Teh Blair.5718

FYI there is roughly an 8-hour difference in peak times between the US and Australia and their respective populations are already isolated from each other. Being on physically separated hardware changes nothing. If the population that plays on an Oceanic server is less than the off time population of the Na or Eu servers then yes it does change things but not for the better. In addition, you’ll be able to talk to your current NA or Eu guild mates but no matter what time you log on you’ll never be able to play with them. I think you forget the fact that Asia is very close to Australia -- and this server would be able to provide better ping to Asian players than any current server would. Meaning that you have a potential population reach of at the very least a few hundred million players as Asia is home to over 4.5 billion players. So yes, I understand that I wouldn't be able to play with people in NA or EU. I don't think it would be needed. potential player population isn’t actual player population. I wonder how well gw2China is doing. We never hear about it anymore but from past posts by players who play there and posted here it doesn’t sound like it’s thriving. Possibly the game over there is mishandled but another consideration is that Asian players expect and want a different game than western players. Most games don’t cross over well as Asian players want heavy grind and pay to win features (such as buying Legendaries in the gemstore and having VIP accounts, both of which gw2China has) and western games are more casual. So just because there are a lot of players over there doesn’t mean they are or would be gw2 players. Mmm. Im asian.. im so bad in grinding. I prefer good pvp and good games than grinding. So your assumption on how asian likes to grind is definately not correct hah seriously right who likes to grind? Thank you for your personal anecdote on how you like to play. However it doesn’t change that as a group Asians, and I mean people born and raised in an Asian country, as a group prefer games that are grindier than this game and often have no problems with p2w elements that are not liked in the west. This means that a game like gw2 is going to have problems retaining that type of players and the market for it over there might not be enough to sustain another data center. Anet has the numbers on how many log in from over there and what type of games are preferred and decided that an Oceania server wouldn’t be good for the game. The personal anecdote he provided is better than the assumption you provided. No, Asian people don't 'like to grind', some may, not all. Yes, it is more acceptable for 'pay to win' over there but no -- that does not mean they find it preferable. I was gonna call you up on this earlier but you led off with the stance it was a general expectation difference over there which is largely true. Your argument seems to boil down to 'asian people won't like GW2 because it isn't grindy and doesn't have P2W elements' which is laughable and I have an alternate theory. Maybe they don't like it because they can't play the game without 400 ping? Gw2China has a data center over there. Is it thriving? Anet’s very quiet about it. Had a big sendoff when it started off and now.... silence. Makes me think it’s not doing so well. But it was thriving, at one point. Right? And that's because ANet advertised the fuck out of it but never implemented an Asia Server. Also just to clarify as far as I understand it there isn't a public server in China. If that's what you're suggesting. They just advertised heavily in China -- they didn't open a server there.

FYI there is roughly an 8-hour difference in peak times between the US and Australia and their respective populations are already isolated from each other. Being on physically separated hardware changes nothing. If the population that plays on an Oceanic server is less than the off time population of the Na or Eu servers then yes it does change things but not for the better. In addition, you’ll be able to talk to your current NA or Eu guild mates but no matter what time you log on you’ll never be able to play with them. I think you forget the fact that Asia is very close to Australia -- and this server would be able to provide better ping to Asian players than any current server would. Meaning that you have a potential population reach of at the very least a few hundred million players as Asia is home to over 4.5 billion players. So yes, I understand that I wouldn't be able to play with people in NA or EU. I don't think it would be needed. potential player population isn’t actual player population. I wonder how well gw2China is doing. We never hear about it anymore but from past posts by players who play there and posted here it doesn’t sound like it’s thriving. Possibly the game over there is mishandled but another consideration is that Asian players expect and want a different game than western players. Most games don’t cross over well as Asian players want heavy grind and pay to win features (such as buying Legendaries in the gemstore and having VIP accounts, both of which gw2China has) and western games are more casual. So just because there are a lot of players over there doesn’t mean they are or would be gw2 players. Mmm. Im asian.. im so bad in grinding. I prefer good pvp and good games than grinding. So your assumption on how asian likes to grind is definately not correct hah seriously right who likes to grind? Thank you for your personal anecdote on how you like to play. However it doesn’t change that as a group Asians, and I mean people born and raised in an Asian country, as a group prefer games that are grindier than this game and often have no problems with p2w elements that are not liked in the west. This means that a game like gw2 is going to have problems retaining that type of players and the market for it over there might not be enough to sustain another data center. Anet has the numbers on how many log in from over there and what type of games are preferred and decided that an Oceania server wouldn’t be good for the game. The personal anecdote he provided is better than the assumption you provided. No, Asian people don't 'like to grind', some may, not all. Yes, it is more acceptable for 'pay to win' over there but no -- that does not mean they find it preferable. I was gonna call you up on this earlier but you led off with the stance it was a general expectation difference over there which is largely true. Your argument seems to boil down to 'asian people won't like GW2 because it isn't grindy and doesn't have P2W elements' which is laughable and I have an alternate theory. Maybe they don't like it because they can't play the f***ing game without 400 ping?

Services like these often don't help, and in fact make the issue worse. You're getting better ping than I am precisely because you are in Sydney. https://gyazo.com/3b22263683c4959a55ab4fe74913d63a

FYI there is roughly an 8-hour difference in peak times between the US and Australia and their respective populations are already isolated from each other. Being on physically separated hardware changes nothing. If the population that plays on an Oceanic server is less than the off time population of the Na or Eu servers then yes it does change things but not for the better. In addition, you’ll be able to talk to your current NA or Eu guild mates but no matter what time you log on you’ll never be able to play with them. I think you forget the fact that Asia is very close to Australia -- and this server would be able to provide better ping to Asian players than any current server would. Meaning that you have a potential population reach of at the very least a few hundred million players as Asia is home to over 4.5 billion players. So yes, I understand that I wouldn't be able to play with people in NA or EU. I don't think it would be needed.

Small note that even if the server was located in Australia, those in Asia would still benefit from it as they suffer the same issues we have. You are not trying to raise the population of NZ and Australia combined for a server, that server could still service all of Asia and act as a favorable option over the EU and NA regions. This has been successfully demonstrated in many other games. If we're going purely on population basis, the population of Asia last I checked is somewhere in the realm of 4.5 billion. Significantly more than both EU and NA servers combined. Naturally this doesn't take into account many factors; but neither do your own statistics. Also regarding your final paragraph. Yes, which is why I'm posting here because I would like to find out why ANet doesn't agree there is money to be made this way. I'm a Network Engineer myself and have been playing video games for a very long time. I've seen many other games open up an Australian/Asian server to wonderful monetary benefit in the past. Also, want to note. I'm not against adding an Asia server instead. But a large portion of the globe here is going without service, the portion of the globe in fact with the largest population. It doesn't make sense, regardless of ANets' size and ability -- I would argue against their prior decision. Yes I have no data to back that up, but if your argument is you don't think there would be a large enough population gaming to consider putting a server there I would point to any number of Asian MMO's with ridiculous player numbers.

I can't really find the reply button on these forums for some reason, but regarding Ayrilana.1396's comment: There are only a few notable MMO's that offer servers in Australia. There's a pretty significant audience here that's looking for one, and that audience may be magnified further by lack of potential other options because of these server constraints. I personally know at least a few people who'd have picked up this game if there was an Australian Server, as honestly that's a big draw for people here.

Hopefully this is the correct place to post this suggestion. I live in Perth, Australia -- pretty much the most isolated main city in the world. This means my ping is routinely over 300, and in many cases even over 400 during peak times. I played this game with friends and really enjoyed the leveling process. Unfortunately upon dipping my toes into raiding and PvP I discovered that in any 'competitive' sense, meaning DPSing raids, any jumping puzzle anywhere or literally anything to do with PvP, even with fractals suffering also; the game is simply just barely playable. Dodging any PvE mechanics is something that's simply not going to happen with 0.4 seconds delay on every input. Admittedly it doesn't help that my favourite class when I did play was the elite spec of an elementalist or my thief, which has a complex rotation and very low health but even on my warrior, ranger or revenent the game just simply isn't viable for me to play outside of basic world leveling... I really want to get back into this game with some friends but I can't justify it over other MMOs that offer an Australian server no matter how good the actual gameplay is. I hope there's other people who have suggested this idea in the past, and I hope it's not dismissed offhandedly. In my city there's many people who I know have wanted to play this game but haven't because of this very problem. I really hope my suggestion will be considered seriously because while I'm sure there are people who have managed to do these high end activities in Australia, it's way more frustrating than it should be and that added barrier for entry is honestly worth me just finding another game to play that does offer an Australian Server. Anyway, thanks for reading. Edit: Just want to clarify as people seem to think I'm stupid or don't understand how servers work. I do in fact understand I'd only be able to play with people from OCE. My argument is not that I don't want to play with people from other servers, instead that I think there is a large enough population in Australia and much of Asia to justify this server, as I'd guess that places such as India would likely get a better ping from an Australia server than an EU server; could be mistaken though. Some MMO's do actually have Australian servers with flourishing playerbases, if you hadn't noticed. Furthermore, I'm aware I can do these things if I wanted to work past the barrier for entry, but constantly being at a disadvantage whilst also making my favourite class feel incredibly clunky to play instead of responsive and smooth is still enough of a downside that it makes me want to just find another MMO.