment.

 

So when they shut down those servers we all went from 20-50ms to 150-220ms ping. Which drove many APAC players from the game. Those of us that remained had to deal with excessive ping and depleted players online when it was our prime time, but we mostly made it work.

 

Then Bioware screwed us over again by moving the west coast server to the east coast and added another 50-80ms ping to the already terrible ping we had. Not only did that drive more of the remaining APAC players away, but also a large portion of the west coast NA players. Which totally messed up player density on Satele Shan because those that remained were spread too thin. That’s why that server is dying off slowly. .

 

I think your doom and gloom is exaggerated. Yes, it totally sucked to see BioWare/EA stealth move NA servers to the US east coast and I am sure there were multiple players who stopped playing SWTOR because of this decision. However as far as I can tell Satele Shan has a fairly healthy population. I disagree that Satele Shan is slowly dying off.

 

Bioware would be better off merging the last two US servers together and all the European servers together. Ideally they would relocate the US servers to TX so that ping is more fair for everyone (but we know they won’t)

 

I still stand by my reasoning when they moved the servers last time. Bioware will eventually merge ALL servers into one and base it on the East Coast (thats why they moved the west coast server there last time). If they don’t, there won’t be enough player density to allow group content. I also expect this next expansion will drive more players from the game, so a merge will probably be needed next year sometime to keep alive or it will be the last year of the game.

 

Population on both Satele Shan and Star Forge seems healthy to me. At this point the only reason to merge servers is if server populations are getting to the point where lack of players is causing long wait times for group content. I'm not seeing long wait times on either Satele Shan or Star Forge.