HOLY CRAP, guys.
The majority of you are talking out of your behind. I've read the last three pages and this is what I'm seeing:
Now fracking listen up. I've done a couple years of MMO game administration on servers spanning thousands of users and I would like to think that I have a little bit of insight for all of you.
To figure out why SoE is WRONG on their decision to limit players on to where they can go, lets enquire...
Where Do Players Come From?
Planetside 2 players will be coming from a variety of games, namely these for starters:
- Planetside
- Team Fortress 2
- Call of Duty
- Battlefield
- All Points Bulletin
- WWII Online
These people have been gaining friends and aquaintances on their Steam friends, Origin friends & Outfits over, for some, the
last 12 years. NONE of these games have restrictions on who they can play with. It doesn't matter how successful or amazing a game is, my experience has provent that
players will not play a game as often if their friends are forced to not play with them due to a locking mechanism unless they have exclusive privilege. People who don't dedicate actual time or establish personal connection to their game because of their friends being unable to play are also
less likely to buy from a cash shop. In fact,
I don't think there has been a first person shooter to be region locked before on the PC. Please verify.
Region locking segregates people which effects the bottom line.
Are There Reasons for Region-Locking?
This is a touch question to answer. It depends on the following situations:
- Competance of the Coders
- Executive Decisions
- Crude Content
- Governmental Influences
- Deployment
With
incompetent coders, you will need a region lock. If the netcode is bad or requires low pings because of the inability to fancy footwork the net code, be it client, server, or both hit detection or what have you, region-locking will be necessary. Look at the game Vindictus for shitty net code and a region-lock requirement.
With
crappy executive decisions, you will need a region lock. Usually bad deals with other companies for sales or distribution will necessitate a region lock. SoE is suffering from this at the moment.
Crude Content may necessitate a region lock. A map shaped like a nazi symbol or other CRITICAL portions of a game (not textures or blood - they can be changed per location) may require a region lock.
Government Influence may necessitate a region lock. China, with their firewalls of death, bring pings easily to 500+. You cannot work around that. You must region lock.
Putting all these together, the general deployment of the game may require a region lock. If one of the above systems fails in some way, a region lock will likely be necessary.
In conclusion,
region locks are for companies who cannot do something competently and have to sacrifice to release their game. Of course, this sacrifice can significantly influence the bottom line and effect the game from that point on until its inevitable demise. Any company who actually does this intentionally for none of the reasons above is positively vile and equally stupid.