2 things that might be dealbreakers for us

[shaggles]

Hi!
I got a bit too hyped up about WAR, bought the collectors edition for me and my girlfriend but we stopped playing after a few weeks. I thought I'm done with mmos but Champions Online looks fantastic so I'm tempted to give it a try together with my girl.

I have two important questions before I get more into the game, read everything about it and get more excited :)

1. We live in Thailand and our pings to the US are around 300 - 400 ms (for wow servers for example). Where will the Champions Online servers probably be? Are Oceanic servers (in Australia) or maybe even server in Singapore planned?

2. This is the next question also regarding our bad ping. Do you think it is possible to create and play with a hero that has more or less 100% ranged abilities? If we have 300 - 400ms pings real time melee combat becomes a bit problematic.

It would be great if we could get some answers to these questions. We would love to play the game but I don't want to look forward to the release and then find out its unplayable for us.
Thank you!

[djshef]

Hi!
I got a bit too hyped up about WAR, bought the collectors edition for me and my girlfriend but we stopped playing after a few weeks. I thought I'm done with mmos but Champions Online looks fantastic so I'm tempted to give it a try together with my girl.

I have two important questions before I get more into the game, read everything about it and get more excited :)

1. We live in Thailand and our pings to the US are around 300 - 400 ms (for wow servers for example). Where will the Champions Online servers probably be? Are Oceanic servers (in Australia) or maybe even server in Singapore planned?

2. This is the next question also regarding our bad ping. Do you think it is possible to create and play with a hero that has more or less 100% ranged abilities? If we have 300 - 400ms pings real time melee combat becomes a bit problematic.

It would be great if we could get some answers to these questions. We would love to play the game but I don't want to look forward to the release and then find out its unplayable for us.
Thank you!

For the Servers, I believe Cryptic is West coast, so you wouldn't be too far away, even closer than the EU servers perhaps.

As for the ranged hero, you can chose any powers you want, so you can avoid melee powers if necessary.

[Schlateman]

I am pretty sure that cryptic is in mountain view CA which is near san jose

[shaggles]

Thanks for the quick replies!
Do you know of any Asian players of COH on US servers? Did they write about their experience?

[djshef]

I believe Mishii (http://forums.champions-online.com/member.php?u=141529), who is from Japan, used to play CoX. You could probably PM her and see if she has something to say about it.

[shaggles]

Great! One more question. As far as I know I just have to click to target an enemy and then the ranged power I want to use on it right?

If ranged powers have to be aimed in real time its game over for us. So far its sounds fantastic... I look forward to be a small shaddy zombie like half robot who has some nasty ranged dark magic like powers... or maybe ice powers... hehehe so many options!

[djshef]

Great! One more question. As far as I know I just have to click to target an enemy and then the ranged power I want to use on it right?

If ranged powers have to be aimed in real time its game over for us. So far its sounds fantastic... I look forward to be a small shaddy zombie like half robot who has some nasty ranged dark magic like powers... or maybe ice powers... hehehe so many options!

No real time Aiming. You're all set. ;)

[shaggles]

Time to get hyped up again. Oh how my girlfriend will looooooooooooooove the character creator and oh how I already have two more awesome heros in mind now.... Damnit! So many options! :D

[Sayyan]

My partner spent long enough with the City of Heroes character creator, this should be interesting.

[Darkfact]

I am pretty sure that cryptic is in mountain view CA which is near san jose

Cryptic is in Los Gatos, which i still close to San Jose.

[SandTiger42]

I believe your ping should be OK. I'm in Japan and am not so worried about a ping from the West coast of the US.

My problem is figuring out how to get the game. Shipping to here would be expensive, and take a few weeks. I don't even know of any places that would ship to Japan. I realllllly hope they have digital distribution at launch.

[Hexagar]

who said that server location is the same with the company's office location?

[T-Hawk]

For the Servers, I believe Cryptic is West coast, so you wouldn't be too far away, even closer than the EU servers perhaps.

In other words, the same 300-400 ms ping you got from other West Coast hosted games, like WoW. :(

I'm hoping that the game will be playable with that sort of lag, but what I'm hearing so far about 'blocking' incoming attacks doesn't give me much hope.

[shaggles]

I even played a rogue in WoW with 300 - 400ms and it worked ok. Sure here and then I screwed up my opener in PvP because my enemy was already too far away but it was still playable and fun. I will play some old, zombie like s#cker anyway so maybe I'm a superhero but because I'm old my reactions are just a bit slow :D

[Demantiae]

The servers could be located anywhere really. The publishers might have stick their oar in and make a decision for Cryptic. But it would make sense to have them where the company is located so the guys that built the game can actually access the servers physically. I just hope they're beefed up so we can get decent pings from across the world. With Cryptic going out on a limb with the single server (something I very much approve of) they have to be sure it's done right as there will be lots of angry people from around the world if they don't.

[shaggles]

One single server like in EvE? Please somebody confirm this... that sounds awesome!!!

[Sayyan]

One single server like in EvE? Please somebody confirm this... that sounds awesome!!!

Confirmed.

[Nalixor]

I believe your ping should be OK. I'm in Japan and am not so worried about a ping from the West coast of the US.

My problem is figuring out how to get the game. Shipping to here would be expensive, and take a few weeks. I don't even know of any places that would ship to Japan. I realllllly hope they have digital distribution at launch.

It's entirely possible. CoX has recently appeared on Steam. It was my guess at the time, and it still is, that they put it up there as a test platform to see how a digital distribution system would work with a MMO. Since CoX is up on Steam, it's entirely possible that CO will be too.

On a related note, I am likewise worried about the server situation. I am Australian, and I love CO. It would be the best thing ever if there were Oceanic servers hosted in Australia. I can name one ISP, which has a well-respected and widely-known gaming network who I think would jump at hosting CO. WAR had Australian servers, and it was fantastic. I didn't end up continuing to play the game, but the ping was excellent.

[marach]

EVE has been on steam for an age (infact its cheaper to buy the steam version than get your first month any other way AND it nets you a 21 day trial instead of 14 days) its upped its player count by about 20k concurrent users at any one time since they started offering it there (so probs 60kish accounts)

[Lothic]

It's entirely possible. CoX has recently appeared on Steam. It was my guess at the time, and it still is, that they put it up there as a test platform to see how a digital distribution system would work with a MMO. Since CoX is up on Steam, it's entirely possible that CO will be too.

On a related note, I am likewise worried about the server situation. I am Australian, and I love CO. It would be the best thing ever if there were Oceanic servers hosted in Australia. I can name one ISP, which has a well-respected and widely-known gaming network who I think would jump at hosting CO. WAR had Australian servers, and it was fantastic. I didn't end up continuing to play the game, but the ping was excellent.

One of the recent "press" articles (that were written after last weekend's press NDA lift period) mentioned that the game client would be downloadable at launch. I forget exactly where I saw it, but it was more or less confirmed.

Also for what it's worth I've played on a west coast CoX server from several places in Japan and Singapore and never had a serious ping problem from any of those locations. It would be hard to believe that CO would be any worse in that regard.

[Nightmare]

The servers could be located anywhere really. The publishers might have stick their oar in and make a decision for Cryptic. But it would make sense to have them where the company is located so the guys that built the game can actually access the servers physically. I just hope they're beefed up so we can get decent pings from across the world. With Cryptic going out on a limb with the single server (something I very much approve of) they have to be sure it's done right as there will be lots of angry people from around the world if they don't.

Actually a lot of the time they just rent "space" from a server farm. The hands-on physical stuff can be handled by the local techs who specialize in that, and the devs can concentrate on making the game. Remember your average gaming programmer won't be able to maintain a server farm. Totally different skill set. And I sorta kinda know this because atm I work in a data center for a metro based PD and thus do a little of it all. I came into the job with experience programming and maintaining hardware with a network based degree and so I wound up the guy on 3rd shift since I can handle more things with out waking up the daytime specialists. Yay me. :o

TL;DR VERSION:

Devs aren't server techs. They hire people to do that and can download the updates remotely. So the physical servers can be far away from the devs. Could even have two different server sites to improve ping times to different places around the world.

[nephilim2051]

I don't see it much of a problem with regard to ping, I live in Manila, Philippines, really close to Thailand; and I also reach around 400ping (US server), but I play hardcore raiding in EQ2, AoC, CoX, and other MMOs, just not fps, as the twitch there is too much for the ping.

400 ping is acceptable, I play on US servers, not Oceanic, and in an MMO, won't be a problem. Considering my Age of Conan runs well, and it's a semi-action game where specific key denotes a certain bodypart to hit, where timing is integral to activating powers...I even win in PvP against players in the US. :)

[nephilim2051]

I believe your ping should be OK. I'm in Japan and am not so worried about a ping from the West coast of the US.

My problem is figuring out how to get the game. Shipping to here would be expensive, and take a few weeks. I don't even know of any places that would ship to Japan. I realllllly hope they have digital distribution at launch.

I order my games from an online store catering to our geographical location (I live in Manila, Phil), play-asia.com, next day delivery, so we play at the most, one day later than the US folks.

[Invuln]

If this is an action orientented MMO, timing will matter and for that reason, localisation and support is required.

The problem with localised servers and support, is that some servers will be unpopular and others will be overcrowded. Ping is not the only thing you should be worrying about for best in-game playing experience, server stability is also another serious issue, which plagued even the US version of World of Warcraft at its release.

I remember spending 30-40 seconds looting the corpse off of low level mobs in the barrens, due to the server and that area specifically, being overcrowded. Not only that but when open PvP was occuring at a major capital city like Orgrimmar (which was on the same server, Kalimdor), it slowed things down even more.

So yes, Ping is one thing, Server performance is another and finally, your own PC performance to handle frames per second, with the new game.

[EliteSandman]

I can not see there being Oceanic servers/server farm, although if there are that would be great. I too am worries about playability with 300ms to 400ms ping from Australia - that is what I usually get on Wow. This game is different ot normal MMOs due to the higher emphasis on action, so it would be nice to know more.

[nephilim2051]

I played Age of Conan with 400 ping (Philippines), and it wasn't a problem, considering AoC is an action MMO of sorts, it requires you to amply time the attacks with keystrokes to do combos, and those combos are around less than a second between each step. In my few months of playing, I have never failed in combo keystrokes due to my ping.

Funcom got around the ping issue with coding with regard to that aspect of the game, so the fights went smoothly even at 400ping...the problem with AoC however, is the bad performance on most other parts of the game, lol. :D