http://kotaku.com/5823736/star-wars-the-old-republic-wont-launch-in-asia-australasia 
 
Really EA? Really? 
Your going to launch this massively expensive game and limit your userbase on day one? 
Asia is a market with incredible potential, but once again you're going to leave the fastest growing region in the world in the dark for... what reason exactly? 
To make sure all efforts to pirate the game get kicked into overdrive? 
Even Warhammer Online launched in Australia, I simply cant comprehend why they would shoot themselves in the foot like this.

Lucky I'm european.
 
edit: Also if this really does help the game launch smoothly unlike every other MMO ever then I'm all for it. Good for them. I want a smooth game experience on day 1 not lag and hour long ques and god knows what else. 
 
...I'll probably still get that but I can dream.

There is no reason to launch a mmo heavily based in a western franchise in other regions. In terms of Australia, mmo's have always been a shit storm concerning oceanic servers. Am guessing they want absolutely zero negative press, they might release them later into the release cycle.
 
Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

There is no reason to launch a mmo heavily based in a western franchise in other regions. In terms of Australia, mmo's have always been a shit storm concerning oceanic servers. Am guessing they want absolutely zero negative press, they might release them later into the release cycle.

@CL60: Star Wars is incredibly popular in Asia, particularly China and Japan. But this type of MMO isn't, they tend to prefer F2P grindfests. Things like Aion are huge over there.. where as Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 likely won't be.

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

@CL60: 

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

This just sucks.

I'm Singaporean and this sucks but to be honest it isn't really a big deal. It's an MMO that's supposed to last for years so there's no hurry to get a big initial burst of sale. It is more important to make sure the launch goes as smoothly as possible to minimize negative publicity which would hurt the game more in the long-run. I do not think that EA would want to spread their resources out to thin at launch day. And If the NA and Europe release does go well, I personally would be less wary in pre-ordering the Collector's Edition since the NA & EU has proven the game's quality. Maybe I'm pessimistic but launch day for MMOs are always full of issues. So if those issues manage to be resolved once the Oceanic version is out, than I'm all for it. And if they manage to make a deal such that the Oceanic servers are geographically in Oceania to minimize lag unlike WOW. then it's going to be so awesome. 

It's likely from the voice work in the game.

It's likely from the voice work in the game.

Oh EA...this is a bad move.

@CL60 said:

Issues with Oceanic servers most likely. I really doubt it wont ever come out in Australia, it will probably just be delayed.

I'm not doubting that it'll be released eventually.. Just hard not to feel sorry for Australians at this point.

Being in the UK, I always thought we got the short end of the stick.

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

@Beaudacious said:

EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

How much money do you suppose is 'enough'?

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

This seems like a really bad idea. Especially with such stiff competition like WoW and Guild Wars 2.

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

As for people thinking its the lag factor for Aussies it isnt, if WoWs a basis then a 350ping is standard and can be pretty much praised and we are use to lag on release of expansions etc. They just dont want massive server congestion and to be down all of day 1. (which is going to happen anyway or its an already failing mmo)

@CL60 said:

@Laketown said:

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

Nowhere near 300 million. They've stated they only need 500,000 subscribers to make a profit/break even. Why is that 300 million dollar figure still being believed?

500k subscribers for how long? Without a duration alongside it, that figure doesn't mean anything at all.

@Beaudacious said:

EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

How much money do you suppose is 'enough'?

@CL60 said:

@Laketown said:

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

Nowhere near 300 million. They've stated they only need 500,000 subscribers to make a profit/break even. Why is that 300 million dollar figure still being believed?

Because it was pretty sensationalist when it was 'unveiled' originally, many journalists entertained the idea even though it's just plain stupid to believe they invested that kind of money into this project.

As for the topic, i think launching in america and europe is the best way to go. Australia isn't a big enough community for TOR to warrent the infrastructure (I.E. Servers) to allow australian only players and if they allowed other countries on the same servers it would be a lag fest for latency.

Not to mention they probably want to try and avoid the whole gold farming thing that world of warcraft got so well known for from the chinese influx.

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

You have to use their servers to play. They aren't locking out the IPs of people in Oceanic areas.

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

Based on the user's IP location. It's been used before for staggering unlock dates on PC games before (Dragon Age 2 did iirc). You could get around it, but it's a hassle.

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

Based on the user's IP location. It's been used before for staggering unlock dates on PC games before (Dragon Age 2 did iirc). You could get around it, but it's a hassle.

@CL60 said:

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

You have to use their servers to play. They aren't locking out the IPs of people in Oceanic areas.

Have there been games that have done that, though?

@jadeskye said:

@CL60 said:

@Laketown said:

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

Nowhere near 300 million. They've stated they only need 500,000 subscribers to make a profit/break even. Why is that 300 million dollar figure still being believed?

Because it was pretty sensationalist when it was 'unveiled' originally, many journalists entertained the idea even though it's just plain stupid to believe they invested that kind of money into this project.

Not necessarily that unbelievable once you take infrastructure and marketing into account.

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

Besides the obvious IP method, EA could tie the region locking into billing addresses for credit cards used for game subscriptions. So, even if people outside the intended regional launches imported the game, they may not even be able to subscribe once they get it.

@ajamafalous said:

@Jimbo said:

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

Based on the user's IP location. It's been used before for staggering unlock dates on PC games before (Dragon Age 2 did iirc). You could get around it, but it's a hassle.

Seems like you could just use a proxy to get around that pretty easily.

You could, and I did. Playing an MMO through a proxy might be pretty sucky though, I can't say I've tried it.

It will definately help with gold sellers and powerleveling, I'm not sure if that was a factor they were thinking about when making this descision.

Well its just for the initial launch phase. They want what I assume are  the two biggest markets to be able to play the game with in a day or two of it launching and knowing how cheap EA are with there servers they will announce the dates for the other markets once they know they can handle it without costing them too much.

@Laketown said:

@Beaudacious said:

Edit: EA could chose to only release the game in NA, forget Europe, and still make enough money. Sorry but this the truth.

hahahaha this is one of the most expensive game projects ever worked on, are you mad? 300 million, as far as I know, and that was a while ago. no way is this going to make up it's budget

Nowhere near 300 million. They've stated they only need 500,000 subscribers to make a profit/break even. Why is that 300 million dollar figure still being believed?

@CL60: Star Wars is incredibly popular in Asia, particularly China and Japan. But this type of MMO isn't, they tend to prefer F2P grindfests. Things like Aion are huge over there.. where as Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 likely won't be.

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

Asia market you mean for gold farmers? 

@ajamafalous said:

@CL60 said:

I do believe Australians can import the game though, I don't think the game is region locked.

How would you region lock a PC game?

Besides the obvious IP method, EA could tie the region locking into billing addresses for credit cards used for game subscriptions. So, even if people outside the intended regional launches imported the game, they may not even be able to subscribe once they get it.

this games goten some of the worst publicity I have ever seen

I'm obviously overestimating how much Australia matters in the grand scheme of things, but my knee-jerk reaction is that I'm beginning to understand why there's so much doubt surrounding this game.

Asia market you mean for gold farmers? 

@The_Laughing_Man said:

Asia market you mean for gold farmers? 

No, I mean the gamers that get the short end of the stick because they're dismissed as pirates and gold farmers because of their geographic location. You know, the people who want to buy games but aren't allowed to.

I think they just don't expect the game to be successful enough in Australia/Asia to justify the expense of setting up and maintaining servers there. 
 
Outwardly they're acting like this will be an amazing game, but they have to base their business plans around the reality that this is just a WoW clone with voiceovers and a dialog wheel.

I'm okay with that, cause Im euro and would much prefer they focus server-wise on a smaller group first and then expand from there. Ofc it sucks for everyone else and I feel for you.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

Asia market you mean for gold farmers? 

No, I mean the gamers that get the short end of the stick because they're dismissed as pirates and gold farmers because of their geographic location. You know, the people who want to buy games but aren't allowed to.

@CL60 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@CL60:

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

Issues with Oceanic servers most likely. I really doubt it wont ever come out in Australia, it will probably just be delayed.

WoW was released in Aus on day 1 without Oceanic servers, it ran fine.

I'm an Australian, but I can't say this bothers me.

@CL60 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@CL60:

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

Issues with Oceanic servers most likely. I really doubt it wont ever come out in Australia, it will probably just be delayed.

WoW was released in Aus on day 1 without Oceanic servers, it ran fine.

@CL60 said:

@Metal_Mills said:

@CL60 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@CL60:

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

Issues with Oceanic servers most likely. I really doubt it wont ever come out in Australia, it will probably just be delayed.

WoW was released in Aus on day 1 without Oceanic servers, it ran fine.

You obviously weren't on the 1-2 servers that a ton of Oceanic people flocked to.

I was on Ner'zhul. It had heaps of Aussies on it.

@CL60 said:

@Metal_Mills said:

@CL60 said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@CL60:

Really can't fathom why Australia would be left out though.

Issues with Oceanic servers most likely. I really doubt it wont ever come out in Australia, it will probably just be delayed.

WoW was released in Aus on day 1 without Oceanic servers, it ran fine.

You obviously weren't on the 1-2 servers that a ton of Oceanic people flocked to.

I was on Ner'zhul. It had heaps of Aussies on it.