I wish all EU games where managed by USA people. Looking a tthe services and quality the USA guys get, I am jealous.
Not only that, there are companys like GOA, and having your game managed by these guys is like stepping on a mine. GOA are cool people, but follow the standards of france bureocrats. And that is a down as you can get. Lower it 1 point, and you get Kafka-ske management.
There ARE reasons why games can't do multiple languages/regions simultaneously. It's called money. You know, the one thing you always run out of as a small developer (or even big developers).
Still not a good enough reason to block people from playing in other regions, if they pay for it. It is actually arrogant to assume that people should be playing with their own language servers.
Your answer has nothing to do with mine. *boggle*
Plus, restricting by region can be due to publishing rights, etc. Or is the game developer supposed to be all powerful and say to all of its various publishers, you will allow anyone on your servers regardless of whether they paid you to play there! Um, no.
Yes, but that was not Dana's core argument. I doubt you even read the article because he discussed this on the second paragraph.
Its a huge factor on why the current games don't do global servers unrestricted anymore. Back in EQ1 days, because Sony was the publisher AND the developer, we had unrestricted servers because SOE had no reason to restrict them. But if you wanted the game and it wasn't published in your country, you had to order from somewhere else... from Sony. Sure, SOE can do it, Blizzard can probably do it outside of China, but most other devs cannot be both publisher and developer.
Dana's second paragraph was prompty shot down by his 3rd. He obviously didn't grasp just how important it is to publishers who host servers that people PAY them to run them. Its a simple concept.
Then, of course, there's the "if you allow someone who wants to play on an Oceanic server to be with friends" play that way, they must deal with the lag of that connection, and all the problems that arise from it. Sure, most people have a basic idea of geography, but most certainly don't have a clue about how the internet works. So when they lag, they get upset, and tend to bad mouth the game as laggy, and eventually quit.
Non sequitur.
Your response is a typical "I don't have a rebuttal, so I'll just say it doesn't make sense" cop-out.
Besides that, people tend to play close to home because of the language barriers, culture, etc. So while having a choice is nice, does it make financial sense to try to open up a community which prefers to remain closed? Take EQ1 for example: The Nameless server was the server of choice for people from Taiwan, and various other servers were for the french, spanish, german, etc.
Sure, I met people from all parts of the world on my server, but most of them remained clumped up with people from their own areas. So the benefit to EQ1 for having one "world" collection of servers? Very small if any.
Personal preferences. I could easily turn that argument other way around, but it would just be waste of time. Let's just say that WoW, for example, destroyed many global guilds.
You can thank Vivendi for that. The EU company is a seperate corporate identity than the US, the profits are seperate, so they "compete" versus each other. Besides, for each "global" guild that was "destroyed", it appears many "regional" ones were formed to take their place...
I just want every MMO to be set up like GW. I know that it had a lot of problems, but instancing towns from the outside world does not bother me. You would not need to promote soloing in the way GW does (outside of PvP obviously, which is their main audience, I think), but you could have iterations (Districts in GW) of both towns and open world areas. This solves the problem of people camping mobs for whatever reason. They can simply go to a private iteration. You can still come across players in the game world, but not be overrun by hundreds of people trying to do the same quests (think release day or any content update for any game with a decently sized population). Add to that the fact that they very, very rarely have any reason to discontinue service. If they take down one server for maintenance, the nature of their system allows any number of other servers to take over. You can go to iterations of the world hosted on servers near to you, or far from you, or wherever the hell you like. It's a beautiful thing.
Now, I'm kind of sad, thinking how lacking that game is in other respects. At any rate, that is, in my opinion, the only real solution for the problem posited by this thread. And it's a good one.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
i think japan/china games need to pick up on this. they have a lot of games that non asian countries can't play, they even put a lock onto the language and region of your computer so if your not from that, comp auto shuts down. (experianced)
Some people said it’s an amazing experience to see so many different languages being displayed on the same server, but from a viewpoint of management, it’s very hard for game masters to control if some players intently leave some abusive words on the game bbs. You might feel very awesome to see Estonian, Dutch and American at the same time, but what if a German who keeps typing “scheißen” and affect the mood of other European players, while you still feel amazing about those foreign words? So maybe the so- called “segregated” server is more convenient for the localized GMs to do their censorship.
A second reason why the phenomenon of segregated servers in one game will come up is probably a simple outcome of marketing. Because the original game developer sells their license to different agencies in different countries, that’s why each of the game agencies are forbidden to unlock the localized server for oversea users.
After I read the some articles in accordance with this topic, I still feel the invisible segregated wall between the western and Asian culture exists yet, most of the commentators here only want a westernized server, but not a global one.
I don't know if you would like to play in a global server with lots of asian people, but in fact I think the asian players are not so money-oriented, they like to complete all the quests within the shortest time span because it's what their culture values. Most of them are shy to speak english, but if you really want to make an asian friend, it's possible and soon you will like their character.
Sometimes the situation is, the players want a non- segregated server, but a game developer will block the regional server due to commercial conflict. A case I could offer here is a F2P which used to be very famous in the asian market. This MMO is named originally "Mosiang", it was very successful in the Asia because of its multiplicate features like Titan summoning, unique weapon skills, cool instances and much more. Not long ago the original game developer published its global server called Titan online. After this global server is closed, the following version for the North American players is published, but due to the regional conflict, the distributor from the countries Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Macau, and Singapore requests the game developer for blocking the IP of their users to login the new version published in North America. You can see the current discussion in the related forum here. About IP Block
So sometimes it's not what a player could decide if he wants a non segregated server or not, it's a simple result of commercial conflict and hard to be avoided.
I realize that this thread has been dead for several months. However, the issues raised in Dana Massey's article are important and they deserve to stay on the radar.
Just wanted to let people know about a college seminar that is investigating issues associated with transnational play and region locking. What happens when players from different cultures and nationalities interact with one another in virtual spaces? What sorts of actions can players and developers take to make these spaces even more conducive to transnational player cooperation? These are just a few of the issues explored in our seminar. You can find links to the student blogs -- and a link to the course syllabus -- at:
During the next few months, students associated with this class will be fanning out across virtual worlds in an attempt to understand the landscape of transnational play. We're starting with Dungeons and Dragons Online, but will also be branching out to other worlds.
If you have strong feelings about cross-cultural interactions in virtual worlds -- either as a proponent or as an opponent of such interactions -- we would love to speak with you. Please feel free to contact me and my students at: adelwich@trinity.edu.
i disagre with the guy ,say game are localised at least if say pvpve in abyss is global this make even so mutch more fun
like gw they made the pvp world wide, true some part of the game were local, but the most important feature were global and that is the futur of mmo ,instanced pvpve in just a local region whatever the excuse is ,will always be a downer for most mmogamer
when they got into a pvpve or rvr or whats not they want to duke it out with the globe not just louiseville ky (if he live there)
it can be done ,most mmo maker are just too lazy or the financer say we dont need that and game stay low pop
Comments
I wish all EU games where managed by USA people. Looking a tthe services and quality the USA guys get, I am jealous.
Not only that, there are companys like GOA, and having your game managed by these guys is like stepping on a mine. GOA are cool people, but follow the standards of france bureocrats. And that is a down as you can get. Lower it 1 point, and you get Kafka-ske management.
EU region: DO NOT WANT!
Still not a good enough reason to block people from playing in other regions, if they pay for it. It is actually arrogant to assume that people should be playing with their own language servers.
Your answer has nothing to do with mine. *boggle*
Yes, but that was not Dana's core argument. I doubt you even read the article because he discussed this on the second paragraph.
Its a huge factor on why the current games don't do global servers unrestricted anymore. Back in EQ1 days, because Sony was the publisher AND the developer, we had unrestricted servers because SOE had no reason to restrict them. But if you wanted the game and it wasn't published in your country, you had to order from somewhere else... from Sony. Sure, SOE can do it, Blizzard can probably do it outside of China, but most other devs cannot be both publisher and developer.
Dana's second paragraph was prompty shot down by his 3rd. He obviously didn't grasp just how important it is to publishers who host servers that people PAY them to run them. Its a simple concept.
Non sequitur.
Your response is a typical "I don't have a rebuttal, so I'll just say it doesn't make sense" cop-out.
Personal preferences. I could easily turn that argument other way around, but it would just be waste of time. Let's just say that WoW, for example, destroyed many global guilds.
You can thank Vivendi for that. The EU company is a seperate corporate identity than the US, the profits are seperate, so they "compete" versus each other. Besides, for each "global" guild that was "destroyed", it appears many "regional" ones were formed to take their place...
I just want every MMO to be set up like GW. I know that it had a lot of problems, but instancing towns from the outside world does not bother me. You would not need to promote soloing in the way GW does (outside of PvP obviously, which is their main audience, I think), but you could have iterations (Districts in GW) of both towns and open world areas. This solves the problem of people camping mobs for whatever reason. They can simply go to a private iteration. You can still come across players in the game world, but not be overrun by hundreds of people trying to do the same quests (think release day or any content update for any game with a decently sized population). Add to that the fact that they very, very rarely have any reason to discontinue service. If they take down one server for maintenance, the nature of their system allows any number of other servers to take over. You can go to iterations of the world hosted on servers near to you, or far from you, or wherever the hell you like. It's a beautiful thing.
Now, I'm kind of sad, thinking how lacking that game is in other respects. At any rate, that is, in my opinion, the only real solution for the problem posited by this thread. And it's a good one.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
No, it indicates your failure/lapse in logic. An argument that does not make much sense. Why rebute it?
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
i think japan/china games need to pick up on this. they have a lot of games that non asian countries can't play, they even put a lock onto the language and region of your computer so if your not from that, comp auto shuts down. (experianced)
Some people said it’s an amazing experience to see so many different languages being displayed on the same server, but from a viewpoint of management, it’s very hard for game masters to control if some players intently leave some abusive words on the game bbs. You might feel very awesome to see Estonian, Dutch and American at the same time, but what if a German who keeps typing “scheißen” and affect the mood of other European players, while you still feel amazing about those foreign words? So maybe the so- called “segregated” server is more convenient for the localized GMs to do their censorship.
A second reason why the phenomenon of segregated servers in one game will come up is probably a simple outcome of marketing. Because the original game developer sells their license to different agencies in different countries, that’s why each of the game agencies are forbidden to unlock the localized server for oversea users.
After I read the some articles in accordance with this topic, I still feel the invisible segregated wall between the western and Asian culture exists yet, most of the commentators here only want a westernized server, but not a global one.
I don't know if you would like to play in a global server with lots of asian people, but in fact I think the asian players are not so money-oriented, they like to complete all the quests within the shortest time span because it's what their culture values. Most of them are shy to speak english, but if you really want to make an asian friend, it's possible and soon you will like their character.
Sometimes the situation is, the players want a non- segregated server, but a game developer will block the regional server due to commercial conflict. A case I could offer here is a F2P which used to be very famous in the asian market. This MMO is named originally "Mosiang", it was very successful in the Asia because of its multiplicate features like Titan summoning, unique weapon skills, cool instances and much more. Not long ago the original game developer published its global server called Titan online. After this global server is closed, the following version for the North American players is published, but due to the regional conflict, the distributor from the countries Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Macau, and Singapore requests the game developer for blocking the IP of their users to login the new version published in North America. You can see the current discussion in the related forum here. About IP Block
So sometimes it's not what a player could decide if he wants a non segregated server or not, it's a simple result of commercial conflict and hard to be avoided.
Hi,
I realize that this thread has been dead for several months. However, the issues raised in Dana Massey's article are important and they deserve to stay on the radar.
Just wanted to let people know about a college seminar that is investigating issues associated with transnational play and region locking. What happens when players from different cultures and nationalities interact with one another in virtual spaces? What sorts of actions can players and developers take to make these spaces even more conducive to transnational player cooperation? These are just a few of the issues explored in our seminar. You can find links to the student blogs -- and a link to the course syllabus -- at:
http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/transnational/
During the next few months, students associated with this class will be fanning out across virtual worlds in an attempt to understand the landscape of transnational play. We're starting with Dungeons and Dragons Online, but will also be branching out to other worlds.
If you have strong feelings about cross-cultural interactions in virtual worlds -- either as a proponent or as an opponent of such interactions -- we would love to speak with you. Please feel free to contact me and my students at: adelwich@trinity.edu.
Thanks!
Aaron Delwiche
Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Trinity University
i disagre with the guy ,say game are localised at least if say pvpve in abyss is global this make even so mutch more fun
like gw they made the pvp world wide, true some part of the game were local, but the most important feature were global and that is the futur of mmo ,instanced pvpve in just a local region whatever the excuse is ,will always be a downer for most mmogamer
when they got into a pvpve or rvr or whats not they want to duke it out with the globe not just louiseville ky (if he live there)
it can be done ,most mmo maker are just too lazy or the financer say we dont need that and game stay low pop