FAQ OFF

I don't even play WoW, yet I find myself writing about it more and more. I guess that's what happens when a company has no clue about running a game community.

Caydiem, WoW sacrificial goat, posted a FAQ on the offical boards, explaining why you can't play with your friends.

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 player’s connection and customer-support experiences. This level of service is inconsistent with Blizzard’s 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.

Bull. Shit.

Firstly, with the connections available to many gamers around the world, latency is a non-issue for most people. As I've said before, I've played online games from a number of different countries, connecting to servers in multiple countries, and I haven't experienced a significant change in my gaming experience wherever I was. In fact, I've had better connections when connecting to a server in California from Australia than some people connecting from New York, Seattle and even Los Angeles. What the hell kind of servers are Blizzard running if this is an actual problem? Do the mice in the treadmill keel over when faced with an overseas connection?

Secondly, there's this little thing called globalization. It's kinda nifty, but has its critics. One of its effects is that English is used around the world extensively. It also goes the other way, in that people from the USA, for example, can speak Japanese, German, or even Klingon. People that choose to play on a server based in another country are going to play there because they know the language. This means they'll be able to communicate with GMs in the "native language" and still receive "a high level of customer support". If you're going to segregate players based on language ability, where the hell are the "133t5P33k" and "i liek piee. itz yUm" servers? I know people born in Norway or China with a better grasp of the English language than some people born in the USA or Australia.

Thirdly, no other MMORPG demands this restriction because of "the current realities regarding local billing requirements, privacy of information across international boundaries". Why don't they? Because this excuse is a load of steaming crap. It would have fit right in with some of Cheney's answers in the debate the other night. Companies from all over the world are able to conduct business with customers from the other side of the world with no credit card or privacy hassles. I call shenanigans from Blizzard.

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.

I can't think of any guild that would give up its membership and settle for this farce of a policy. Unless, of course, s00per sekr1t beta accounts were involved. But I digress. My point is that there is this thing. A feeling. It's referred to as "friendship" sometimes. People who tend to feel this towards each other are given the term "friends". Friends tend to form guilds because they want to play an online game together. You know, an online game. It's this neat thing that some people thought would be a good idea so they could have fun with many people around the world because they shared similar interests. But it seems Blizzard was too busy fawning over the predicted sales charts to look it up the definition in the dictionary.

A guild will prefer to keep its members together, and won't even care about their guild member 'Leg0lass" rubberbanding back and forth a few times, or perhaps even going linkdead once or twice, when they are instead helping each other defeat the newest uber dungeon. Or build their first guild house. Or help another member obtain the Fiery Sword of Pwned. There's something in these accomplishments, when you complete them with friends, that you can't get any other way. A game can be likened to the contents of my left nostril, but players are going to keep coming back to it as long as they can play with their friends.

So, in closing, I have a suggestion. I don't feel it's a radical solution. I'm probably not the first person to consider this solution. But it's a solution that will work nevertheless, and will keep Blizzards coffers full of phat loot. I mean, that's what counts, right?

Solution - Allow players from anywhere in the world, in any country, to play on any server they choose, regardless of its location. Place a disclaimer, both on the website and in the game launcher, stating that although players may join any server, it is recommended that they play on the server closest to their location, due to possible language barriers and connection issues. If someone is having problems with one server, invite them to join another.

This solution will keep players with their friends, allowing them to game away in happy bliss, and will cover Blizzard's arse if anyone feels the urge to complain. Crazy solution, I know. But it just might work.

If this decision from Blizzard goes ahead, you can forget about making money on eBay selling your account. The real money is going to be made by people that allow foreigners access to their billing address details, or by those that buy the game for foreigners.

Comments

[Per]

Actually..Shadowbane did this...
and the they fucked up their euro releas..okay not their fault that the euro distributor went bust...but bleh!!

it sucked major ass..

we got in by using the billing info of an american buddy.

[Cosmik]

Yup, you're right Per. And I can't think of any instance where restricted servers are a plus.

[Alexander Macris]

Saga of Ryzom launched in 4 markets (North America, English-speaking Europe, France, and Germany) with localized servers, clients, and customer support, but players can choose to play in any of the 4 servers. If a player from the US wants to be with French friends in a French-speaking guild, he can... There *are* issues in dealing with latency, privacy, and billing across all four markets but they are not insurmountable, and certainly not insurmountable for a company like Blizzard.

[Cosmik]

That Saga of Ryzom approach is what I would classify as the perfect system, Alexander. Well, as close to perfect as you can get in MMORPGs.

I welcome local support, because we all know Bob the GM over in the USA isn't going to know an offensive German name when he sees one. Truely there are latency, privacy and billing issues, but it's confusing to me why Blizzard/Vivendi refuse to look at where MMORPGs are today. We've been getting by these issues for 6+ years now.

If this is Vivendi's push, it seems a bit odd, considering DAOC does not enforce servers (the European launch isn't a forced server). Does this also bode ill for Middle Earth Online?

If this is Blizzard's push, someone needs a dose of reality.

If both of them are pushing... Gawd help us.