What is the advantage of separate nation servers?

[Jairon Kalach]

Why not dive into a little more controversy. MJ has stated very clearly that if the community demands EU-specific servers, he'll put them in place.

My personal thought is this: I love to play with folks from all over. I've had as much fun with Greeks, Turks, Germans, and Englishmen during my time in MMOs as I've had with Americans. Additionally, having people with different time zones helps significantly with different time zone issues.

But I'm over here, not over there... So folks who live on that side of the pond... What is the advantage to having your own server?

 

[eksdee]

The advantage is obvious - more timezones = servers more active around the clock. That's good for everyone.

The disadvantage however is that, wherever the servers are hosted, someone is going to get shafted. If EU players have to play on US servers, they will always be at a disadvantage in terms of ping. I'm not particularly keen on the idea of losing fights because the delay made someone pop their ability Z which would have turned the fight too late.

 

[Hawkwind]

people all want to play with optimum speeds and latency, you only get that with local servers. Personal view, I don't care where the server is and long as having slightly higher latency is not a huge handicap. Quite frustrating playing melee with latency issues.

 

[rynnor]

Not a lot in technical game effects - if the servers are on the east coast of the US then I can often get a better ping to them than people in the US.

The problem areas are more around server maintenance times/patch times. Some games have scheduled this stuff right through the european peak hours.

Theres also issues if you arent on at the peak time for your server due to being in a different timezone - not much fun to find your house/keep destroyed while you slept.

 

[acron^]

The only benefit I can see is being able to comfortably communicate in your own language. Client-side text should be localizable so it's simply that most chatter will default to English (I imagine), which some folks might not like.

 

[Wholdar]

people all want to play with optimum speeds and latency

This is the real difference. Latency!
Can be quite a big difference sometimes, in my experience.

 

[Muylaetrix]

Latency and the "speak English or die" that a lot of people on English servers have if they see a line of text on their screen that ain't English. German and French speaking people are used to having their Games in their mother tongue and they represent a lot of people. Every mmo i've played had dedicated servers for those two languages.

one could reverse the question and ask why have servers in the US at all ? i think that the amount of players in Europe outnumbers the amount of players in North America. doesn't it make more sense then to have the North American players play on the English European servers if you want to keep all the servers in one location ?

... as long as the servers are not run by GOA !

 

[E_E]

Also diffrent community´s , looking at NA forums and Eu forums back in the day id say EU realms, less hate also latency

 

[Wholdar]

North American players play on the English European servers if you want to keep all the servers in one location ?!

I think they've already mentioned they will rent servers from a cloudservice like Amazons, this will make them able to put the servers pretty much whereever they please.

 

[Muylaetrix]

I think they've already mentioned they will rent servers from a cloudservice like Amazons, this will make them able to put the servers pretty much whereever they please.

yeah, i've seen that comment. i don't know how that technology works and what the pro's and cons are with it.

 

[Mabs]

im all for all on one zone
ping isnt that big a deal to be honest, and it stops the alarmclock raid and stuff, plus people who work odd hours etc can always find action

 

[Xrystofer]

Latency and the "speak English or die" that a lot of people on English servers have if they see a line of text on their screen that ain't English. German and French speaking people are used to having their Games in their mother tongue and they represent a lot of people. Every mmo i've played had dedicated servers for those two languages.

one could reverse the question and ask why have servers in the US at all ? i think that the amount of players in Europe outnumbers the amount of players in North America. doesn't it make more sense then to have the North American players play on the English European servers if you want to keep all the servers in one location ?

... as long as the servers are not run by GOA !

Do not mention what must not be, the Evil spirits of the retired players will hunt you

I remember after coming back from Summer vacation Prydwen had been down for like 2 weeks because of some issues forcing them to roll back, Some people logged on with out their Stuff or Stripped of all their RPs.....

 

[Jairon Kalach]

Latency and the "speak English or die" that a lot of people on English servers have if they see a line of text on their screen that ain't English. German and French speaking people are used to having their Games in their mother tongue and they represent a lot of people. Every mmo i've played had dedicated servers for those two languages.

one could reverse the question and ask why have servers in the US at all ? i think that the amount of players in Europe outnumbers the amount of players in North America. doesn't it make more sense then to have the North American players play on the English European servers if you want to keep all the servers in one location ?

... as long as the servers are not run by GOA !

I'd be okay with this, BTW. It's going to be amazon hosting maintained by CSE in either case. I just want us all on the same servers, personally.

 

[Muylaetrix]

I'd be okay with this, BTW. It's going to be amazon hosting maintained by CSE in either case. I just want us all on the same servers, personally.

that could mean that more than 50 % of everything in chat is in a language you don't understand and over half of the server doesn't speak english.

 

[Jairon Kalach]

I usually turn off or ignore global chat, anyway. And I'm totally okay with getting a Rosetta Stone subscription and learning some languages.

 

[bainteor]

Not a lot in technical game effects - if the servers are on the east coast of the US then I can often get a better ping to them than people in the US.

The problem areas are more around server maintenance times/patch times. Some games have scheduled this stuff right through the european peak hours.

Theres also issues if you arent on at the peak time for your server due to being in a different timezone - not much fun to find your house/keep destroyed while you slept.

Not to mention special one-off events, held for a particular timezone, that could leave a large proportion of the playerbase missing out on unique experiences/items.

 

[boxfetish]

that could mean that more than 50 % of everything in chat is in a language you don't understand and over half of the server doesn't speak english.

I am okay with this. I would rather everyone played on the same server and they split the world into zones (NOT instances) on different hardware to make the ONE server idea happen. I think the "action at all times day or night" and "no 3am town destruction" ideas are more important that server pride or ping. I recognize that other people may feel differently, though, and I am okay if they split us up into a Austalasian server, a Euro server, and several Fairfax, VA servers.

 

[Tanos]

Ping is just a question of game design. Personally i would prefer to play with all the people all around the world. Action at any time, more enemies, ...
I see serious issues like timing for events (maintenance is non for me, once a month you should be able so spend one day without playing, even if is primetime) or the language thing, especially our french friends often not so well of with languages other than their own (what would be the same problem on an EU server).
For me it mainly depends on the players count: If we have a plenty of players in every part of the world to have well crowded, balanced servers with action for everyone i'm fine with local servers. If i can choose to play on US servers although there are EU ones, i'm fine.

 

[Cazedy]

Only problem i have with it is latency, been playing on US servers in many games and i ping about 90-170 from Sweden. You do get used to it but it IS a big difference when we're talking about getting that fast heal out or get the first cast out, or stop your movement so you don't get interrupted when casting etc etc. If they some how can manage to set something up so I'll be playing with a stable ping around 50ms then I'd be happy to play on US servers, but i doubt it because i haven't seen any game pull it of.


I want to play competitive and even if they have the servers in EU it would still suck that my competitors from the states will be handicapped by latency

 

[Abriael]

Doesn't matter too much to me, I'm from Italy but I *always* play on NA servers. I also prefer worldwide servers to localized ones, as it means more activity around the clock and more cultural diversity, that in my opinion brings towards a better and more colorful community.

In an RvR game having worldwide servers is even more advantageous as it makes alarm clock raids moot.

 

[Muylaetrix]

the majority of the people in this forum have been long time DAoC players who are British, Dutch speaking or Scandinavian , originally and mostly from the Excallibur and Prydwin english/EU servers.. until a few days ago. this little bit of info might help explain some of the mindset of some of the 'locals'.

 

[Arrochar]

that could mean that more than 50 % of everything in chat is in a language you don't understand and over half of the server doesn't speak english.

is there a difference between 'more than 50%' and 'over half'?

 

[Hawkwind]

Ping is just a question of game design.

Latency is more to do with how your particular ISP routes its traffic. Game design only affects how bad latency affects the game play. Ask anyone who played outside EU when GOA ran DAOC. Basically you were restricted to non-melee char types. Impossible to play an assassin class in a game that required side and back styles to be effective. I tried many times and watching people warp around you is no fun at all.

So, if you design a game so that side styles and such are not as important you are effectively taking some of the skill out of it. Not sure many people will be happy with that.

 

[old.Osy]

In this day and age, I doubt the future game will still be plagued by such woes. Technology and game design have come a long way.

 

[Ellya]

The only problem I can see with separate servers is the night time raids that may happen is a few US guilds play on an EU server (same thing with EU guilds on the NA servers). If we were all together it wouldn't matter. The ping difference is likely to be minimal, so I'm all for everyone on the same servers.

 

[Muylaetrix]

In this day and age, I doubt the future game will still be plagued by such woes. Technology and game design have come a long way.

and the laws of physics are what they are. distance and ping are cause and effect.

 

[old.Osy]

Not if you live in a country where Internet access is deemed important, and people run off fiber mostly, instead of crappy DSL variants that Sky or Virgin or BT offer you.

Sorry chaps.

 

[Nomans]

Although from Europe, I would prefer to keep the player base in one space, if this can be done with minimal fuss so all parties are happy so be it. Even if there was EU servers I would be inclined to play on the US servers unless rl friends were on EU servers. Always found the multi culture thing more fun.

 

[Hawkwind]

Well, I'm not moving country just to play a game I live where I do because of the money and lifestyle. If I have to stick with ranged classes due to the added latency of living in Dubai that's OK, I accept that it may cause issues with playing some games.

I may have an issue if the ranged classes are difficult to play with latency due to the aiming system. Especially having sunk in a few hundred dollars into it

 

[AngelHeal]

Advantage of different servers: taught me german and english while gaming instead of hitting the books! go daoc