Australian Importers Won't Be Blocked from Playing The Old Republic

[Logan Westbrook]

Australian Importers Won't Be Blocked from Playing The Old Republic

You can play The Old Republic in Australia as long as you're willing to put up with the laggy side of the force.

While Australia isn't a launch territory for Star Wars: The Old Republic [http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Old-Republic-Pc/dp/B001CWXAP2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1312902943&sr=8-2], BioWare says that it has no plans to prevent any Australians who decide to import the game from playing it.

Posting on the Old Republic community forums [http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=417505], senior online community manager Stephen Reid said that the only problems that Australian games would have would be some latency issues, and regional locking or IP blocking was not on the cards. Additionally, it appears that Australian gamers will be able to redeem any pre-order bonuses they might be entitled to - including early access to the game - just like players in launch territories.

Of course, while BioWare isn't preventing people from playing the game, Australian gamers are still not going to be in for an optimal game experience until the game officially launches in the country. Reid's post did suggest that local servers would be coming to the Oceania region, although there was no mention of exactly when that might be.

BioWare is yet to reveal the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic, although the game is expected before the end of the year.

Source: Kotaku Australia [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/08/bioware-will-not-region-block-or-ip-block-australian-players-who-import-the-old-republic/]





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[Scizophrenic Llama]

You'd think something this big would go for servers all around from the start, given the amount of money spent on production and whatnot.

Although it is better than having no servers at all with no plan to add any. Also nice to see they aren't region blocking the games.

 

[Craorach]

So basically... we can buy it here, but there aren't going to be servers here.

So.. par the course for most MMOs then. At least they are letting us buy it locally, unlike SoE.

Aussie local servers have yet to work out for any major MMO. It's just not profitable.

 

[PingoBlack]

Honestly, do we even know what constitutes launch territories?

Other than USA and a few EU countries that have pre-order available I have not seen a clear communication from EA regarding this very undefined phrase.

I understand they might be doing it with such lack of transparency to channel pre-order to physical stores, but it still leaves the question open:

Will any country or territory have IP blocks? Will they use the standard EU/US IP block split?

All that remains unanswered and Oceania region gets off the worst ... again.

 

[Rigs83]

It's unavoidable. Setting up servers cost a fortune and Australian politicians want to blame everything [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111895-Oslo-Murders-Lead-to-Calls-For-Game-Bans-in-Australia]bad that happens on videogames.

 

[ramox]

BioWare isn't just preventing Australia from buying the game, this also affects everyone not listed here:

United States of America
Canada
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (Standard Edition only)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom

Honestly, none of this makes any sense.

No.

While it's unfortunate that Australia get's no servers from start, you are talking out of your ass.
You can play the game from the moon if you got a working internet connection up there. The lands you listed are just the ones where pre-orders are available, nothing more nothing less.

 

[Nargleblarg]

BioWare isn't just preventing Australia from buying the game, this also affects everyone not listed here:

United States of America
Canada
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia (Standard Edition only)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom

Honestly, none of this makes any sense.

Well they aren't going to prevent them just not supply it. Most likely just due to how it will sell in other regions, also I imagine the fact it is fully voiced in only a few languages which costs quite a bit and would ruin the game for those who do not speak the languages used.

 

[lacktheknack]

BioWare isn't just preventing Australia from buying the game, this also affects everyone blah blah

Either you have a major typo here, or else you didn't even bother reading the article.

 

[Nargleblarg]

Well they aren't going to prevent them just not supply it. Most likely just due to how it will sell in other regions, also I imagine the fact it is fully voiced in only a few languages which costs quite a bit and would ruin the game for those who do not speak the languages used.

For many countries, this means having to import a physical copy. Which in the case of Australia, means paying 200 dollars in import fees and taxes. And that's for the standard copy. And some countries are physically incapable of doing that.

Honestly, they really should just let anyone pre-order the game digitally. Because there's no reason why not.

I fully agree there is no reason to not allow everyone to digitally preorder, but they aren't and I'd assume there must be some reason. (not necessarily a good one)

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well Australia will be getting access to the game which is better than some past prognosises. Given the constant problems I'm guessing that Australia is actually a very small market overall, despite the vocal fan base, or there are a lot of expenses in running servers and such there that the general public doesn't hear about.

 

[lumenadducere]

Yeah, from my understanding this is what happens with every other MMO. But the good news is that Oceanic servers are on the way, so when they do finally come Australians will actually have a company that bothered to make actual Oceanic servers instead of just designating a server in the US as "Oceanic" so all those players can play in the same place. Which I guess is nice, but a far cry from actually having real servers in Australia or NZ.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I wonder if GW2 will be any better.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

It's unavoidable. Setting up servers cost a fortune and Australian politicians want to blame everything [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111895-Oslo-Murders-Lead-to-Calls-For-Game-Bans-in-Australia]bad that happens on videogames.

You should try reading the article you linked... Jim Wallace isn't a politician.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

BioWare isn't just preventing Australia from buying the game, this also affects everyone blah blah

Either you have a major typo here, or else you didn't even bother reading the article.

I read the article. I know the entire situation.

There's a huge fiasco going on in the SWTOR forums about people being PISSED that they aren't allowed to buy the game digitally. That's why this issue exists in the first place.

As many people on the forums will tell you, they don't care that the servers aren't local. They don't care about latency. They're used to it.

There's absolutely no reason to block digital purchases.

Wait, are you serious? EA is busy touting Origin as this big kinghitter that's going to go head to head with Steam, and they're actually going to TURN AWAY PEOPLE'S MONEY when it comes to one of their biggest exclusives?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

How bad is the latency going to be, that is the question I want answered.

 

[LittleMikey]

Well, at least they aren't blocking Australia from playing their game. My guild has been looking forward to TOR for years now, but we're use to people hating on Australia and not building servers here. We understand it's not as profitable for them. We just wish that they would treat us like a real country, and allow us to preorder the game, instead of having to ship it over from the USA.

How bad is the latency going to be, that is the question I want answered.

Probably no worse then WoW. I get a 300-500 ping on most USA based games. And that's with a sub-par internet connection.