[Poll] Region Locked Servers; Good or Bad?

[Corax]

So as we well know now, there is a chance for the playerbases to be forced apart. So I wanted to make this thread that details specifically on region-locked servers. Vote and make your voice heard. In this way we can show the people who need to see hard numbers just how many of their customers actually feel one way or another.

I tried to simplify the list to reflect some real life possibilities and what you feel may be the best course of action in these possibilities.

(You do have authors permission to link to this thread and get the word out there by any means needed.)

[Coreldan]

I dont think anything good comes from a region block, and I do feel sad for those who are in mixed outfits, but the ones who act as if this would kill PS2 are ridicilous. The poll isnt visible to me atm, but naturalli Id vote for no hard region block.

[Corax]

Aight poll should be visible now

[Mirror]

same as planetside 1 before the Gemini merge.

[Sabrak]

"One server for all regions (Current Planetside) [Medium - High Ping] "

That wouldn't work correctly, considering the number of players SOE is planning on having.
Too many players, high ping, long waiting times or overpopulated maps, and so on.

I'd go for a server for each region, not locked.
Several servers for some regions, if needed.

But meh. Not gonna happen.

[Rabb]

There is nothing wrong with regional servers just don't lock them. Let people have the choice.

[fod]

i voted non locked region servers
the one thing that annoyed me with ps1 was the high ping i get from australia

if they made it so we can just pick and choose what server we go on it would be for the best imo, so if there wasnt much population on an aussie server at 3am or something (doubtful there even will be an aussie server but anyways) then allow me to join a usa or euro server

i doubt it will happen like this and i doubt there even will be an aussie server but oh well i can wish

[Mastachief]

REGIONAL SERVERS UNLOCKED

[Kaotc]

We dont have a choice anymore, the deal is done, its been signed, money has changed hands.

Us Euro's are just going to have to like it or lump it.

No ammount of kicking and screaming, polls, angry emails, boycotting is going to change their mind

[SpLiTNuTz]

Regional servers unlocked. Let people have the choice.

[Pillow]

LIBERTAD - YouTube

[Vancha]

We dont have a choice anymore, the deal is done, its been signed, money has changed hands.

Us Euro's are just going to have to like it or lump it.

No ammount of kicking and screaming, polls, angry emails, boycotting is going to change their mind
That's the spirit!

Whether details are still being decided or not, SOE may be stupid, but they aren't stupid enough to make a deal that ends with a net loss due to the sheer unpopularity of it. If enough people kick and scream, things will change.

[Kaotc]

That's the spirit!

Whether details are still being decided or not, SOE may be stupid, but they aren't stupid enough to make a deal that ends with a net loss due to the sheer unpopularity of it. If enough people kick and scream, things will change.

they have already signed the contracts, there is nothing else to be 'worked out' ? would you sign a multi million dollar deal if you still had details to work out? no, you wouldnt.
Similarly, they have a signed contract, you cant change a signed contract because a small number of people are moaning. and i do say a small number of people, because the European market alone for this game will be in the millions, i wouldnt be surprised if those complaining about this make up less than 1% of the future player base.

they are stringing us a line, and at the end of the day, nothing will change, sony have their money, Pro7 have their captive market.

[Vancha]

they have already signed the contracts, there is nothing else to be 'worked out' ? would you sign a multi million dollar deal if you still had details to work out? no, you wouldnt.
Similarly, they have a signed contract, you cant change a signed contract because a small number of people are moaning. and i do say a small number of people, because the European market alone for this game will be in the millions, i wouldnt be surprised if those complaining about this make up less than 1% of the future player base.

they are stringing us a line, and at the end of the day, nothing will change, sony have their money, Pro7 have their captive market.
Do you know the conditions of that contract? Do you know the details? No?

Sufficient bad publicity can damage a game and that's what needs to happen. None of this "baw, oh well, can't do anything about it now *cry*", but bitching loud and proud to turn as many people off of this game as possible.

Edit: And you realize we aren't alone right? EQ2 and DCUO players are bitching too, as well as whoever else.

[Kaotc]

Do you know the conditions of that contract? Do you know the details? No?

Sufficient bad publicity can damage a game and that's what needs to happen. None of this "baw, oh well, can't do anything about it now *cry*", but bitching loud and proud to turn as many people off of this game as possible.


its a free 2 play game, not going to even be a drop in the ocean compared to the people that will play it.

do you not remember the 500,000+ people who petitioned Infinity Ward about Modern Warfare2 on the PC? The business(not the dev team, the fat cats in suits who make the decisions) doesnt care, because they KNOW people will play the game regardless, even those bitching and moaning, will actually still play the game.

[Vancha]

its a free 2 play game, not going to even be a drop in the ocean compared to the people that will play it.

do you not remember the 500,000+ people who petitioned Infinity Ward about Modern Warfare2 on the PC? The business(not the dev team, the fat cats in suits who make the decisions) doesnt care, because they KNOW people will play the game regardless, even those bitching and moaning, will actually still play the game.
I won't.

I don't think you can compare PS2 to MW2. PS2 doesn't have the guaranteed playerbase that CoD games have.

Maybe you're right, but I still refuse to let it go quietly. There's no reason to.

Edit: There are people lining up to not play this game because they see SOE still hasn't learnt anything. This is already losing them customers. Maybe they will just be a drop in the ocean, but I've learnt not to underestimate the gaming community.

[Kaotc]

I won't.

I don't think you can compare PS2 to MW2. PS2 doesn't have the guaranteed playerbase that CoD games have.

Maybe you're right, but I still refuse to let it go quietly. There's no reason to.

i think PS2 has the potential to have a goliath of a playerbase, a F2P model and a Unique Selling Point that no other game can even come close to.

Dont get me wrong, im properly gutted about it. My heart sank when reading that FAQ (as sad as that may be, it did.)

But what REALLY grinds my gears, and i find it insulting that they are now trying to mollycoddle the community by asking for Feedback, to a decision that is now set in stone.

They dont care(lol there is a shock), so i wont bother providing my feedback, its a waste of my time.

[sylphaen]

There will be tons of new players who won't care for server location and choose based on ping.

Why lock the veterans to their region if they want to play with their buddies ?


I voted for regional servers without any IP block. It worked fine in PS1, no need to change it in PS2.

[Gortha]

*deleted*

[CidHighwind]

Regional servers unlocked. Let people have the choice.

:groovy:

[CuddlyChud]

What's the point of this thread? No one is gonna say that its a good thing to region lock the servers. But we have no idea whether it was necessary or not, since we don't know why SOE made the decision to license out the publishing rights. Of course ideally people would be able to choose wherever they wanted to play, but i'm sure there are mitigating circumstances that we as consumers are not privy to that made them choose a seperate European publisher.

[Mastachief]

What's the point of this thread? No one is gonna say that its a good thing to region lock the servers. But we have no idea whether it was necessary or not, since we don't know why SOE made the decision to license out the publishing rights. Of course ideally people would be able to choose wherever they wanted to play, but i'm sure there are mitigating circumstances that we as consumers are not privy to that made them choose a seperate European publisher.

Of course there are, we know these reasons as Dollars $.

[Tamas]

There should be regional servers, but they should not be locked.

[NCLynx]

Woops. I put one server (2nd choice), I meant to put the third one :/.

[Figment]

Woops. I put one server (2nd choice), I meant to put the third one :/.

Always knew you needed more aiming practice.

[sylphaen]

Always knew you needed more aiming practice.

Did NC players ever need to aim with noobhammers ?
:rofl:

[Geist]

This is the Digital Age. The Boundaries between people of different nationalities is disappearing(I do not support a One World Government) and someone from Europe can be friends with someone from the U.S. and talk to them on a daily basis playing a game they both enjoy immensely. SOE even encouraged this with Planetside 1 when they merged all servers into Gemini and Europeans have friends in America, Americans have rivals in Europe, and all combinations in between.

Just doesn't seem right to put up this artificial boundary when they caused this in the first place. Region servers unlocked is the only way to go. ;)

[Mirror]

as long as the 4th option remains as it is, dead last it shows that we are not happy about this decision and that we are pushing for a change/re-think.

[Sta]

This is the Digital Age. The Boundaries between people of different nationalities is disappearing(I do not support a One World Government) and someone from Europe can be friends with someone from the U.S. and talk to them on a daily basis playing a game they both enjoy immensely. SOE even encouraged this with Planetside 1 when they merged all servers into Gemini and Europeans have friends in America, Americans have rivals in Europe, and all combinations in between.

Just doesn't seem right to put up this artificial boundary when they caused this in the first place. Region servers unlocked is the only way to go. ;)

Let me try to find some appropriate words to fully agree with your statement about interfering with the ppl's liberty in 2012...
Oh right, " SiEG HEiL SOE!"

[Dart]

What's the point of this thread? No one is gonna say that its a good thing to region lock the servers. But we have no idea whether it was necessary or not, since we don't know why SOE made the decision to license out the publishing rights. Of course ideally people would be able to choose wherever they wanted to play, but i'm sure there are mitigating circumstances that we as consumers are not privy to that made them choose a seperate European publisher.

An injection of cash for SOE from Pro7Sat.1 and less overheads running the EU Servers. It's pretty simple.

[Redshift]

Like the original PS1, several servers that are local, and the ability to log into another if you wish

[Magpie]

Games have done this befor. City of Hero is one they have two editions of the game E.U or U.S

The EU would have a few severs like England, Germany ect and US was east coast west coast ect.
You was not locked but if you wanted to play us and eu you wod have to buy two copy's of the game

Also Gunz did this, US and international the only problem with that is a company called ijji toke over the US game adding updates and a cash shop
But leaving internatonal game left out and has now died an everyone uses ijji

There proby more games out there like that but planetside 2 can go two ways
Two to three game editions, US, EU and Asia and what ever copy of the game you buy you get use of the severs.

But I hope all editions of the game get the same cash shop and then same updates

[Vash02]

We dont have a choice anymore, the deal is done, its been signed, money has changed hands.

Us Euro's are just going to have to like it or lump it.

No ammount of kicking and screaming, polls, angry emails, boycotting is going to change their mind
Contracts can be and have been canceled in region locked games.

[Rbstr]

As few as possible while maintaining decent network connections.
For example, I'd imagine NA could get by with one server as long as it was well designed and hosted on a good ISP.
But would European players be served well by a global server that is likely in the US? It's possible but it might not be ideal. I've had decent connections to BF3 servers in the UK, Germany and elsewhere, those are rare exceptions to the rule.

Sure, EVE has one global server (well, and china, but that's an entirely different thing)...but it's not nearly as highly dependent on the connection quality as an FPS is. Plus they're got some pretty crazy server hardware going on. I've never really seen SOE explain what they do on that end.

And, while I would like to be able to join any PS2 server that existed, without some kind of automatic boot for terribly laggy players, it sucks for players with good connections to play those with shitty connections. Force regionalization minimises those issues.

[xSlideShow]

I want 1 apparent server, but I guess that will be have to much lag?

[Quovatis]

The fewest servers that will accommodate the playerbase with no region lock. Having 20 servers that are 10% full is counterproductive for an MMO game.

[Nephilimuk]

voted for multiple unlocked regional servers

oh and this decision makes excellent business sense from an accountant / executive perspective. You are socialising the risk and cost of maintaining the product with a partner; reducing the cost of ownership and run whilst optimising profit, which has a positive impact on the liquidity ratios. The sad thing here is what makes an mmo is the community which support it and the interactions of those people. They create the intangible content and breath life into what is at the end of the day pixels and scripts. When you start to stop seeing those people as a community or tribe of individuals more of a commodity which can be sold then your on the path to failure. If you don’t like this and feel passionate about it then you should express your concerns legally across the internet. After all this community did keep the lights on and have given a lot to Planetside 2.

[Mirror]

Start with 4 - 6 servers in NA and 2 in Europe. Adjust as necessary.

[VioletZero]

Think for a second: Who in the world would honestly support region locking that isn't trolling?

[inigma]

Global warfare on a massive scale or Regioncide?

If Regioncide, then SOE should plan on changing the PS2 home page to say Regional warfare on a massive scale, and not "Global." Could be false advertising otherwise.

[CuddlyChud]

Global warfare on a massive scale or Regioncide?

If Regioncide, then SOE should plan on changing the PS2 home page to say Regional warfare on a massive scale, and not "Global." Could be false advertising otherwise.

I think its global as in you're fighting all over the planet of Auraxis. Not you're fighting people from all over Earth. Otherwise any multiplayer game would be "global" warfare. I don't think anyone would mistake the two.

[bjorntju1]

I don't mind EU servers. But only if they are unlocked. What is happening now is going to split the player base up. I just absolutely don't see the benefits of this. I wouldn't mind if p7 only handled the servers, and nothing else. But what I also don't like is that a different company is in charge of the accounts, payment and such. And things like updates coming later to the game, even through the F.A.Q. states that we will get update's at the same time (not counting time zone differences) I still don't trust it. Especially since other companies have screwed up with that.

And what I am also worried about (I know I asked it many times already, but I just really want to know :P ) is that EU people won't get in the beta because an other company is in charge. I would be pretty pissed off because Smedly said back when it still was PS Next, we were told that PlanetSide subscribers will get first access. Not US PlanetSide players, PlanetSide players. I and many people in Europe just subscribed to get into the beta. But now it looks that we don't get access at all? This has been asked several times by many people. But we still haven't got a response. So I am thinking of the worst.

However it is good to know that they are going to discuss the problems with prosieben. Lets hope everything will be alright in the end.

[Figment]

You know... I wonder if it'd even be possible to have "roaming" servers. I'm not saying this is the best thing ever, or even possible for PS2, as it is a big compromise and only possible within one company license.

Say you'd have a server in Vienna (...fine, let's call it "Heinrich"), one in Amsterdam ("Werner"), a server on the US east coast (Virginia "Emerald") and a server on the US west coast (San Diego SOE HQ - aka Markov).

During prime time in Eastern Europe, the server used is the one in Vienna. Then, at prime time in western Europe, the server of Amsterdam kicks in. Later in the evening in Europe and prime time on the US east coast, the server switches to the one in Virginia. Then the server switches to Markov again after a few hours, to end up in Vienna the next morning. Hell, you could have a stop over in Moscow at "Boris".

That would provide continuous 24 hour fight. Ping would be locally optimized and those playing would always have good connections during prime time. Though at the cost of having the worst ping they could get when most of their countrymen are asleep.


Perhaps a bit silly idea. Just thought it funny to theorize on the option. :)

[IronMole]

You know... I wonder if it'd even be possible to have "roaming" servers. I'm not saying this is the best thing ever, or even possible for PS2, as it is a big compromise and only possible within one company license.

Say you'd have a server in Vienna (...fine, let's call it "Heinrich"), one in Amsterdam ("Werner"), a server on the US east coast (Virginia "Emerald") and a server on the US west coast (San Diego SOE HQ - aka Markov).

During prime time in Eastern Europe, the server used is the one in Vienna. Then, at prime time in western Europe, the server of Amsterdam kicks in. Later in the evening in Europe and prime time on the US east coast, the server switches to the one in Virginia. Then the server switches to Markov again after a few hours, to end up in Vienna the next morning. Hell, you could have a stop over in Moscow at "Boris".

That would provide continuous 24 hour fight. Ping would be locally optimized and those playing would always have good connections during prime time. Though at the cost of having the worst ping they could get when most of their countrymen are asleep.


Perhaps a bit silly idea. Just thought it funny to theorize on the option. :)

Or just have a choice like the original? ;)

[Dart]

Or just have a choice like the original? ;)

You know the SOE motto:

If it ain't broke...

Fuck with it incessantly until it is!!

:confused:

[Tatwi]

I was going to choose Region servers only (not locked) [Low Ping], but then I thought it would be nifty to have a "world server", so I picked One main world wide international server (Medium-High ping), optional region servers (Low Ping).

[Figment]

Or just have a choice like the original? ;)

You powerslid everywhere anyway! What do you care about connections!?

xD

[Shade Millith]

It's simple.

I'm not going to play.

This is the final straw.

Fuck you SOE. You've finally broken me.

[Checowsky]

I don't get these options, PS2 isn't going to launch and be dead, it'll be dam busy most likely. Multiple servers will be needed without a doubt. Just have regional servers but the option to play on whatever dam server you want.

[Checowsky]

Dear Higby,

Step 1: show the first 2 minutes of this to the uppers.

Step 2: Stare at them with an unamused face

Step 3: ????

Step 4: Profit.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so-you-want-to-be-a-developer-part-2

[igster]

There is quite a large flaw in the region locking / separating out of the accounts.

One aspect that never seems to be satisfactorily handled in persistent world type games is population management of servers. Locking accounts to servers and regions is such a short term way of going about it.

Once the game's zenith has come and gone, and it comes time when the region locked servers are not so heavily populated, what are we going to do in order to merge servers again to get decent populated servers again?

The solution before was to merge servers. How do you do that when you have your accounts with different companies? So does this mean that the separate game distribution companies are actually just there for the good times when the populations are high and when we go back to a single server what do we do then? There you go.. back to SOE North American support - we don't want to handle your account any more.

What a pointless faff that is - split the accounts to 3 different companies. Oh now we have to merge them back again... er.. doh.. we'll put a -W after your name again...... /sigh


Even on games like quake, you didnt want to play on EU servers at certain times of the day. Empty servers are no fun. You'd go and play on a US server where there was some population. Region locking just means that we get a peak time with good populations and at all other times we are locked into a much less attractive game play experience.

I know that we need to segregate the player-base somehow but region locking is definitely not the smart thing to do.

- Worldwide Single Sign on. (authentication only - split populations as u wish)
- I don't care who processes the money, provides support, markets or to whom I pay in a region.
- I don't care who looks after the boxes as long as Sony treat the gamer's in NA equally with EU and Asia
- Forcing existing communities to split up is piss poor gaming customer service and you should be ashamed of that
- Don't lock me into low populated time zones / server areas
- Think of the long term changes in population of the game from day 1 to year 10 and don't just make it up as you go along

:groovy:

[Talek Krell]

Perhaps a bit silly idea. Just thought it funny to theorize on the option. :)Interesting approach to having a global server, although I think I still prefer multiple locals.

[Coreldan]

I'm personally very strongly against any and all plans of wanting to make a single international server by default. Naturally merges leading to that are OK (like in PS1s case) but the baseline shouldnt be to have one server that most likely favours the US :D

[Checowsky]

Why would you choose any other option than the one with MORE choice? Are you people stupid or something?

Also which dumbass put up a 1 server option for a game which has a pop limit.

Think about this for a second PS1 launched with roughly 70'000 people dropping to 30'000 ish in a few months or there abouts, that was with no advertising. Now you have this game which is the forefront of SOEs new tech and has plenty of advertising and teasers and you think one server, just one, could hold up the pops....Mental.


Can we please for the love of god stop comparing PS2 to PS1, NOTHING IS SIMILAR.

Art direction and names, thats all you've got. The companies standing is different, the game is different, the advertising is different and you could go on and on. There is very little to be compared between these two games now so can we all stop this.

[ItsTheSheppy]

This is a terrible idea. So many of my PS1 friends are from across the pond, and with this, we'll never be able to play together.

Complete fucking disgrace.

[TripX]

Those that know me know my standing before I even post it.

Region Locked. This is for many reasons.

We all saw what it was like fighting CN in PS1. Different part of the world, different mindset. While we liked massive battles a large portion of players also liked smaller more outfit oriented battles, mainly back hacks and resecures.

In the hayday of Emerald you knew if an outfit like DT was going to back hack something, they were going to be a smaller faster moving more organized group of players and the people that responded 90% of the time were similar outfits from other empires whether it be KoToR or 1CMM etc... This led to rivalries and outfits standing out. We had sort of an honor system. Sure not everyone followed it, but most did.

When Markov/Werner merged outfits like HT, SR and Mercs had the win at all costs mentallity which dulled a lot of fights cause you knew that that meant max crashes, plasma plasma plasma. Are they in the game and perfectly fine to use? Sure obviously they are! But that doesn't mean people think less of you when you don't get a chance to weaken em with plasma and they own you every time they face you. And the CN, well the second a hack was noticed you had 30 screaming CN for everyone to recall causing 60 people to resecure a base against 15 guys returning us to the same 3 way fight that had been going on for 2 days. Again making the game slow and boring. russian players and CN were the type that you could kill no problem, but they normally absorbed 2-3 shot sleaving you unprepared for the next guy, if he would have died in the right number of shots, you would have had time to reload, med up, or fall back to a better position. But you couldn't!

I know a lot of people are saying outfits like DT were heavy european and they played on Emerald! This is true, however the style and mentallity of play were established on servers in the beginning and most players adopted that style of play. large amounts of European players who came to Emerald tried out for DT cause of that Honor mentallity of you don't need crutches to win. Plasma grenades were rare on Emerald, as well as Personal Shield and Special Assault. When the better outfits recruited, things like Maxes and Personal shield would keep you from getting an invite.

With that every, FPS out there has regional servers for a reason. there is a reason why i could never play other games with my European friends. Bottom line is, its just not fair for either side. Ping etc is giving someone an advantage. What ever side benefits from it who cares. Bottom line is that someone is benefitting from it. I as well as millions of gamer's like to know that when people beat us they beat us or we beat them because we are better or smarter. Not because the guy has an uber computer and is tucked away in northern Sweden warping lagging etc.

If SOE does this right (lol) you should have plenty of people to recruit into your outfits in those areas. It does suck that some people won't play together, but I know a lot of the people I played with are European but id rather ensure a fairer fight that allows people to enjoy the game and not stop playing cause some guy with high ping is bouncing in and out of walls making it half impossible to hit, or when you do hit, it doesn't register.

Region Locked is teh only fair way to go. So please stop crying for your 50 man outfits as someone else pointed out, they are less that 1% of the player base.

-TripX

[TripX]

One more thing, for those saying that the 166 people who voted in the thread needs to be brought to the attention of higher SOE. You have to remember you are a dying breed of Planet Side "Fans"! Half the people posting have outfits that have been long dead and you are small voice from the community. Though SOE is about 90% responsible for the fall of Planet Side the player base plays a role in it as well. And 166 players from a game that pretty much died in 2007 compared to the possible millions that will subscribe in the first year is highly unlikely who SOE is worried about pleasing. When they decided to merge CN to Markov, the markov player base died. Werner Died on its own cause the playstyle, Emerald though it wasn't thriving was doing 10x better than Markov/Werner. So they merged Emmy and Markov and Werner completely died. Within 6 months the pops of 3 servers on 1 was now down to the equivalent of 1.5 servers. And within a year the pops were what they were on 1 server 2 yrs prior. Whether it was having to make new toons, ping, CN, playstyle, whatever the reason the pops dropped and dropped and dropped. Whatever they did to try to salvage the game late, was killed by the piss poor attitude of the playerbase.

Its a game for us but its a business for them. And when you look at the success of other games like CoD, MW, CS which all have more active players than PS that is who they are going to cater to, that player base. Not a few surviving die hard game fans. They would be completely out of their minds not to cater to what the 2012 gamer want and to cater to a dying breed of PS1 fans.

What you really need to know is, how many servers per region are there going to be, and the remaining PS community needs to start figuring out where they are going to play so that players from rival outfits can get on teh same page and start on those servers.

-TripX

[Vancha]

Did that post get lost in the tubes or something? It's at least a month out of date.

Edit: Apparently not. You're aware they removed region locking, right Trip?

I would also direct you to this post (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showpost.php?p=660015&postcount=1050).

[Hamma]

Yes this is essentially gone now. Please review this news post and comment thread:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/news-updated-prosiebensat1-faq-2735.htm

Closing this out to avoid confusion. :)