Server Region Restrictions

[Koji]

This is a thread to discuss the possibility, pro's, con's and thoughts about how the server's will be restricted between US, EU, AUS etc.

Will they allow for cross region players to play on the same servers or will they restrict different servers for different areas and not allow cross traffic.

I was just wondering this as i see alot of Guilds being formed with members from all regions and was quite worried about whether they will actually be able to play together on the servers of their choice.

Give your thoughts, opinions and probable thoughts.

Personally i'm in 2 minds. On 1 mind i would like to see cross regions allowed to play together as it will keep the existing guilds together and also allow me to see some of the lovely people here but then my other mind think about ping issues and time differences. Having someone lag about due to a high ping is going to be no good in PVP and the time differences will make it difficult for guilds to meet at a time that is convienient for all.

Anyway discuss.

[srinknorei]

i think there should be region-based servers, not region-locked servers where if Europeans want to play on a server closer to home, they can, but it won't lock them out from choosing a server based in the US--or vice versa. Might be done by localization tho-- somehow i think it would be real difficult to have players speaking English playing with those speaking Korean, for example. However, locking out people by region hasn't really ever stopped people from playing on servers outside their region--look at your Chinese gold farmers, for an extreme example.

[Cynthe]

I have to agree on all counts, It'd be fun to play with everyone I've 'met' here, but at the same time lag stinks. If there was a way so that we don't have huge ping issues then I'd prefer international servers, otherwise it's best to keep them localized.

[knite16]

I think the choice should be up to the player. If you want to sacrifice a couple hundred ms ping to play with your guildies, that's up to you, but I don't think its for NC to decide for them, unless it in turn lags up the rest of the server. I've got past and present guildmates from Australia and England to name a couple and it would be a pity for them to not have that choice. If they want to make another character on their own for PVP, etc if its a problem, then they can.

[Haubix]

The problem with cross-region players is that you won't be online when the rest is online. It's kinda annoying if you play all day long, no one is on and the server gets more populated when you go to bed.
Therefore I'd prefer region-based servers.

My idea:

If you want to play somewhere else you need another account which is activated for another region. Let's say I live in Europe and I have an european account. With that account I can enter EVERY server in the european region. But if I want to play in the oceanic region, I need a new account especially for oceanic.

Maybe you ask yourself why I think about separate accounts for each region... Well, it's quite simple. You can profit from the time difference extremely: You can hunt "rare" mobs, farm minerals when everyone is asleep, siege oceanic castles with an european guild, while everyone else is asleep, and so on. Sure you can do that still with an second account, but this issue won't be that massive, because after the launch, most of the people will join their region servers (because of latency and language) and don't think about the advantages a different timezone will bring forth.

What do you think?

[Selene]

meh, keep it divided, stops people spamming about how great their nation is, maybe except the euro one, as i have experienced alot of "netherlands rule" "ZOMG UK FTW" "spain is the best" etc etc etc lol. gets borign after a while, but it never stops!
also, difference use of spelling etc, stops people from taking the **** of how other places spell or use language.
(i had to post, i had an evil message that wouldnt disappear til i posted.)
thanks

[solidbrim]

Doesn't matter to me which one they choose. All have worked for me in the past as long as I and my friends communicate which server we will all be joining. One thing that is nice is if it has the regions listed beside the servers so we know their location. Going to a server screen and seeing nothing but a long list of servers doesn't always tell you which one is the closest (just from the ping).

[Kolossus]

All of FFXI's servers are based overseas, none of them are in the US, afaik. Things seem to work out very well. I hardly ever experience any lag due to the distance of the server I am connecting to, only lag produced from playing on a PS2, which strains to keep up with FFXI.

I think that having it so everyone from every region is a good idea, to promote mixing, socializing, and as was stated, keeping current guilds being formed together. If they aren't region based, you will most likely always find people from your timezone on, and there are people all over the world that work/live by different schedules, so a west coast NA player might be on the same schedule as a JP player, and an EU player. It's good to make international friends! ^^

[Shade]

Localised or not, I don't mind. I just don't think they should be locked to people of a specific region, it'd be annoying, but also just about every guild is screwed

Originally Posted by Kolossus

All of FFXI's servers are based overseas, none of them are in the US, afaik. Things seem to work out very well. I hardly ever experience any lag due to the distance of the server I am connecting to, only lag produced from playing on a PS2, which strains to keep up with FFXI.

I think that having it so everyone from every region is a good idea, to promote mixing, socializing, and as was stated, keeping current guilds being formed together. If they aren't region based, you will most likely always find people from your timezone on, and there are people all over the world that work/live by different schedules, so a west coast NA player might be on the same schedule as a JP player, and an EU player. It's good to make international friends! ^^

Agreed, that sounds pretty good actually.

[Cynthe]

Originally Posted by Kolossus

All of FFXI's servers are based overseas, none of them are in the US, afaik. Things seem to work out very well. I hardly ever experience any lag due to the distance of the server I am connecting to, only lag produced from playing on a PS2, which strains to keep up with FFXI.

You have to remember FFXI is getting old now, on my old computer the games runs ok but will lag in populated places like Jeuno or popular leveling spots. With my new rig, nothing, no lag, ever. But I see where you're coming from, if Aion can run well on a modest machine then I'm all for international.

[plasma06]

i play on us wow servers and i still rip it up even though i have 200 to 400ms. You need people on at all different times to keep your siege intact so having people from us, aus and uk will keep your numbers up all the time. I would like to see all servers open or have a cross realm system where servers are pooled together for a Abyss battle with 40 vs 40

[Koji]

The main reason i have seen that games restrict their servers to regions is due to a different company being incharge of a certain area. I know codemasters does alot of the EU stuff (RF, LOTRO etc). Which causes problems.

We know that there is at least an NCSoft Europe, NCSoft Austin and NCSoft Korea? so there is 3 zones covered by the company and so shouldn't have any reason to pass on the authority to another company. Always a good sign for those voting for open servers.

[Necrosis]

I've been waiting for an answer from NCSoft since the Euro team showed up. US and EU need to be unified.

[Ether]

I have absolutely no problems connecting to EU/US based servers. If I lag because of this connection, then the only person it will affect is me. In MMORPGs, when you lag you appear to be frozen to everyone around you. In Real time games like Rakion however, you appear to teleport all around the screen every few seconds, making it impossible to follow you. In other words, in MMORPGs having a high ping will only be disadvantageous to you.

Usually you don't experience any lag anyway. I remember playing Lineage 2 on dialup - it wouldn't lag until I entered a castle siege.

[Ayase]

Originally Posted by Necrosis

I've been waiting for an answer from NCSoft since the Euro team showed up. US and EU need to be unified.

We still don't know what the infrastructure will look like. This is something which will be decided and announced much closer to launch.