Server locations.

I am assuming servers will be in place for both the US and EU. However, it has been a long term worry of mine that there will be no servers for the oceanic and Asian regions.

It has already been confirmed that a lot of the stuff will be done server-side, and with this reliance on Internet connection, I feel that people in those regions (such as myself ) will lose out, due to location and slower connection speeds.

Forged alliance forever has relitively large AU community, however servers are not a issue here as the game is peer to peer and runs no differently as long as pings are under 450.

Keeping in mind, that not everyone has fast Internet, do you think this will be an issue, and how to you think this should be handled?

EDIT: I'm talking about UBER run servers here as there no guarantee of 3rd part/private servers having the capacity...ect

A couple of us asked about AU servers in another thread and IIRC Uber said they would probably run some AU servers for us . But really for something like PA I doubt pings are going to be too important to play well so even if there aren't AU servers we shouldn't have any problems on US or even UK servers.

hmmm, i realise a New Zealand server is unrealistic, but i'm hoping a Sydney server at some point?

assuming that EC2 is a viable place for Uber to spin up servers

Uber has stated that they're aware of Oceania's problem, and are considering servers for us too. It comes down to economics, and demand. I expect there'll be one or two run by GA or Hypernia.


There's also the opportunity for the community to host their own dedicated servers too. A few people on here (granted they're from the USA) have said they're going to run whole clusters of servers.

Yeah, Sydney is the best place for servers in Australia, most of the cables that connect Australia to the rest of the world go through Sydney so it has a lot of the infrastructure there to handle lots of server clusters and it's relatively centralized for the AU/NZ region. So I think it's a pretty safe bet a lot of Australian PA servers will be based in Sydney hopefully including ones run by Uber (though if they were in Melbourne instead I wouldn't be complaining ).

I think Melbourne would be a good compromise because it's closer to Perth. I don't actually know how Australia's network topology is set up, so I'm just speculating.

It's not an MMO. When they say server they mean host. Which can be dedicated or listen.

Ping to a master server really doesn't matter. So your server list arrived 500 ms later.... big deal.

And that's why you can run your own server

Hey, there's a way you can guarantee AU servers. Just make the game explode there. Get your whole workplace/school/college/street/boat yelling to play the game and you're done

Not that I imagine ping will be too important even ingame. It's an RTS after all.

In a RTS ping isn't very important, if you have a stable internet connection and you connect to a server on the other side of the world the ping shouldn't be above 400-500 in any case. If you can get used to it, it shouldn't be a problem.

Sure I assume ping 35 will feel better than 500 but its not an fps or moba so it doesn't make a big difference :mrgreen:

That's what I would assume, however we do not know if this is the case, and people with high pings have a long history of getting kicked from games, by people who do not understand.

On the subject of hosting your own servers:

Uber has already said that a regular computer/will have trouble running larger maps. So yes, I am talking about dedicated servers.

That's because with the usual peer to peer system, one person lagging slowed down everybody else.

PA will have a server-client structure that doesn't have this issue. If you lag it only hurts yourself, everybody else is still able to play a smooth game.

Also, since the host is the server and doesn't necessarly even have to be involved with the game being setup itself, its not even necessary for ping to be known for anybody else besides yourself. So its not guaranteed that other people will even have knowledge of it.

With this system, even if you would lag heavily its unlikely that other players would even realize that, besides the fact they may think you react a bit slow.

I'm pretty sure that by larger maps they meant 16+ players, I'd be very surprised if a regular (but high end) computer could not handle an 8 player game which means that the more common 2-4 player games could be hosted by players so if for some reason high pings bother you then you should still be able to find people hosting local games where you can play with a low ping.

Once the National Broadband Network is complete, it won't matter where in Australia they are.

Not sure I can wait that long.

Official line is 3+ years til roll out in my area. But it'll blow out past that.
Not to mention it'll happen even slower once the Libs kick Labor out of office in September.

>.< Server reliant doesnt sound good. I extremely pissed off with Simcity 2013 server BS and all.

I hope PA system functions differently...

How does nobody know what a server is and how many times does it have to be said before they read?

PA is not an mmo.

Think FPS server.

The NBN isn't going to make too much difference to pings, most of the major data cables between the states are already fiber, so data is already traveling at full speed for the majority of it's trip anyway, if you live far from the exchange in a rural town your pings might get 5-20ms better, but for most Australians the difference in ping times will barely be noticeable, the main benefit of the NBN is the increased bandwidth and range it provides. Of course if Abbott gets into power you can kiss those bandwidth benefits goodbye unless you are willing to pay several thousand dollars to have the fiber connect to your house.

Its not similar. Think about it this way:

How about you could host your own sim city server. You could even have the computer you're playing sim city on to be the server, so no internet connection is even required.

Doesn't sound so bad anymore, does it? :mrgreen:

(Nervertheless, the new sim city sucks anyway. Tiny maps, coupled with a broken sim. Not to forget that they utterly lied about the reason for it needing a server connection, since it runs just fine without a server.)

Because even with FPS nowadays you aren't guaranteed to get the server software to run your own. Server sadly nowadays most often means constant internet connection required.