For your ping. NA always, its closer to you.
(Australian here and it why i choose it).

No transfers were a once off thing

Plus if you do choose NA, i run a large a oceanic based guild. You would be more than welcome, just send me a message
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/367351/brotherhood-of-bogans-are-recruiting-australian-new-zealand-end-game-all-content-guild-ps4-na#latest

I started out on the NA server, then found out a couple of months later I would be moving to Germany, so I switched to EU. From time to time I go back to NA to feed horses and whatnot, on the off-chance I will eventually end up playing there again. I will share my impressions. Keep in mind they are entirely subjective and not necessarily indicative of anything other than my own personal experience between the two servers.

Population Scale:
I see no major differences at all between NA and EU. Both populations seem robust, healthy, and have players in all expected areas at any given time of day. This varies slightly based on the world clock, of course - prime time for each server is off by 6-9 hours, but I play at all times of day and neither one seems more populated than the other. Perhaps this is partially due to zone instancing, but I doubt it.

Lag/Latency:
When I was stateside and playing on the EU server, I never noticed any real lag issues at all. I was using COMCAST at home and while their service is generally crap, it wasn't problematic aside from temporary outages that seem to happen with any major ISP. After physically relocating to Germany, no real difference was experienced for me. I connected fine. I had no noticeable delays, etc. HOWEVER, when connecting back to the NA server, there was definitely noticeable lag. This was worsened during North American prime time hours - the higher the (visible) population in an area, the more sluggish my connection seemed to be. This ebbed and flowed, but since most of my playtime was simply horse-feeding maintenance, it was no bother.

Lately though, because of the increasing chance of going back to the states in a year, I've been working on characters over there. The lag isn't that bad for me, though far worse than when I was in the states connecting to Europe. I suspect this has to do with the quality of my local ISP. German internet really sucks. Really, really sucks. My best in-game friend is an Aussie and what she has constantly described (lag/latency, huge delays in bar-swapping, etc.) is very much the same for me when the connection is bad.

Cultural Differences:
Now this next part is probably the most subjective, so take it as you will. I'm a pretty open-minded kind of person. I treat others with respect. I expect the same in turn. I would be considered "sensitive" by many, or "thoughtful" if it's not being treated in a derogatory manner. There are huge cultural differences between the PS4 player base on each server.

Rarely do I find extremely racist comments being made in zone chat on the EU server. I see it daily when I'm on NA. Rarely do I experience blatant elitism on the EU server. It seems to be rampant on NA. Player skills on EU seem to be better as a whole - it would appear that the players on PS4 EU actually spend some amount of time learning how to play the game and seeing how things work. I can safely say (again, from my experience) that this does not appear to be the case with NA players.

Maybe I'm just unlucky and have terrible RNG with social interactions, but there really is an obvious cultural difference between NA and EU players. I wish we could turn off individual channels with the chat interface. I would love to be able to see what my guild mates are saying or not miss whispers, but that also means being blasted with xenophobic walls of text in zone chat. It seems you can't have one without the other.

Takeaway:
In the end I plan to continue playing on EU when I go back to America. Not because of the server performance or connection speed, but because of the culture. I hope my local internet is good enough so that I don't have terrible lag when I go back, but I would almost rather deal with the lag than to deal with the immature attitudes I see so frequently. I have made some great friends on EU and don't want to lose those connections. Not so much on NA. I know a couple of people on NA and I'd just as soon keep in touch with them elsewhere rather than subject myself to the lower median maturity level the NA player base seems to demonstrate.

Again, entirely subjective feedback. If you're connecting to either server from the Oceanic side, I would say test drive both of them and see which performs better. There are good people on each, so it really gets down to personal preference on which one appeals to you more. Plus, if you're not bothered by the zone chat, the connection is the only real factor to consider.

You did mention being a "foreign player" though, so for that reason perhaps EU would be more to your liking. While America is a "melting pot" in theory, EU has an innate tolerance for other cultures simply by virtue of so many cultures being geographically close to one another.

Best of luck!

Bhaal5 wrote: »

For your ping. NA always, its closer to you.
(Australian here and it why i choose it).

No transfers were a once off thing

Plus if you do choose NA, i run a large a oceanic based guild. You would be more than welcome, just send me a message
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/367351/brotherhood-of-bogans-are-recruiting-australian-new-zealand-end-game-all-content-guild-ps4-na#latest

Thanks for the invitation! For now the big advantage of us sever is the latency feels better than on eu sever, but I can't find "show latency" opinion in settings so still figuring out it...

LadyLethalla wrote: »

I have played on both but I prefer EU for... reasons.

When I did play on NA - which was Feb-April 2016 I don't recall any serious lag issues - but then, at that point I hadn't even done my first Vet dungeon. Certainly never noticed any significant lag on things like dolmens.

Yeah so now the latency first

geonsocal wrote: »

did you just say americans are jerks...

hahahahahahahahaha...that's funny...maybe a little sad too, cuz, it's probably true...

in defense of the NA server - we do have a bunch canadian players...there pretty cool at least

@geonsocal:

I guess I did say that in a kinda roundabout, passive-aggressive sort of way. I mean no true offense by it though. After all, I'm an American Jerk in the end, myself. I came to Europe to experience a different perspective, to regain my love of my own country, and managed to do both of those things over the past two years.

Sadly, however, in doing so I became even more acutely aware of how xenophobic Americans often are, or at least present themselves to be. Sure, it's behind the veil of internet anonymity in a virtual world, but it's still there. It's frustrating.

I like our upstairs neighbors in Canada though. They're nice and quiet.

VoodooPlatypus wrote: »

geonsocal wrote: »

did you just say americans are jerks...

hahahahahahahahaha...that's funny...maybe a little sad too, cuz, it's probably true...

in defense of the NA server - we do have a bunch canadian players...there pretty cool at least

@geonsocal:

I guess I did say that in a kinda roundabout, passive-aggressive sort of way. I mean no true offense by it though. After all, I'm an American Jerk in the end, myself. I came to Europe to experience a different perspective, to regain my love of my own country, and managed to do both of those things over the past two years.

Sadly, however, in doing so I became even more acutely aware of how xenophobic Americans often are, or at least present themselves to be. Sure, it's behind the veil of internet anonymity in a virtual world, but it's still there. It's frustrating.

I like our upstairs neighbors in Canada though. They're nice and quiet.

howdy @VoodooPlatypus

many years ago i had a chance to live in germany for a few years...beautiful little city called heilbronn...

traveling, and, or living in culturally diverse locations in america really do help to give a person a broader perspective of not only american culture (which can be radically different dependant on the location), and other cultures around the world...

I found your views so amusing - because they sounded so accurate...

VoodooPlatypus wrote: »

I started out on the NA server, then found out a couple of months later I would be moving to Germany, so I switched to EU. From time to time I go back to NA to feed horses and whatnot, on the off-chance I will eventually end up playing there again. I will share my impressions. Keep in mind they are entirely subjective and not necessarily indicative of anything other than my own personal experience between the two servers.

Population Scale:
I see no major differences at all between NA and EU. Both populations seem robust, healthy, and have players in all expected areas at any given time of day. This varies slightly based on the world clock, of course - prime time for each server is off by 6-9 hours, but I play at all times of day and neither one seems more populated than the other. Perhaps this is partially due to zone instancing, but I doubt it.

Lag/Latency:
When I was stateside and playing on the EU server, I never noticed any real lag issues at all. I was using COMCAST at home and while their service is generally crap, it wasn't problematic aside from temporary outages that seem to happen with any major ISP. After physically relocating to Germany, no real difference was experienced for me. I connected fine. I had no noticeable delays, etc. HOWEVER, when connecting back to the NA server, there was definitely noticeable lag. This was worsened during North American prime time hours - the higher the (visible) population in an area, the more sluggish my connection seemed to be. This ebbed and flowed, but since most of my playtime was simply horse-feeding maintenance, it was no bother.

Lately though, because of the increasing chance of going back to the states in a year, I've been working on characters over there. The lag isn't that bad for me, though far worse than when I was in the states connecting to Europe. I suspect this has to do with the quality of my local ISP. German internet really sucks. Really, really sucks. My best in-game friend is an Aussie and what she has constantly described (lag/latency, huge delays in bar-swapping, etc.) is very much the same for me when the connection is bad.

Cultural Differences:
Now this next part is probably the most subjective, so take it as you will. I'm a pretty open-minded kind of person. I treat others with respect. I expect the same in turn. I would be considered "sensitive" by many, or "thoughtful" if it's not being treated in a derogatory manner. There are huge cultural differences between the PS4 player base on each server.

Rarely do I find extremely racist comments being made in zone chat on the EU server. I see it daily when I'm on NA. Rarely do I experience blatant elitism on the EU server. It seems to be rampant on NA. Player skills on EU seem to be better as a whole - it would appear that the players on PS4 EU actually spend some amount of time learning how to play the game and seeing how things work. I can safely say (again, from my experience) that this does not appear to be the case with NA players.

Maybe I'm just unlucky and have terrible RNG with social interactions, but there really is an obvious cultural difference between NA and EU players. I wish we could turn off individual channels with the chat interface. I would love to be able to see what my guild mates are saying or not miss whispers, but that also means being blasted with xenophobic walls of text in zone chat. It seems you can't have one without the other.

Takeaway:
In the end I plan to continue playing on EU when I go back to America. Not because of the server performance or connection speed, but because of the culture. I hope my local internet is good enough so that I don't have terrible lag when I go back, but I would almost rather deal with the lag than to deal with the immature attitudes I see so frequently. I have made some great friends on EU and don't want to lose those connections. Not so much on NA. I know a couple of people on NA and I'd just as soon keep in touch with them elsewhere rather than subject myself to the lower median maturity level the NA player base seems to demonstrate.

Again, entirely subjective feedback. If you're connecting to either server from the Oceanic side, I would say test drive both of them and see which performs better. There are good people on each, so it really gets down to personal preference on which one appeals to you more. Plus, if you're not bothered by the zone chat, the connection is the only real factor to consider.

You did mention being a "foreign player" though, so for that reason perhaps EU would be more to your liking. While America is a "melting pot" in theory, EU has an innate tolerance for other cultures simply by virtue of so many cultures being geographically close to one another.

Best of luck!

thank you so much and sorry for replying late, was busy for playing other games on ps4 for a while...I chose NA sever now because i tried EU first and found the lag is sooooo unbearable which will eventually makes it to a single player game, but still thanks a lot for your insightful advices!!!