New poll: oceanic server or not?

With the official local launch for SWTOR getting very close and the announcement of local servers, we thought it was time to start a new poll.

The question is: will you swap to the local server when it’s available? It may seem a no-brainer but I’m guessing quite a few people actually won’t shift given they may have lots of US friends as players or are part of a international guild.

So go to our front page and vote in the poll which is on the right hand side of the page a little way down. Also – make your thoughts below, particularly if you aren’t going to be swapping – why aren’t you?

If you’d like to see the results of previous polls, here’s where you go.

Comments

  1. As a West Aussie, server time zones are problematic. By the time I sit down at 8pm, all the NZers and East Coasters are tucked up in bed with their raids finished for the night. I’m actually better off on a US West Coast server, where their prime time matches up with the early afternoon Perth time. It’s not ideal, and it still means quiet evenings, but there’s really no getting around that (8pm Perth is 11pm over East, midday in the UK, 7am on the US East Coast, and 4am on the US West Coast). Now if Bioware designated one of their Oceanic servers as “West Coast”, we’d be in business. In fact, it’d be a dream come true, but what are the odds of that?

    •  I have little faith that any oceanic server will attract a population like Harbinger or Swiftsure. Population makes the game seem alive and it is hard enough to find groups on these servers. I dont want to switch down to a lower pop server.

    •  I have a guild called ‘Formidable’ on The Jekk Jekk Tar which comprises almost all West Aussies.  We will be moving onto a dedicated Australian server as soon as they allow the server transfers.  The chance at getting 50ms latency from Perth rather than the 230-250ms I get currently to NA is a huge drawcard.  If lots of Aussies move to the new Australian based server you will find decent populations at our prime gaming times.  Couple that with Asian players from Singapore etc who will probably want to play on an Oceanic based server and we should be sweet.

      • Qwon If ur recruiting reply here once transfers are done ill apply and my 4 perth based aussie mates all 50’s republic

    •  Best community Ive played with to date was the RoM Aussie community. I’ve played darkfall, MO, perpetuum, WoW, GA, and others and I can not wait till we’re all together on the same server.

  2. Ill be switching for sure
     

  3. Really undecided about this tbh.
    Maintenance time is a big issue. I want to know when the Oceanic servers will be downed for the weekly update. Same as NA? Or will they be splitting off EU and OZNZ updates.

    I want to know if transferring back to the US servers if the pop of the Oceanic servers falls to below acceptable player levels would be available.

    But one of the biggest problems I see atm is that a lot of oceanics are in international guilds. Most of these people will not transfer to the new servers. Also, most fans of Bioware/StarWars/MMOs will have already ordered from Amazon and are currently playing on NA servers. An exciting hyped up launch will not happen here simply because the newness feeling has worn off.

    •  Knowlede regarding the downtimes is already available should you care to look – downtimes will be the same. Theyre spending extra money on hosting the servers here, do you think they want to be spending more on skeleton crews to conduct the maintenence. Also, if there are different maintenences you will see people flock to the different server type, when theirs is down.

      I dont think a lot of oceanics are international guilds. Some might have the occasional okinawa resident, or US shift worker..but I doubt theyre in the majority.

  4. SoundsSweet says

    Im going to go Oceanic for the major reason it is Oceanic low ping rate quicker casting and not being told off your not killing the boss fast enough becuase of the lag difference. How many mmo’s have we always asked to have our own servers and never got them. lets all get on the servers and prove to all mmo’s we have a strong enough base to have our own servers and enjoy wonderful low ping without having to pay for the services to do just that.

     Everyone on the same playing field and if people on the us etc come on our servers lol free pickings for us for a change I may even might start doing pvp again just to find out if they do as we will know who is lagging for a change OMG here comes someone swing the lightsaber OH too late im dead lol. so come all aussies and kiwi’s etc lets show the world we deserve our own servers and farm some US etc players for a change. Also enjoy the flashpoints etc and can see what is cast on the ground and can move out of it before it goes off Im in hog heaven)

  5. Valorous is on Jekk’Jekk Tar.  We are still deciding what we’ll be doing due to having several members from further abroad.

  6. Judgerickets says

    Hi Guys, I run a raiding guild on Krath US.. which is branded an Oceanic/US guild for running dual timezone raiding. I live in Perth too with most other aussies in this guild on the east coast.

    Originally we were going to take the AU players to AU servers however, we have all decided to stay US for these reasons:

    1)  Most of us do not want to move. Because there is enough aussies, we do not miss out on any content or runs. And its easy to recruit oceanic players because they gravitate towards us due to being one of the only oceanic guilds. Its not a dating or hookup site so the traffic of oceanic players is irrelevent aslong as there is oceanic timezone raid runs.

    2) We have done a few different trace routes back to the western US servers and to be honest guys, the ping times we face to the US are mostly caused by the inadequcies of australian backbone infrastructure. There is not a mesh network like in the US, we have more of a Star network with the pipe to the US in Sydney being the hub. From perth, its usually 100-200MS to sydney alone and only another 50MS to the west coast from Syd.

    Even our qld players are finding most thier latency between qld and sydney so to be honest, unless they launch a local server in my city, there is going to be NO massive advantage latency wise. Sure there will be some advantage, but not enough to justify splitting an already successful raiding guild.

    If you are having trouble with lag, next time, do a traceroute and youll be surprised to find that its probably happening internally. Now im not one to make assumptions but im assuming our local servers will be on the east coast to make the latency less for NZ players.Then probably another in SG for the asian playerbase..

    In preferences you can set your que times up to compensate for slight lag anyway.. we’re talking one third of a second quicker in reactions. Hello? How many of you notice a blink of the eye? Stop blaming your DPS issues on the latency and start owning the problem and fixing it with rotations and gear and youll be fine. I for one have no issues with DPS and find it hard to believe that I am using a 3G usb mobile internet device to play the game and people are complaining about latency.

  7. I am going to move.  I take on board all the comments and they are valid in relation to traceroute

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