Any chance of a Southern Hemisphere server (Hong Kong/Singapore/Australia)?

kmontywrwb17_ESO

As per the title - is there any possibility of an Asian server at any time in the future?

oddbasket

After all these years, I'm not hopeful...

Bobby_V_Rockit

Is China in the Southern Hemisphere?

oldbobdude

No

YstradClud

OP we asked for a server in this part of the world for ESO years ago and the answer was no so its too late now. We managed to get one for WoW though so you will find a huge Asian community there. I'm just glad they are with Microsoft now and seem to be utilising some of their hardware.

lolo_01b16_ESO

Hong Kong and Singapore are both part of the Northern Hemisphere

Elsonso

There is always a chance, but no.

WySoSirius

As a West Aussie. And as much as I want. The player base for Oceania is just not big enough for ZoS to invest in a server afaik

ESO_Nightingale

WySoSirius wrote: »

As a West Aussie. And as much as I want. The player base for Oceania is just not big enough for ZoS to invest in a server afaik

and yet they advertise here despite performance being pretty awful.

LashanW

WySoSirius wrote: »

The player base for Oceania is just not big enough for ZoS to invest in a server afaik

Why do you think that is? Because the nearest server is EU and that is pure garbage. A lot of my Asian friends didn't like ESO because of the lag. They are not casual players, they like to play competitively and the lag is a major disadvantage.

DreamyLu

I can share the information I have from my main MMO where the same issue is raised regularly again and again: a SEA (with or without OCX) server is for most MMOs out of question, due to all the different regulations from each of the countries. It's close to impossible to manage.

Danikat

DreamyLu wrote: »

I can share the information I have from my main MMO where the same issue is raised regularly again and again: a SEA (with or without OCX) server is for most MMOs out of question, due to all the different regulations from each of the countries. It's close to impossible to manage.

Are you able to share any more details? This is the first I've heard of regulations being a problem and I can't understand why people from Oceania or East Asia playing on a server based in a country there would be any different or more complicated legally than playing on one based in the USA or Europe like they can now.

The one exception might be mainland China, because I've heard they don't allow outside companies to run games or services in China, so it has to go through a 3rd party publisher and often requires a different server. But if that's the case they're not allowed to use servers based in the US or EU either so it wouldn't apply to any current ESO players.

kmontywrwb17_ESO

To those taking issue with "Southern Hemisphere" - a server in Hong Kong/Singapore for example would be 150ms faster than one from NA for those in the Southern Hemisphere (including Australia and NZ). It has the added benefit of being much closer to China as well (if the game is even played there). Singapore and HK for that reason are often the site of server architecture.

We're not talking geography here, but service distribution. *Anything* closer to SE Asia would be a boon. Come on MS, you can afford it.

Elsonso

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

We're not talking geography here, but service distribution. *Anything* closer to SE Asia would be a boon. Come on MS, you can afford it.

I am sure ZOS can afford it, but the question is whether it is worth it to spend the money. These servers are not cheap to build, run, and maintain. Are they going to get millions of new players, and dump trucks full of money? If that was the case, they would have already done it.

kargen27

At this point I'm guessing player/character migration could be a nightmare. You would have players that use the EU and players that use the NA server wanting transfers. Sure to be some conflicts along the way.

kmontywrwb17_ESO

Elsonso wrote: »

These servers are not cheap to build, run, and maintain. Are they going to get millions of new players, and dump trucks full of money? If that was the case, they would have already done it.

Amazon and Google pretty much own the international server infrastructure, and it's cheaper than you think to use their services. Nothing needs to be set up, it already exists. The benefit is it scales with demand as well. If a smallish company like Grinding Great Games can have multiple servers all over the planet for their ARPG, ZOS can provide one measley server cluster in SE Asia.

Elsonso

kmontywrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

These servers are not cheap to build, run, and maintain. Are they going to get millions of new players, and dump trucks full of money? If that was the case, they would have already done it.

Amazon and Google pretty much own the international server infrastructure, and it's cheaper than you think to use their services. Nothing needs to be set up, it already exists. The benefit is it scales with demand as well. If a smallish company like Grinding Great Games can have multiple servers all over the planet for their ARPG, ZOS can provide one measley server cluster in SE Asia.

ESO does not run on cloud services. Each megaserver is an on-prem dedicated server, and that is never* going to change. The game was literally designed to run on that hardware.

(* "Never" in the sense that I can't see any reason for ZOS to completely rebuild the game as a cloud hosted game. I can't see that it would make financial sense, at all. I'm not even sure they could remake ESO as a cloud hosted game. )

kmontywrwb17_ESO

Elsonso wrote: »

ESO does not run on cloud services. Each megaserver is an on-prem dedicated server, and that is never* going to change. The game was literally designed to run on that hardware.

Actually Elsonso, I'm pretty sure yours is the definitive answer. Which means ESO won't be my main game for long, as a 250ms+ ping is just too intrusive to play.

Sadly.

Crazyprophet

I'd really like one to be honest, as an Eastern Aussie. But the lag isn't so horrible as to make playing impossible, at least from a PvE perspective. It'd be hard to keep up in PvP though.

RevJJ

I’m based in SE Asia and although I would love a regional server, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

The game is perfectly playable, although playing with higher ping definitely has disadvantages.

I don’t think I’ve ever played with a ping lower than 300 and the only times that really causes an issue is in pvp (specifically battlegrounds games like Chaosball - I’m never able to pick up the ball before anyone else, even if I’m there before them on my screen). Other times it’s been annoying, but manageable. The last fight on vSCP becomes an RNG fight because the moment the telegraph for the poison cones comes up you need to already be out of it or you’re dead. Doesn’t matter if your screen shows you dodge rolled out of it and are on the other side of the platform - computer says no.

Keeping that in mind - the game may say that my ping is 300 but in reality it sometimes feels more like 3 full seconds delay instead of 0.3 seconds. Still playable though.

kmontywrwb17_ESO

RevJJ wrote: »

The game is perfectly playable, although playing with higher ping definitely has disadvantages.

I played WoW for years from Australia with a 300ms ping. Actually everything we played had at least a 300ms ping. Then I moved to Arizona for a couple of years and had a <50ms ping. It was a completely different game to play.

Low ping and almost zero input lag is a massive QoL issue. Once you've experienced reasonable ping it's very difficult to justify games that only offer high pings. I literally choose games now by whether or not they have local/near local servers. Had I remembered ESO didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have resubbed.