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Localized Server FAQ
BigT
Member UncommonPosts: 51
Why are you going with localized servers?
To provide the absolute best connectivity to our game servers, Blizzard has set up dedicated datacenters for World of Warcraft in multiple regions around the world. These local servers provide low-latency, high-speed access to ensure players have the best possible experience playing the game. In addition to providing local servers, Blizzard has established local teams, including game masters, community team members, and technical support staff, in each region in order to provide players with a high level of customer support in their native language. Because of these local teams, customers will be able to have their game-related concerns addressed promptly and efficiently by knowledgeable and helpful support representatives who understand local issues. All of these factors will contribute to providing players with the best possible gameplay experience when playing World of Warcraft on their regional servers.
Conversely, playing the game on servers in distant regions would significantly detract from the quality of the players connection and customer-support experiences. This level of service is inconsistent with Blizzards quality standards for World of Warcraft and could result in negative gameplay experiences for players of a subscription-based game service.
Nevertheless, we do recognize that players from different regions will want to play together. Unfortunately, because of the current realities regarding local billing requirements, privacy of information across international boundaries, and the aforementioned issues with connection quality between regions, we will be unable to offer cross-regional services at the time of the North America/Korea launch. However, for those players who still wish to play on servers outside of their region, we will look into providing a specific solution that addresses their concerns after launch.
Are you aware how much this issue affects game choice for guilds?
Yes; we've been working with guilds very closely since the beginning of the closed beta test because we appreciate how much they contribute to the game and to the community. One of our top priorities is to ensure that all players enjoy the complete game experience that World of Warcraft provides, and this is why we are strongly recommending that players connect to their local servers when World of Warcraft launches in their region. Regarding guilds specifically, connecting to servers in a non-local region would ultimately result in an adverse gameplay experience for the guild member connecting from overseas, and we feel that this would also negatively impact the members of the guild who are playing locally.
What is the situation for those located in Asia? Will they be able to play on the US servers?
While we have currently only announced our plans for launching World of Warcraft in Korea and China, we can confirm that like players in Europe, players in Korea and China will be able to play on local servers and enjoy native-language customer support at launch. For those who wish to play on servers outside of their region, we will look into providing a specific solution that addresses their concerns after launch.
What servers will the Middle East and Australia utilize at launch?
We're still examining options for the Middle East and Australia and will release more information for these regions as soon as possible.
Will you be restricting North America based on region, also?
As with Europe and Asia, North American players will be restricted to North American servers. Because there are two locations to service players in North America, we will recommend that players there connect to the North American server that is closest to their particular home region for the optimum online experience.
I travel overseas for work/school/military purposes. Will I have problems playing the game?
You should be able to travel and play the game from overseas provided you have an account in your home region. However, network connectivity at such distances is not under Blizzards control, and your play experience may vary as you travel, so we ask that you bear in mind that your connection and support experience will most likely not be optimal.
If you're stationed overseas for an extended period of time, we recommend that you subscribe to World of Warcraft in the region closest to you.
If I live in Europe or Asia and have preordered a US version of the game from an online retailer, will I be able to play the game when I receive it?
Players who do not use a method of payment accepted in North America and who do not have a North American billing address will not be able to play on US servers. Therefore, we highly recommend that players in other regions instead preorder the game for their local region and purchase their World of Warcraft subscription when the game launches locally to them. Doing so will ensure that they have the best possible World of Warcraft gameplay and support experience available.
http://206.16.235.120/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=385040&p=1#post385040
- Caydiem -
Assistant Community Manager, WoW
Comments
Some pretty lame reasons. I played Earth and Beyond for almost 2 years and about a third of the player base were Europian. EnB servers were located in the US. I never heard any of the overseas players complain about lag issues. Also EA had no probs with billing people from overseas locales.
Eve-Online
Chances are the real reason is that WoW doesn't want to turn out to be the next Lineage 2.
I don't like the idea of localized servers overall, but since everybody in my clan is from NA it won't make much difference to me.
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"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, chairman of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977
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"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, chairman of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977
I have no problem with localized servers. Everyone I know lives in the USA.
I think it's good that they have servers in diffrent location and with customer support for diffrent languages, but I think it's extremly stupid to force people to play on those servers.
The reasons they are giving are extremly stupid too, there are tons of people all over the world in beta now without any problem with performance.
The customer support and servers in UK/US will only support english ofcourse, but if I know enough english so people understand me and have alot of friends all over the world then it's wrong to not let us choose the servers we want to play on.
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Azzazzimon
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Azzazzimon
I think you hit the nail right on the head with that statement.
And with over a 100 replies and with almost 11,000 views on the beta forums, not one person has thought of bringing that up.
As soon as I read that they were forcing the servers, that was the first thing I thought of.
I'm not in the Beta, so I can't post on their forums.
http://pw1.netcom/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html
I wonder what would be the results for WoW and EQ 2 when they both release on november the 15th. Its is a great disappointment for blizzard's recent plan on having Forced Servers. In any case, I will be upgrading my computer and playing EQ 2 instead of WoW. I have no desire to play a game limited to my own region. I am sure i'm not the only one that feels the same way too.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Your name is WoWfan and yet your first post is to explain that you've decided not to play WoW because for the first couple of months you'll be limited to playing the game with the several hundred thousand players who live in your own country?
Hmmmm.... Something doesn't quite stick.
You EQ2 nutjobs are getting embarrassingly desperate.
Perhaps its true that the Americans wish to remove the possibilities of asian gil farmers to cause in game economy problems for their new game. However, there are still plenty of american gil farmers that would sell gils or equipments through ebay to earn a living. This is an issue that I find it quite hard to tackle. At the expense of potential experienced mmorpg players, I believe Blizzard finds this to be the optimum solution for their to-be long term new mmorpg players from their own fanbase. This is a truely sad case for all global players that have friends/families, loved ones that are left with no choice but to play in other regions in this world.
Still, we all demand the truth from Blizzard's own lips. Pure speculation is getting nowhere. I would prefer calling this game Regions of Warcraft instead....
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
This is all incredibly interesting "WoWfan", but I find it hard to believe that you refuse to play WoW because you're morally appalled at the desperate plight of those who can't play with friends and family (even though they actually will be able to - you're just not smart enough to work out how).
Let's imagine for a moment that you really are a disillusioned "WoW fan", and not really some sad EQ2 fruitcake who doesn't have the balls to post criticism using his normal login. How exactly does this issue actually affect you? I'm intrigued to hear what you'll make up.
I just created this account today. The name is an expression of Irony that is instilled within me with regard to what happened today with Blizzard's firm decision on implementing Forced servers.
I am a WoWfan no more, my name is only a pigment of my past. In any case, thanks for commenting.
Come to think about it, WoW is lacking on the need for party play. You could basicly solo all your way to the max lvl. VERY RARELY will you find a party to kill elite monsters. After killing them, its back to solo play and questing again. Raiding is more like zerging, a mass soloing rush event. Not the raid that we've seen, played, experienced, enjoyed in Everquest or other mmorpgs with decent high end contents. The only possible factor that I might consider crediting to blizzard is the PVP system. It is extremely fun to group with your friends slaughtering innocent bystanders and raiding their towns.
Ultimately, WoW might be more of a pvp focused game. Partying simplying isn't profitable in terms of exp when soloing is already decent enough. The only place that I have not covered in high end raids in WoW which are mostly blocked and restricted places for Beta players. Umm, I've had my fun of WoW I guese, its time for EQ 2.
Both games are going to be released on the exact same date as the website says. However, look at it this way. EQ 2 will be releasing world wide on the date posted. However, WoW will ONLY be releasing in NA on that date, Dec in Korea, EARLY 2005 for Euro and LATE 2005 for China and Taiwan. I wonder why they are releasing the game in korea earlier than Europe. I personally doubt a large portion of Koreans speak english or understands it well enough to play the game and understand clearly what the npcs are saying. I would have expected Blizzard to launch a KOREAN client for them just like a Chinese client for China and Taiwan so that they may be able to view all of the game contents in korean and chinese respectively. That would be a lot of translation which might explain why China and Taiwan are getting it during late 2005. Having said this, I believe koreans are recieving the english copy of the game on DEC.
To end this post, I'll just say that I simply can't get over the issue with Blizzard. We are the forsaken, if only the terrorists knew where Blizzard is placing their servers around the world, so they'd bomb them all to smitherines to teach Blizzard a little lesson that we don't want no servers here, but want to play an internation game. Lastly, to all those gil farmers that might be reading this post and laughing your ass off, I hope you get cancer.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Let me guese, you're assuming that someone having played mmorpg for the past half decade to not know that he may have american friends to pay for their accounts instead. Purchase the game through ebay from the americans or have a friend there buy it for your and paying some american long time mmorpg friend for using his credit card. No offence, but, any half-wit bugger could have thought of that. Do you believe that Blizzard will not have any means to stop that? I certainly doubt so. Worst sernario comes, we could have forien IP address banned. When blizzard's FAQ suggested that if you're travelling and living at some place else for a long term, they'd suggest using the servers on that region instead. I choose to believe that they are hiding the possibility that the IP address there would be blocked to their home country.
Umm, this is the first time i visit this forum. I don't make up things heh. Its over man, there is little to no hope whatsoever for Blizzard to change their forced server bullshit. go to ige.com to check out on their gil sales. They have 2000 sales per day for every single mmorpg gil listed there. Every single community in those mmorpgs HATE gil farmers like crazy. To say that Blizzard has no clue or ignores their existence would be foolhardy.
Probably tomorrow, I'll explain why i've started to post around here besides that fact that i'd like to view what the other communities feel about this matter.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everyone else - Winston Churchill