Regionalisation and the international network

[palmer_eldritch]

I'm part of a small community of friends who have been playing games together since UO. People have played Eve together, SWG, EQ2, a NWN server a few of us ran, and WoW. None of *us* care if the other people we play with are in the US, Europe, Australia or whatever. Every so often some new shiny thing comes along and it is impossible, or at least very hard, to play together because of regionalisation - games which force you to play on European or North American servers based on where you live.

The latest is LotR online. Our message boards so far have had two "I'm coming to join you in Middle Earth!" messages which were followed a day later by "oh I can't because I'm in the wrong continent". I guarantee this will hasten the exodus to Conan when it comes along (assuming Funcom aren't doing the same).

I just want to say that regionalisation sucks.

[schild]

I disagree with what you said. When a lack of regionalisation results in a language barrier (read: Italians in Star Trek, some of the Japanese folks in FFXI, many smaller games), I always wish regionalisation in place.

That's to say, it's a "you can't please all people" situation.

Double Edged Sword. Not going away.

[Strazos]

Companies should create "soft" regionalization then, so that you will default to your regions servers when you go to select one, but you have the option to play outside of your region anyway.

When I played EQ and ended up on Karana after a transfer, I didn't have too much of a problem communicating with the French when I would choose to play at an odd time (for EST).

I imagine it could suck if, say, F13 decided to all jump into a game, but our European friends were hard-locked out of the server we were on. The "risk" of someone running into a language barrier isn't a compelling enough reason for me to vote in favor of hard-locked region servers.

[Margalis]

The integration of players in FFXI is one of the best things about it. I've never heard a single actual FFXI player complain about it.

One nice thing about it is that there are people on at all hours because the Japanese timetable is so shifted from the US, and now there are French, German and British players as well. Also most of the Japanese are very helpful and friendly. FFXI has a ton of auto-translate features that can help you get by in any normal situation, there is really no problem grouping with Japanese players. The auto-translate will take common phrases and turn them into the language the player can understand, so you can do something like:

{Garliage Citidel} {Experience Points} {Party} {Do you need it?}
{Raise} J-7 {Can I have it} {Thank you}

It is also amusing to see what players come up with, for example "fishing" means "pulling" and bathroom break people will say Bio Break where "bio" is the name of a common FF spell.

[Bunk]

I hate it personally. The group I played with in AC1 included five Belgians, a Swede, an Aussie, four Canadians, several Americans, and a couple from Arkansas.

It really sucked trying to get together with those guys in other games. I enjoyed the fact they our guild was made up so many diverse cultures. If language is an issue, then fine, "suggest" shards for certain areas, but don't bar people from playing together.

[palmer_eldritch]

You can have servers for specific languages. UO had a Japanese server and I went to take a look once - everyone spoke Japanese, even though others were able to get on it. (At least they spoke some strange language). On the LotR EU servers, I only ever hear English on the English language server and I guess if I went to the French or German server I would only hear French or German. I don't see how my friends from the US benefit from being banned from playing on the same English language server as me.

[Samwise]

I always assumed region restrictions were due to latency concerns.

[Strazos]

It should be up to the user if they want to put up with the lag.

[JoeTF]

I always assumed region restrictions were due to latency concerns.

In Quake, yeah.
MMORPG, nope.

[damijin]

It doesn't get any better than prepping for a raid with a bunch of drunk Germans singing Schnappi on vent.

Down with region restrictions! Hell, down with region suggestions as well, I want the biggest mix of cultures that I can possibly stuff into one location :D

[SnakeCharmer]

For some reason, I thought that server regionalization had something to do with content laws and licensing agreements in and with various countries....

[Trippy]

It can if the game is operated by somebody else in another territory. E.g. Codemasters doesn't want Europeans playing on the Turbine NA servers cause that's revenue they are losing out on.

[SnakeCharmer]

And that too :P

[Strazos]

Would buying the NA version of the game solve the server problem?

[Trippy]

Would buying the NA version of the game solve the server problem?

Presumably only if they have a way to pay that doesn't involve revealing that they are in Europe.

[pants]

Being in Australia, which invariably means we play on US-hosted servers, latency is very rarely a problem - you are more likely to have latency problems from an overcrowded or overloaded server than the trans-Pacific ping causing problems.  I do think its important to have a suggested server for population issues, playing Australian peak times on a US-dominated server sucks due to it being a ghost town.  But I agree that being forced to pick a local server and thus balkanising your user base does suck heaps.  And its gotta be due to local licencing agreements.

[Koyasha]

The integration of players in FFXI is one of the best things about it. I've never heard a single actual FFXI player complain about it.

Well, then I'm going to have to correct you on that.  I played FFXI for quite a while and even after these many years I maintain an active account because I go back periodically, not wanting to see my characters deleted.  The integration of the servers was an interesting idea, and partly cool, but in my opinion it's basically a problem.  While basic ideas and such are communicable through the translator, it's not possible to really get to know someone.  Combined with the very strict party system and need for parties to perform with a higher level of competence than is generally found in other MMOG's in order to get much of any progress at all, my parties in FFXI have always basically been hour after hour of camping monsters with very very little conversation going on.  In EQ, on the other hand, while I sat around doing pretty much the same thing - pulling monsters for hours on end - there was generally a considerable amount of conversation between me and my friends or the random strangers that I would pick up, because the vast majority of people on the server understood and spoke English.

This is not to say, however, that I support forced separation of the servers.  It should absolutely be up to an individual as to which server they play on.  Certain servers can be for certain areas/languages, and if someone from the United States wants to play on the Korean, European, or Australian server, they should be able to, and vice versa.  However, setting up an environment in which the majority of the people can communicate fluently and easily with one another - without the limited nature of such things as the FFXI translator - is important.  If, in the future, computer translation becomes sufficient so that relatively normal conversations can be held through a translated system, then and only then will I think forced integration of multiple languages should be the proper course of action.

I have little doubt that I would play FFXI considerably more, if there were an English server where the majority of the population spoke English so that in any group I get into, the probability that everyone will speak the same language is high.  Or, if I were fluent in Japanese and could communicate with both groups of people.

[Jayce]

Would buying the NA version of the game solve the server problem?

Presumably only if they have a way to pay that doesn't involve revealing that they are in Europe.

It also sorta sucks that if your combined US/EU guild breaks up, you are stuck with Americans.  It's probably necessary but I am in agreement that regionalization sucks.

[Zetor]

I can relate, my guild is pretty much the same thing -- people from all over the world (Malaysia, US, Canada, UK, Denmark, Hungary, Norway), gaming together (or trying to) for 10 years. So far we've been able to bypass most attempts at regionalization (technically non-US/aussie players playing on the WOW US servers would be grounds for banzoring... we haven't been hit yet after 2 and a half years, and I've been paying with a Hungarian credit card all this time except for the first month), but I agree that it sucks. NCSoft seems to handle this the best, with Guildwars and COH both buyable online, with the customer getting to choose their region, then being able to switch that region later (a limited number of times). Oh and yeah, we do all speak English, except for the occasional drunken singing in Vent.

On a slightly related note, latency IS a problem. If any of you tried pvp'ing in WOW with a 700 ping with your enemies having sub-100 pings, you'd know what I'm talking about. Still, I believe it should be up to the customer to put up with that if they choose to. It's pretty much only a problem in pvp, and very rare ("reflex-based") pve boss fights.


-- Z.

[DraconianOne]

I hate it personally. The group I played with in AC1 included five Belgians, a Swede, an Aussie, four Canadians, several Americans, and a couple from Arkansas.

Does Arkansas get it's own dedicated regionalized servers?  Sounds like a good idea to me!  :-D

[Phred]

The integration of players in FFXI is one of the best things about it. I've never heard a single actual FFXI player complain about it.

Well, then I'm going to have to correct you on that.  I played FFXI for quite a while and even after these many years I maintain an active account because I go back periodically, not wanting to see my characters deleted.  The integration of the servers was an interesting idea, and partly cool, but in my opinion it's basically a problem.  While basic ideas and such are communicable through the translator, it's not possible to really get to know someone.  Combined with the very strict party system and need for parties to perform with a higher level of competence than is generally found in other MMOG's in order to get much of any progress at all, my parties in FFXI have always basically been hour after hour of camping monsters with very very little conversation going on.  In EQ, on the other hand, while I sat around doing pretty much the same thing - pulling monsters for hours on end - there was generally a considerable amount of conversation between me and my friends or the random strangers that I would pick up, because the vast majority of people on the server understood and spoke English.

I don't know if that is strictly blamable on the language barrier. I know what you mean about EQ but I noticed a lot less chatter in WoW groups as well. I don't know why, pace to quick, younger crowd = worse typists or whatever but there was definately a noticable difference.

[WindupAtheist]

I play UO on the Europa server.  It's less full of asshats than Great Lakes was, and everyone has a better grasp of English.  Including the Scandinavians.  The timezone thing is a bitch sometimes, but screw it.  I'm never going back.

[eldaec]

'Hard Regionalisation' does indeed suck ever so hard, even if it is inevitable in the short to medium term for business reasons. I don't mean profit, I mean the practical impact of trying to run a service with international subscriptions and then allocate funding and resources and workload to any number of separate companies. Hard regionalisation allows the whole thing to run on a arms-length licensed franchise basis - which is so much easier, even if it does suck for customers.

The Hard Regionalised setup is an extra special pain in the ass for EU english speakers in US designed games, as it tends to divide the european english speaking population about 50-50 between US and EU servers, gimping both in the process.

I play UO on the Europa server.  It's less full of asshats than Great Lakes was, and everyone has a better grasp of English.  Including the Scandinavians.  The timezone thing is a bitch sometimes, but screw it.  I'm never going back.

All MMOGs should do more to label servers 'recommended for region X language Y'. And an EU English speaking is usually fantastic because you get a majority working in their 2nd language.

1) People who speak a 2nd language are slightly less likely to be asshats.
2) People speaking their 2nd language are more likely to be polite, and construct actual sentences.





Also, playing on an English server, and putting up with English -> French/German/Italian patch translation delays, and paying for translation you don't use = RAGE.

And I don't generally mind playing a game with armour and colour spelt colonial style. But if you are going to throw in a 2 month translation day, and make me pay the same as the people who want everything translated, the least you could do is throw in a few extraneous 'u's on the English server.

[Big Gulp]

I imagine it could suck if, say, F13 decided to all jump into a game, but our European friends were hard-locked out of the server we were on. The "risk" of someone running into a language barrier isn't a compelling enough reason for me to vote in favor of hard-locked region servers.

Yep.  I work midnights, so I tend to keep the same schedule on weekends that I do throughout the week.  This means that I'm on XBox Live gaming with people from Europe and Asia, and honestly any language barriers are really no big deal.

And if MS can do it in a system where lag is a factor because we're playing twitch games, and everyone is communicating by voice, then MMO's really have no good reason for doing this.

[eldaec]

For some reason, I thought that server regionalisation had something to do with content laws and licensing agreements in and with various countries....

Content laws don't drive the regionalisation of any major MMOG we discuss here. The whole OMG GERMANZ H8 TEH FREE SPEECH!!1! thing is exactly as much nonsense as I would hope you would think. And even if this was causing a problem, most companies can easily get around content laws with simple art swaps (swapping out skeletons for China product is probably the most commonly cited example).

It does have to do with licensing agreements - but only because the companies involved choose to write the licensing agreements in that way (which they do because it makes their lives much simpler).

... latency ....

I've never played a MMOG (including PS) based in any non-European region and had latency be a problem.

If you have latency problems in MMOG gameplay it is because of problems with your ISP and your connection.

Anyway, even if this were relevant, you wouldn't need hard regionalisation to fix it. Nothing stops you basing servers in more than one location and letting customers pick and choose (like MS and SOE do).

And if MS can do it in a system where lag is a factor because we're playing twitch games, and everyone is communicating by voice, then MMO's really have no good reason for doing this.

The key thing of course, is that MS (like SOE) is one single global corporation.

That means they can afford to be relaxed about who receives what share of which subscription, and which organisation is responsible for what support process, and it means they have a global hosting and network organisation they can get to run it all.

This is entirely about business organisation vs customer convenience.

It has nothing directly to do with laws, latency, language, or game design.


Publishers generally seem to believe that customers do not value being able to play on intercontinental servers enough to make it worth the aggravation it causes to their business structure.

[Jayce]

My guess is the story goes something like this:

It's not in our core skillset to know what we need to do to localize this to a given geographic area outside the US.  Therefore, at launch, instead of spending tons of money to set up an international datacenter, consulting and retaining local lawyers, setting up local GM support, and of course hiring a fulltime employee onshore to coordinate it all, we'll just go into partnership with a local company to do all the above and give them a cut of the subs.

Then as someone mentioned above, the partner doesn't look kindly on losing local revenue by wholesale defection to US servers by "its" playerbase.  I can think of ways to alleviate that problem, but I would imagine that they just don't think enough people care to bother.

[Venkman]

It's not in our core skillset to know what we need to do to localize this to a given geographic area outside the US.

But I consider that a cop-out. It needs to be a core competency for any company hoping to launch a global product, of any type, much less an MMO. It's additional resources, but you scale the investment of those resources against the ROI of that region.

It's about everything from the content to how money is collected to how the game is supported in general. You don't need to co-locate GMs in a country, but you need to be damned sure you have people who understand the language (including much more than just being able to read it).

And companies would be foolish to not look into this. You can get X in one area, but X++ by integrating many others. WoW is a case in point. Half of it's already record-breaking numbers come from a country most MMO providers both prior and since don't support. And China was already a big area for MMOs prior (justifying Vivendi's interest in going there).

[eldaec]

But I consider that a cop-out. It needs to be a core competency for any company hoping to launch a global product, of any type, much less an MMO.

[patronising business 101]

Why?

If you are a relatively small organisation, like say Mythic pre-EA, why is it necessarily true that giving up some of the advantages of being small is worth the risk and reward of managing the presentation of the product in all markets?

Fuck, McDonalds didn't think it was worth it as they expanded from town to town. Why is it necessarily true for MMOGs?

WoW tells us nothing universal in this area.

Whether your product will be a hit or miss is pretty much secondary. You can structure a licensing deal for any product in order to reflect any expected level of success and to move any amount of the risk either onto the licensor or the licensee. The question is solely whether you think you want to be (for example) running customer service centers in China, which is pretty much an entirely different skillset to developing computer games. If you happen to be EA, MS or Sony, then you need to do all that shit anyway, so it's more likely that running it yourself is more effective.

Saying MMOG producers should seek to manage their own hosting and customer service in foreign markets is no more automatically true then saying they should always run their own data center vs outsource, or saying they should run their own canteen, or always develop their own graphics engine. You work out where your team has capabilities that give you an advantage, then you do that, and farm out the rest so you have more time managing the bits you are good at.


Companies tend do well if they work out what they are good at, stick to doing that, and do it as well as it can be done.

Companies that start by deciding what they wish they were good at, then start building non-core activities almost as big as the core stuff....  not so well.

[/patronising business 101]

[Trippy]

Blizzard did none of the heavy lifting to get WoW running in China, which is why they (as in Vivendi) get very little income, relatively speaking, from their partnership with The9. So they fail Darniaq's core competency test as well.

[damijin]

It's about everything from the content to how money is collected to how the game is supported in general. You don't need to co-locate GMs in a country, but you need to be damned sure you have people who understand the language (including much more than just being able to read it).

Hmm, I somewhat disagree. Lineage 2 has always been very popular in Europe, in fact the NA servers are probably more popular in Europe than they are in NA. Two European servers have been launched since the start of the game and *still* on most of the east coast US servers have a good 35-50% of the population as European. Yet, nearly the entire GM system is outsourced to India for the lowest tier customer service, and I have doubts that they have a translator for every language who plays the game (Chinese, Russian, and Greek all having large populations, with South American nations growing in size recently. French, German, Scandinavian... we have 'em all.)

Basically, everyone knows that the game is in English, and if you're going to get something from support, you need to ask in English. Everyone who plays the game knows someone who knows someone who is bilingual. Every 'language x' clan has at least one translator, but usually has at least 6 or more. It seems to work fine. Not ideal, but you don't need teams of people to handle languages and regions within one company to allow those regions to play at their own risk of being ignored by CS. A lot of people don't care if they can't get customer service, they just want to play the damn game.

[Venkman]

Saying MMOG producers should seek to manage their own hosting and customer service in foreign markets is no more automatically true then saying they should always run their own data center vs outsource, or saying they should run their own canteen, or always develop their own graphics engine.

I wasn't saying that though :) Where I was going was that companies could be thinking global first, instead of as an oh-gee-maybe-we-could after the fact. Why can't companies work out the financial relationship that allows for players to play on any server? They still need to launch the game from their specific region, and the operation in that specific region can still measure this. There's of course a lot of variables (content, local laws, ISP support, politics), but some have more actively sought to solve these issues than others.

I used WoW as one example, but it's not the best one because the game is about as compartmentalized as they come. Eve would be a better example. Maybe Guild Wars as well.

Otherwise, I agree with most of everything else. Focus on what you feel you can deliver after pushing the envelope just enough to be innovative is the more stable way to ensure salaries and whatnot.

Blizzard did none of the heavy lifting to get WoW running in China, which is why they (as in Vivendi) get very little income, relatively speaking, from their partnership with The9. So they fail Darniaq's core competency test as well.

Actually, I don't think they fail. They just handled it a different way, a way few others probably could because their related brands (Blizzard, Warcraft) are so strong.

Not doing the heavy lifting while collecting what amounts to free cash is a panacea of out-licensing.

They structured a number of different relationships to pull off WoW globalization, as befitted the needs for Vivendi as well as the local territories. They didn't seem to cede a lot of IP control either, so I'd say they did a great job.

[eldaec]

Saying MMOG producers should seek to manage their own hosting and customer service in foreign markets is no more automatically true then saying they should always run their own data center vs outsource, or saying they should run their own canteen, or always develop their own graphics engine.

I wasn't saying that though :) Where I was going was that companies could be thinking global first, instead of as an oh-gee-maybe-we-could after the fact. Why can't companies work out the financial relationship that allows for players to play on any server? They still need to launch the game from their specific region, and the operation in that specific region can still measure this. There's of course a lot of variables (content, local laws, ISP support, politics), but some have more actively sought to solve these issues than others.

Ok, I agree that they could do this - and I'd like companies to take this approach from my selfish perspective as a customer with an interest in intercontinental servers.

However, from the publisher's perspective, they are asking the simple cost/benefit decision on whether the extra aggravation of building a more complex relationship with their business partner is worth the benefit of possibly offering consumers intercontinental servers.

If your game isn't aiming at the very hardcore (EVE), or you don't already have a global reach that is cheap and easy to exploit (SOE), I seriously doubt that it's worth the aggravation.


I'm not sure people are saying 'oh-gee-it's-hard' after the fact, it's almost always seemed like a feature that appears on lists of aspirations early on, but as soon as it gets challenged with the hard 'what will take?' questions, it disappears pretty fast. I think this is the right decision most of time. Unfortunately.

[Jayce]

Saying MMOG producers should seek to manage their own hosting and customer service in foreign markets is no more automatically true then saying they should always run their own data center vs outsource, or saying they should run their own canteen, or always develop their own graphics engine.

I wasn't saying that though :) Where I was going was that companies could be thinking global first, instead of as an oh-gee-maybe-we-could after the fact. Why can't companies work out the financial relationship that allows for players to play on any server? They still need to launch the game from their specific region, and the operation in that specific region can still measure this. There's of course a lot of variables (content, local laws, ISP support, politics), but some have more actively sought to solve these issues than others.

Ok, I agree that they could do this - and I'd like companies to take this approach from my selfish perspective as a customer with an interest in intercontinental servers.

However, from the publisher's perspective, they are asking the simple cost/benefit decision on whether the extra aggravation of building a more complex relationship with their business partner is worth the benefit of possibly offering consumers intercontinental servers.

If your game isn't aiming at the very hardcore (EVE), or you don't already have a global reach that is cheap and easy to exploit (SOE), I seriously doubt that it's worth the aggravation.


I'm not sure people are saying 'oh-gee-it's-hard' after the fact, it's almost always seemed like a feature that appears on lists of aspirations early on, but as soon as it gets challenged with the hard 'what will take?' questions, it disappears pretty fast. I think this is the right decision most of time. Unfortunately.

I agree with eldaec.

One additional thing that may influence the decision: they know that many players are cheating on the arrangement, and are not actively worried about it. 

I'm sure that in deference to their business partners, if they somehow find out about an instance of it, they'd have to take action, but it seems to me that there is a de facto "don't ask, don't tell" policy in place.

[Venkman]

However, from the publisher's perspective, they are asking the simple cost/benefit decision on whether the extra aggravation of building a more complex relationship with their business partner is worth the benefit of possibly offering consumers intercontinental servers

It depends on the level of added complexity, both technically and as a business partnership. But I don't think a business discussion would happen if it were just to support this feature either. That would just be one result of having thought of your global playerbase as a whole, rather than as a broad quilt of compartmentalized sub-societies. Of course, just doing that is probably a hell of a lot harder than builting a thousand instances of the same game, which is why there are, what, two uniserver games and that's it? :)

I also agree with Jayce. As long as there's not some fascist IP-blocking thing going on, the don't-ask-don't-tell thing seems to allow people enough freedoms to jump. Maybe this is nothing more than a solution looking for a problem...

[eldaec]

...and most of them aren't even 'don't ask don't tell'.

With the exception of WoW, the major mmogs say quite openly that anyone is welcome to buy and subscribe to the US or EU or any other version, the contract would just limit which the retail outlets sell which product and how each side markets the game.