Blizzard is annoying Non-North American, Aust, NZ players.Follow

What about the poor Australians and New Zealanders who are forced to play on servers where people spell funny (armour, not armor) and don't use the metric system?!?

Can't anyone else see the problems this will cause?!?

Player 1: How far away is the orc?

Me: About 3 metres.

Player 1: WTF?!? How far is that in feet?

Me: I have two feet.

Player 1: *initiates Pvp*

Quick question, just because I find the answer rather cute...

Since when, has English become the official language of the US?

A law or something that states this would be good. Don't worry I won't hold my breath.

In other news, Segregated servers as such is inefficient, as the Euro/Aisa players tend to be on when the US players are not. So basically I get FAR FAR fewer people to group with on days that I am not on during the US peak time.

So, not only are my off peak playtimes going to be really sparse compaired to normal, but I'll not get to talk to people living elsewhere in the world. Which just kinda kills part of the "Massive Multiplayer" bit.

Another question then: during the open beta, players of all nationalities, languages, and timezones were playing on the same US servers. Did you ever experience communication breakdowns or the inability to find people playing at the same time as you, or anything like that?

Personally I never did. Admittedly there were a few occasions when someone started typing Norwegian into the General chat, but that was pretty rare. Almost everyone spoke in English, and there was never any off-peak period when hardly anyone would be online. So far the only real reasons that stand for the segregation of servers would be to try and lock out the (stereotypical) Asian botters, hackers, and "gil farmers"... who, as someone pointed out, would have their own ways of bypassing the lock systems, and who, as someone else pointed out, represent a small minority of the Asian gaming community.

Primarily I'm just sad because the beta really got my hopes up, and I've already canceled my FFXI Content IDs, and it's sad that I might be potentially locked out of the game for what I see to be rather flimsy reasons.

I'm still waiting for official word from Blizzard about this, but since the official forums are locked down, and I doubt Blizzard reps visit this forum, it seems I will have to keep waiting for some time.

* Edited because I decided I didn't really want to be an *** about this. =/

Edited, Sat Nov 20 03:16:18 2004 by ketsugi

Xarth, at least the Europeans know for sure they're getting the game eventually. I believe it is largely the Asian players (and, presumably, African and South American, and perhaps Arctican and Antarctican) players who feel horrendously marginalised by this decision. I'm not saying I feel the same way, I just wanted to point out that there's a lot more to the world than North America and Europe, a fact which many Americans tend to forget.

What!? A harvest moon I havent played?! Blasphemy!

An Asian WoW wouldn't work, because there's no single common language in all of Asia except *drumroll* English.

I sincerely doubt Blizzard is going to localise WoW into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, and even if they do, what about all the English-speaking gamers in Asia (like myself, naturally)?

As for the argument that America often doesn't get games that are released here, that's only applicable to Japan. Ever wonder why Singapore is considered one of the largest software (including game) pirates in the the region? Because not many games make it here legally except for the really big names. FFXI still isn't officially available here, nor is DAoC, as far as I know. We have to import Japanese games, Chinese games, American games, European games, and nobody gives a **** about us.

I'm not trying to whine, though I know it sounds like it. Again, all I want to do is to raise awareness of the fact that there's more to the world than just the few countries that you happen to have heard about.

I'm not worried about anything except the IP blocking. Everything else can be bypassed easily. But I'm not sure I want to fiddle around with connection bouncers just to play a game.

Singapore doesn't make games... not good ones, as far as I know. But Creative is a Singaporean company... that's gotta count for something, right?

>_>

<_<

Never mind :P

I feel for you. I am a Singaporean too and we really get the short end of the stick when it comes to gaming. A lot of us speak English, yet because of the country's laughable size and geographical location, gamers here are automatically assumed to know 'asian languages' like Japanese and Korean, yet none of these languages are taught in schools and only hardcore anime otakus know them. If you're a console gamer in Singapore it's even worse because there is little support for the console market here. Even the consoles themselves sometimes have to be imported personally, and gamers need to buy adapters so that the consoles are able to run on the different voltage (240 here).

Because of all the importing the prices here are exorbitant. A PS2 game costs SG$100 or more, popular new releases can cost up to SG$120. The only console so far that has been given local support is the Xbox; the GC and PS2 have almost no real support. This is just for console games, PC games are a little easier on us because well, there's less regional difference in PCs (the only thing that differentiates an 'american' PC and a PC over here is the IP address).

And now, just to play an MMO with fellow guild mates we are to spoof IPs, get friends to pay for us, and with no certainty that we'll be able to get through. I realise we don't have a very big market at all but if you were part of the "oh you're Asian you're not supposed to play in English" thing that we get, maybe you'd understand why we whine so much. ._.; Hell I have an American accent just from talking to my FFXI friends over in the states using Ventrilo. My Mandarin is atrocious. The only language I'm really proficient in is English, yet I'm not supposed to use that to enjoy a game.

Anyhow, enough ranting :3 Good luck to you too Ketsugi in getting to the NA servers.

Edited, Sat Nov 20 06:14:10 2004 by Whren

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!! *calms down. Composes himself*

Okay, as I stated before, Blizzard already annouced that once the European version is out as well with everything else, they will release the option of choosing your region, where ever that is. If you cannot speak a certain region's main language, Blizzard went the extra mile to give you a server for your group, ensuring support at times where they can help. Hense the regional server idea. Kinda hard explaining to a GM of a problem when the GM is wondering what you are trying to say.

Who here has played FFXI? We all know how that GM system turned out. NA GMs only being able to handle NA players while JP GMs were able to deal with all groups. Fair, eh?

You guys blast the policy without seeing the positives first and thats quite sad. Blizzard is trying to ensure the top service they can while giving you the option to switch regions once all countries their Warcraft on but you guys only see negative. Pity...

Edited, Sat Nov 20 06:17:37 2004 by Redmoonxl