Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

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Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Aaryn_GenD »

... though it is permanent. there is no switching back!

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=186280
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by jerom »

Hmm that'd be a tough decision for most US players, because it will most definitely mean more lagg.

Also why dont they just open up region if they are already doing this ?
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Comadevil »

NA and EU are the biggest server, if one server goes down, the other server gets a DDOS because everybody wants to play on the other server.
Else they would have done it already like they did for SEA
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by KingKaramazov »

[quote=""Comadevil""]NA and EU are the biggest server, if one server goes down, the other server gets a DDOS because everybody wants to play on the other server.
Else they would have done it already like they did for SEA[/quote]

This is B.S. They've had cross region play in previous games with a similarly-sized player base and there weren't any major issues like that.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Comadevil »

Oh really? Then tell me, why the EU server had load issues 2 months ago. Everything (Servers, netowork, infrastructure) got sized before release and they sized it for sure for region play numbers and not every server for world play numbers because Blizzard won't throw money out of the window. To exaggerate a bit: Uwon't rent a server farm for ur homepage if u expect 10 visitors/day. U will size it also, so it fits ur needs
I don't say it is not possible to size it up but it will cost more or less some money. Or why do u think they haven't released cross region play for NA/EU yet? To keep u in NA from ur EU fellows? :twisted: AT least this is IMO one major issue
EU and NA server can hold out a few other players who come grom the other region but for sure they cannot hold out, if suddenly all players from one region want to play there because their server is down. ANd then it isn't only you and "the few" who want x-region play who complain. THen whole NA/EU begins to complain.
They just have to think quite more about EU/NA cross server play than NA/SEA cross over play. ANd this is only one issue. THere can be there are a few more.
And to be honest: The basic idea behind the region play is good IMO because most of the games are without lag which won't be possible if all players of the world would play on one server at least if u use the matchmaking system
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Aaryn_GenD »

to comas last sentence, that's why knarloc's and my idea was so good:
let people crossregion; but only to be able to play with friends!
no ladder matches or public custom games, make it at least possible to play with friends and the majority of people will be content.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by rufio_eht »

That's an excellent idea. But it seems like Blizzard will always be in need of servers, so even if the demand for sc2 shrinks, they have plenty of future titles that the servers could be reallocated to.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Aaryn_GenD »

forget that lol they have soooo much money, they could plant servers everywhere in the world :-P
even if lets say us server goes down then and people wanna play on EU: prohibit it for the time being until itheir server is back.
and it's not like all the people will switch servers lol they will play a bit here and there, depending if their friends are on or not. i say even if rossregion would be available the majority of people would stay in their own region.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by KingKaramazov »

[quote=""Comadevil""]Oh really? Then tell me, why the EU server had load issues 2 months ago. Everything (Servers, netowork, infrastructure) got sized before release and they sized it for sure for region play numbers and not every server for world play numbers because Blizzard won't throw money out of the window. To exaggerate a bit: Uwon't rent a server farm for ur homepage if u expect 10 visitors/day. U will size it also, so it fits ur needs
I don't say it is not possible to size it up but it will cost more or less some money. Or why do u think they haven't released cross region play for NA/EU yet? To keep u in NA from ur EU fellows? :twisted: AT least this is IMO one major issue
EU and NA server can hold out a few other players who come grom the other region but for sure they cannot hold out, if suddenly all players from one region want to play there because their server is down. ANd then it isn't only you and "the few" who want x-region play who complain. THen whole NA/EU begins to complain.
They just have to think quite more about EU/NA cross server play than NA/SEA cross over play. ANd this is only one issue. THere can be there are a few more.
And to be honest: The basic idea behind the region play is good IMO because most of the games are without lag which won't be possible if all players of the world would play on one server at least if u use the matchmaking system[/quote]


Coma, did you have a great deal of problems in AoE3 playing with people from other continents? Personally, I did not. If ES managed to have servers which did not lag terribly despite players from different continents playing, I am quite sure that Blizzard, a company with vastly superior resources, can manage the same.

Indeed, Blizzard HAS managed to do that in the past. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 both had similar server loads to Starcraft 2 and yet they allowed cross-region play. It is extremely difficult to believe that with more advanced online features and network code (not to mention greater resources since they are owned by Activision and they are sitting atop cash-cow WoW now), Blizzard has lost the capability to allow players to seamlessly change from one server to another.

On top of that, if distance is such a huge problem in terms of lag, why are players from the west coast of the US allowed to play with players on the east coast? The distance between New England and California is not much less than the distance between New England and the United Kingdom, or the distance between California and Japan, for example.


Also, if lag is such a great problem, the least they could do is allow people to play custom games on a foreign server without allowing them to use the ladder / matchmaking system. This way officially ranked and recorded games would always be played between people who are relatively close to one another even though players from other continents would have the ability to play with their foreign friends.

I simply don't see any reason that Blizzard could not have kept things the way they were, or failing that, at least given people the ability to play custom games with their friends in different countries. It's really hard to fathom and I have yet to see a single adequate explanation for it.

The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that Blizzard is somehow so money-grubbing that they want to force people to pay for multiple copies of the game in order to play on different servers. But that seems so ridiculously nefarious and miserly that it's hard to believe that's really their motivation.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Aaryn_GenD »

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Coma, did you have a great deal of problems in AoE3 playing with people from other continents? Personally, I did not. If ES managed to have servers which did not lag terribly despite players from different continents playing, I am quite sure that Blizzard, a company with vastly superior resources, can manage the same.[/quote]

that's a huge misunderstanding, you did not play on ESO servers, you never did and you never will, ESO is basically just an interface, you play directly with your opponents, over Peer-to-Peer.
With starcraft 2, you play over the blizzard servers, and with the 1 million players online, the server load is super huge.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Also, if lag is such a great problem, the least they could do is allow people to play custom games on a foreign server without allowing them to use the ladder / matchmaking system. This way officially ranked and recorded games would always be played between people who are relatively close to one another even though players from other continents would have the ability to play with their foreign friends.[/quote]

ye. me and knarloc had the same idea. i think at some point they will implement something like that.

they gave one reason why crossrealm play was not allowed from the beginning: the different pricing model in the regions were an issue
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Comadevil »

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Coma, did you have a great deal of problems in AoE3 playing with people from other continents? Personally, I did not. If ES managed to have servers which did not lag terribly despite players from different continents playing, I am quite sure that Blizzard, a company with vastly superior resources, can manage the same.
[/quote]
AOE3 was played IMO mostly by NA and european people at least to the times i played the game. When players from Asia were within the game i experienced lag. ANd i experienced more lag in AOE3 than in SC2 so far.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Indeed, Blizzard HAS managed to do that in the past. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 both had similar server loads to Starcraft 2 and yet they allowed cross-region play. It is extremely difficult to believe that with more advanced online features and network code (not to mention greater resources since they are owned by Activision and they are sitting atop cash-cow WoW now), Blizzard has lost the capability to allow players to seamlessly change from one server to another.
[/quote]
U cannot circumvent network lags by more advanced network code. Lag is something which isn't really in Blizzards hands. That depends on ISPs.
And if u listen to pros: NA top players say that they have a bit more lag when they play on EU server. TLO didn't play on EU at all when he was in Korea due to lag. Also i have read that people in SC1 experienced much lag when a european played against a korean.
And SC2 multiplayer isn't a simple P2P anymore.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
On top of that, if distance is such a huge problem in terms of lag, why are players from the west coast of the US allowed to play with players on the east coast? The distance between New England and California is not much less than the distance between New England and the United Kingdom, or the distance between California and Japan, for example.
[/quote]
Because u don't have that much bandwidth between the continents and connections than within the continents. As i stated above this is something which is not in Blizzards hands.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Also, if lag is such a great problem, the least they could do is allow people to play custom games on a foreign server without allowing them to use the ladder / matchmaking system. This way officially ranked and recorded games would always be played between people who are relatively close to one another even though players from other continents would have the ability to play with their foreign friends.
[/quote]
Because they designed battle.net like it is.
It is easier to administer stand-alone systems than systems which are connected in some way together. What u want is very difficult to program as battle.net is designed right now as stand-alone systems. That is why they gave sea people an NA account. It is the easiest way.
Even patching would already be difficult if NA already had a patch and EU not

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
I simply don't see any reason that Blizzard could not have kept things the way they were, or failing that, at least given people the ability to play custom games with their friends in different countries. It's really hard to fathom and I have yet to see a single adequate explanation for it.
The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that Blizzard is somehow so money-grubbing that they want to force people to pay for multiple copies of the game in order to play on different servers. But that seems so ridiculously nefarious and miserly that it's hard to believe that's really their motivation.[/quote]
That is bs. This explanation makes only sense if many people want to play on other servers which isn't really the case. The vast majority is content with playing on their server. Only top players who play tournaments on the other continent and a few people (compared to the rest of players) who know players from other continents. I see the potential of people who really want to play on other continents <1%. And that isn't really a money making machine.
If u design an application u setup requirements for it, what it should be able to do and what not. Some requirements mess up another requirement and after discussion a decision is reached what requirement is more important and the other is dropped. Software is a much more omplex thing than many püeople think. Cross region play was dropped or wasn't considered. Which is right i don't know.
I don't deny that some of the designs have to do with money making reasons. First there is the drop of the support of LAN, so people who want to play multiplayer have to buy the game (no hamachi or other virtual lan play possible). The campaign is given up to piracy.They know that someone who installed SC2 on a friends comp and activated it by logging into battle.net made the friend able to play the campaign without buying it. Or such people will get it directly via rapidshare & Co. Also LAN support was dropped due to the korean progaming scene where they also want to earn money.
Blizzard also doesn't want to have a "pirated" server like a ICCUP server in SC2 because it will mess up their plans with their marketplace.
On the other hand Blizzard wants to create a platform where nt only SC2 is running on but all their other games. Steam is the pioneer and MS follows with its "Windows marketplace" and Blizzard with "Battle.Net". This also helps selling games because it isn't so easy anymore to sell a used game which is attached to a account and activated. ANd that makes much more money than people who buy acopy because they wanna play on another server
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by jerom »

Wow coma I must say you explained it very well there, and you've got a good point there too.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by KingKaramazov »

[quote=""Comadevil""][quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Coma, did you have a great deal of problems in AoE3 playing with people from other continents? Personally, I did not. If ES managed to have servers which did not lag terribly despite players from different continents playing, I am quite sure that Blizzard, a company with vastly superior resources, can manage the same.
[/quote]
AOE3 was played IMO mostly by NA and european people at least to the times i played the game. When players from Asia were within the game i experienced lag. ANd i experienced more lag in AOE3 than in SC2 so far.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Indeed, Blizzard HAS managed to do that in the past. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 both had similar server loads to Starcraft 2 and yet they allowed cross-region play. It is extremely difficult to believe that with more advanced online features and network code (not to mention greater resources since they are owned by Activision and they are sitting atop cash-cow WoW now), Blizzard has lost the capability to allow players to seamlessly change from one server to another.
[/quote]
U cannot circumvent network lags by more advanced network code. Lag is something which isn't really in Blizzards hands. That depends on ISPs.
And if u listen to pros: NA top players say that they have a bit more lag when they play on EU server. TLO didn't play on EU at all when he was in Korea due to lag. Also i have read that people in SC1 experienced much lag when a european played against a korean.
And SC2 multiplayer isn't a simple P2P anymore.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
On top of that, if distance is such a huge problem in terms of lag, why are players from the west coast of the US allowed to play with players on the east coast? The distance between New England and California is not much less than the distance between New England and the United Kingdom, or the distance between California and Japan, for example.
[/quote]
Because u don't have that much bandwidth between the continents and connections than within the continents. As i stated above this is something which is not in Blizzards hands.

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
Also, if lag is such a great problem, the least they could do is allow people to play custom games on a foreign server without allowing them to use the ladder / matchmaking system. This way officially ranked and recorded games would always be played between people who are relatively close to one another even though players from other continents would have the ability to play with their foreign friends.
[/quote]
Because they designed battle.net like it is.
It is easier to administer stand-alone systems than systems which are connected in some way together. What u want is very difficult to program as battle.net is designed right now as stand-alone systems. That is why they gave sea people an NA account. It is the easiest way.
Even patching would already be difficult if NA already had a patch and EU not

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
I simply don't see any reason that Blizzard could not have kept things the way they were, or failing that, at least given people the ability to play custom games with their friends in different countries. It's really hard to fathom and I have yet to see a single adequate explanation for it.
The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that Blizzard is somehow so money-grubbing that they want to force people to pay for multiple copies of the game in order to play on different servers. But that seems so ridiculously nefarious and miserly that it's hard to believe that's really their motivation.[/quote]
That is bs. This explanation makes only sense if many people want to play on other servers which isn't really the case. The vast majority is content with playing on their server. Only top players who play tournaments on the other continent and a few people (compared to the rest of players) who know players from other continents. I see the potential of people who really want to play on other continents <1%. And that isn't really a money making machine.
If u design an application u setup requirements for it, what it should be able to do and what not. Some requirements mess up another requirement and after discussion a decision is reached what requirement is more important and the other is dropped. Software is a much more omplex thing than many püeople think. Cross region play was dropped or wasn't considered. Which is right i don't know.
I don't deny that some of the designs have to do with money making reasons. First there is the drop of the support of LAN, so people who want to play multiplayer have to buy the game (no hamachi or other virtual lan play possible). The campaign is given up to piracy.They know that someone who installed SC2 on a friends comp and activated it by logging into battle.net made the friend able to play the campaign without buying it. Or such people will get it directly via rapidshare & Co. Also LAN support was dropped due to the korean progaming scene where they also want to earn money.
Blizzard also doesn't want to have a "pirated" server like a ICCUP server in SC2 because it will mess up their plans with their marketplace.
On the other hand Blizzard wants to create a platform where nt only SC2 is running on but all their other games. Steam is the pioneer and MS follows with its "Windows marketplace" and Blizzard with "Battle.Net". This also helps selling games because it isn't so easy anymore to sell a used game which is attached to a account and activated. ANd that makes much more money than people who buy acopy because they wanna play on another server[/quote]


When things worked so well in the past with Battle.net, why would they change the way they created it so that it was stand-alone systems, as you say? It doesn't seem to make much sense. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. In many ways, Battle.net 2.0 now seems more broken than Battle.net 1.0 was.

The bottom line, for me, is that as a consumer I see that Blizzard sold products 10 years ago which had simple capability that their newest product simply doesn't have. It makes it feels as if the game has taken a couple steps backwards instead of forward.

While I can understand to some degree the lack of LAN, because that is clearly motivated by a desire to limit piracy, there is no such easy explanation for the elimination of cross-realm play because it worked just fine before. Nobody was complaining about the existence of cross-realm play. If such a small percentage of the playerbase wants to play on other servers, as you claim (I'm not sure that's the case), then it would not be a large issue if the small amount of people who desire it were allowed to do so.
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by Comadevil »

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
When things worked so well in the past with Battle.net, why would they change the way they created it so that it was stand-alone systems, as you say? It doesn't seem to make much sense. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. In many ways, Battle.net 2.0 now seems more broken than Battle.net 1.0 was.

The bottom line, for me, is that as a consumer I see that Blizzard sold products 10 years ago which had simple capability that their newest product simply doesn't have. It makes it feels as if the game has taken a couple steps backwards instead of forward.
[/quote]
Battle.Net 1.0 is more broken now than 2.0 IMO
Reasons
1. Technical: Have u ever tried to install a Windows 98 game on Windows 7? U will fail miserably in most cases, because the technical platform is so much more advanced that u cannot do it. The same with Battle.Net 1.0. M$ shut down the zone because of such reason
2. In projects the costs are following a rough rule: 80% of the features u make with 20% budget and time. For the last 20% u need 80% of the budget and time. And if u have to add features after the project is finished costs can skyrocket to 200% or higher. The same applies to if u want to add to Battle.Net 1.0 features which it doesn't have. Like chatting to people who are ingame and u are not in it, one game - one account policy etc.
Well those reasons don't have really to interest a customer as u say because it is their business and not yours.
BUT: Battle.Net 1.0 must be broken in some kind of way when many people play o ICCUP servers SC1. And the main reason why Battle.Net 1.0 is broken(at least for me) is this:
Everybody can have as much accounts as he wants!! This breaks the matchmaking system at least for the lower leagues because u will always have n00b bashers who just create a new account to begin anew bashing and there are more of them in the lower leagues than u think. I played WC3 online when it came out and quit after one week because it was no fun. I was a n00b and often faced such people. ANd this is really where Battle.Net 2.0 excels: THe matchmaking system which is IMO the most important feature in a competitive RTS game. Well u can discuss if it is necessary to hide the MMR from people but in the end if u search for a opponent u get in most cases usually one which suits you and u don't have the feeling to waste time.
Battle.Net 1.0 can have even a dozen more features: I don't care about them because the matchmaking system is so much abusable.
When i read the complain threads about Battle.Net 2.0 i have the following impression:
33% make valid points about missing features, 33% like to complain and flame and 33% are nostalgic like old grandpas
The last point i make because people often say how was it great when i played SC1 for the first time, the mission was great etc. and now is everything bad in SC2
I will do the same about Ultima 4 one very innovative RPG in 1984 with pixel graphics and how other RPGs years later wouldn'T keep me in front of the comp hours and hours. It is more an emotional thing and the experiences of youth.


[quote=""KingKaramazov""]
there is no such easy explanation for the elimination of cross-realm play because it worked just fine before. Nobody was complaining about the existence of cross-realm play. If such a small percentage of the playerbase wants to play on other servers, as you claim (I'm not sure that's the case), then it would not be a large issue if the small amount of people who desire it were allowed to do so.[/quote]
There is an easy explanation: Now the computers play communicate ingame via Battle.net servers while in earlier days they only communicated via P2P which means they communicate with each other without the Battle.Net servers. Why they did do it? I clearly don't know. But they must have their reasons because also the traffic of it cost some money and they won't spend such money without reason. One thing i can think of is the communicating with people outside the game
And i like to point out: They didn't drop cross-realm support because it was their intention but it was superceded by other decisions. This is maybe not satisfying as a customer who wants this feature very badly.
And to the reason why they won't allow it if such small percentage wants it: If a server goes down for patching there are many people who want to play badly. So where do we go to: Yes to another server. That can lead to that the other servers also goes down because it has an overload
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Re: Switch from EU to NA and vice versa

Post by StrokeyBlofeld »

Cross-realm play isn't impossible, I just think as pointed out it would be very costly and not too practical at the moment. I see lots of references to how "it worked just fine before", and this may be so, but you also have to consider the differences in technological tolerance. eg: 10 years ago, most people were on a dial up connection, it was quite acceptable to wait for 20 seconds or so for a web page to load, and it was expected that you would experience a substantial amount of lag spread over the course of an entire multi-player game whether it was hosted on a server or it was p2p. These days, if people have to wait for more that 2 or 3 seconds for a web page to load, they get impatient and close the page, if a game takes to long (15-30 seconds) to load people will leave and try to start another game, if there is the slightest bit of lag, people complain like mad etc etc. So, we are now far more aware of how the internet and connections are made, and what is possible, and what is capable, and so as a result we seem to be at a stage where we how no tolerance for even the slightest lag or jitter, and it is because of this that decisions such as cross continental play are either dismissed as too much of a risk or too costly to run and maintain, or just too problematic to service constantly. Also remember that the number of players using such services are massively more than 10 years ago as well.
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