Here is why Blizzard couldn't care less about SA.

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Zulash

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Since the day of World of Warcraft's release, people have been complaining about the terrible latency's we get down here in South Africa. Everyone wants Blizzard to do something about it, perhaps set up a local server?

Well I'll tell you now, its never going to happen? Why you might ask?
Take a look for yourself..

http://www.joystiq.com/photos/blizzard-tour/2111122//full

We are nothing but a spec of activity compared to say, Europe. It almost looks like every household in Europe is busy playing World of Warcraft. wow..

South Africa is the LAST place Blizzard would build a server from what I can see here, why Africa when you have the rest of the world?
 
Sure, but your logic leaves out a little teensy weensy fact.
This is an entire continent.
A continent called Africa.

In Europe, Blizzard went on a massive marketing campaign to create the market that now exists.
This marketing campaign has not been implemented anywhere on the Africa continent.

i.e. When contemplating the size of the potential market, one of the factors to take into consideration is the potential size of the market.

EDIT: Nice picture though. Is that tool available to the public?
 
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You missed another very important point. In SA we only have a few internet exchanges, so 1000 people from De Aar playing wow will still only cause a blip on their map in the area of Cape Town or Johannesburg. They will not get a blip at your home.

That is why SA looks so "empty".
 
SA is "empty" where online gaming is concerned. Even amount of people with broadband connections...

Throwing Africa into the mix is not going to help much, the people in North Africa will rather play on EU realms anyway making only a few Southern Africa countries interested in an own server... My rationale for this is all the French speaking countries, and those that are already on fast internet exhcanges with the rest of the world.

So that leaves us with the continent consisting mostly out of South Africa... Unless you want to count in Zim, Namibia, and Botswana? Nigeria perhaps as well, but cant recall them having adsl other than sat-internet...

If I were blizzard I rather placed a new server in South America, where there are a hundred times more people... but wait they also don't have their own server...
 
Blizzard will not invest cash in setting up servers based on "potential" market. They may have done so in the early days, but the way the operate now is to wait for realms to be full and then setup the realms and offer free transfers.

For new regions, they wait for sufficient demand from existing realms.

This how they rolled out servers for the Aussies to the US east coast, the Russians etc.

While they may be promoting the game in Africa they will wait for sufficient critical mass to exist on existing realms before the offer a new realm and free transfer to that realm.
 
And here I was all along thinking the server is simply a PC on the internet running some Blizzard software....
 
why Africa when you have the rest of the world?
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Because Africa is an emerging market, one ripe for development. Focusing purely on how much money they can make right now is a short-sighted viewpoint.

Internet is set to explode with EASSY, Seacom etc landing in the next couple years. Failing to leverage this fact is epic fail on Blizzard's part. This could be beginning of a continental hub for Africa much like the Oceania realms for Australia/NZ/etc, and with the new Battle.Net on the horizon...a massive missed opportunity in my opinion.

http://pamojamedia.com/blog/2009/06/scaling-internet-growth-in-africa/
 
I agree, it is a great opportunity, but maybe one in 2-5 years from now ;) Now it is too costly, too buggy, too African... If they had a few millions to waste without any insurance for a return on investment maybe then...
And why, put up a server if we are anyway paying to play on European servers...
 
Now it is too costly, too buggy, too African
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Agreed. We are behind the curve. I think there will be a lot more interest in this part of the world come, say, 2012+. For now I suppose we have to be happy with lousy pings or substandard emu's.
And why, put up a server if we are anyway paying to play on European servers...
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Probably because with more reliable connections to said server, there would be a lot more interest. I reckon tons of locals have quit WoW because of lag, and tons more haven't even tried it because of concerns about lag.
 
Skurm said:
Agreed. We are behind the curve. I think there will be a lot more interest in this part of the world come, say, 2012+. For now I suppose we have to be happy with lousy pings or substandard emu's.

Probably because with more reliable connections to said server, there would be a lot more interest. I reckon tons of locals have quit WoW because of lag, and tons more haven't even tried it because of concerns about lag.
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Havent tried it because the patches are way too big. I also feel that its too late at this stage to start playing.. don't want to be a noob.
 
That image is also of "Online Players" at 22:25pm Paris time, that's 23:25pm JHB time, possibly on a week night too ?

Not saying it would make a huge difference but every bit counts I guess... I think it might look slightly less pathetic around 20:00 JHB time.
 
Havent tried it because the patches are way too big. I also feel that its too late at this stage to start playing.. don't want to be a noob.
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Er, it hasn't even launched yet (9 July)... and the client download is a paltry 500meg which is miniscule compared to, say, a WoW trial of 7gigs.
 
Skurm said:
Er, it hasn't even launched yet (9 July)... and the client download is a paltry 500meg which is miniscule compared to, say, a WoW trial of 7gigs.
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Think you are talking about two different games ;) he ment WoW patches.

And if that is the only concern, I am sure The patches can be made available local for download.
 
Think you are talking about two different games he ment WoW patches.
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Ah, yes, i got my threads mixed up. Sincerest apologies, and kindly disregard.
In that vein: On the one hand it's a bit of a churn to get all the way up to 80 from scratch. On the other, it's one hell of a journey. I'd actually love to be a WoW noob now and start playing. There would be so much new to do and see! It would be an epic quest. /wistful sigh.
 
Skurm said:
Ah, yes, i got my threads mixed up. Sincerest apologies, and kindly disregard.
In that vein: On the one hand it's a bit of a churn to get all the way up to 80 from scratch. On the other, it's one hell of a journey. I'd actually love to be a WoW noob now and start playing. There would be so much new to do and see! It would be an epic quest. /wistful sigh.
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Agreed, is why I am taking my time with my shaman, exploring, questing and just doing random stuff
 
I have just re-rolled a mage and am having fun doing all the starting areas, even if they give virtually no XP.

Done Human and Night Elf trying to decide whether to move on with the NE quests or go and do the dranei next.
 
pope24 said:
I have just re-rolled a mage and am having fun doing all the starting areas, even if they give virtually no XP.

Done Human and Night Elf trying to decide whether to move on with the NE quests or go and do the dranei next.
Click to expand...

The draenei areas are nice for questing, but for the best experience, you have to be a draenei. The other races don't get all of the cool quests, like the final one where have to fight one of the eredar.

As for the SA server, why doesn't Blizzard just agree with the iGame/Megarom offer. That way, they avoid most of the cost of setting up servers.
 
Most fun ive had was actually starting a new toon on another server - 0 gold and no main to temptfully transfer from, but all the knowledge of how to get it and none of the stupid mistakes made early that cost u later on. I think if it EVER happens that a server is set up closer to home id definately do it. Who knows, with the big changes in game mechanics Blizz are making these days mayb some day in the future it will be possible to transfer any of your toons to any server you like, be it US or EU :D
 
I prefer it the way it is. I'd rather play on European servers just because of the fun of playing with people from overseas, yes I'm getting an average latency of around 1000-1200 ms, but once you get used to it, it really isn't a problem, I can still heal in raids and compete in high rated arena pvp and having people laugh about you living in Africa is always great fun. :P
 
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