Lets talk about South East Asia, SE

Why are we treated like we're third class players? Like we don't matter?

We still don't have a dedicated SEA/Oceania server.
I still pay for my sub in Euro with terrible conversion rates.
SE Store doesn't even ship to any country in the region. Only Japan.

Its a big region to ignore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Phillipines, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore (where I'm from).

Compounded with the fact that we are the top spenders in the SEA region on video games.
( http://www.asiaone.com/digital/spore...penders-region )

Add to the fact that there is very little marketing done for FFXIV in the region.

Isn't SE an asian company? (Japan) Why feel the need to ignore us?

Shipping issue sucks, but why need a separate server frtom Jpn server that is in same region?

I know lots of people who wants a seperate English SEA server. On PF, we can't find a japanese party that doesn't have "JP ONLY" in it. Many of us don't speak Japanese, we speak Thai,Vietnamese,Chinese,English etc.

I think it all boils down to simple profits. Does SEA have enough playerbase to host a server in that region and in the same time make profits. I think after 4 years the answer is no.

To talk about the playerbase, we need to talk about the sub fee. The conversion rates are really really bad, we have to pay relatively more than the average player in NA/EU. This is the hole in the sinking ship. If you want SEA player numbers to go up, SE has to fix this.

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Originally Posted by LuxConcordiae

To talk about the playerbase, we need to talk about the sub fee. The conversion rates are really really bad, we have to pay relatively more than the average player in NA/EU. This is the hole in the sinking ship. If you want SEA player numbers to go up, SE has to fix this.

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SE has never planned for SEA players to go up. They "officially" cater only to NA/EU and JP but having other region join in too is a bonus. SEA player's number go up or down don't really bothers them too much.
In other words SE is just happy enough to get profits from this 3 regions.

Unfortunately it has been like this for many years and I agree it is somewhat costly in terms of exchange rates for subscription (for SEA players) which hinders my friends from Vietnam, Malaysia etc from actually committing purchasing and continuously subscribing to ffxiv.

This too also caused the existing people I recruited to ffxiv to eventually stop playing. I personally too went inactive for quite a while during HW and only returned last week for SB.

Money, they look at cost vs benefit and they have decided to not create a server there. This used to happen alot in the past for the EU region aswell. Even with FFXIV: ARR a game released in 2013, it took EU 2 years before they got their own datacenter.

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Originally Posted by Dalmacus

I think it all boils down to simple profits. Does SEA have enough playerbase to host a server in that region and in the same time make profits. I think after 4 years the answer is no.

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Pretty much /thread right here.

I'm still remember at the time when NieR: Automata. on the official page and on stream said That's tell about details and releae date they've said "Worldwide" but no SEA region after all

that's because we "SEA region" are not part of the world. so we're an Alien ! welcome to Human world

Why does anyone pay their sub in Euro's, I'm pretty sure the USD is the go to currency in most places of the world, so surely there is an option to pick what you want to avoid unfriendly exchange rates?

In regards to the SEA region as a whole, we also have to consider that the entire South Asia region is nothing like NA or EU. It's so much easier to do business in the West because said areas have better laws and regulations that cover multiple states. But then we get to something like China which has its own servers and the content in game is edited to fit Government requirements. As South Asia isn't a political entity, it's more difficult to expand in the region, and some countries may benefit whilst others could suffer more as a result. It's pretty normal for a lot of companies so we can't just beat on SE about this.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Why does anyone pay their sub in Euro's, I'm pretty sure the USD is the go to currency in most places of the world, so surely there is an option to pick what you want to avoid unfriendly exchange rates?

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There's no such option, SEA and Oceania game codes are usually EU, so they are forced to pay in euro.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

There's no such option, SEA and Oceania game codes are usually EU, so they are forced to pay in euro.

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I don't know how it is in other parts of Southeast Asia, but here in Singapore, where the OP claims to be, we can easily find both the European and the North American versions of the game. Mine was North American from the start, and I pay in USD.

Southeast Asia has always been a difficult region in general to market to as a whole, and this does not apply to just video games but also other intellectual property like anime. It's partly a regulatory problem, because unlike in Europe, where there's a single market, there is a mess of different regulations in Southeast Asia, not to mention an endemic lack of enforcement across a region widely known for blatant copyright infringement.

In short, the region has only itself to blame. There's really very little that major IP owners like Square-Enix can do.

I don't know, but hopefully something done about it. I'm no from EU or SEA but US but I don't like my fellow WoL having issues ;-;

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Originally Posted by LuxConcordiae

The conversion rates are really really bad, we have to pay relatively more than the average player in NA/EU.

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I hear ya and I live in Canada. We have to pay in USD and the conversion sucks right now. I pay $11.99 (legacy rate and 1 extra retainer) and it comes out to almost $20 CAD per month...

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I don't know how it is in other parts of Southeast Asia, but here in Singapore, where the OP claims to be, we can easily find both the European and the North American versions of the game. Mine was North American from the start, and I pay in USD.

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yeah, it depends on which version you bought from the start, in this case, the OP bought the Eu version, so he has to pay in Eu.

It's nothing to do with the playerbase. SE just doesn't have a representative office for the whole region that manage the whole process (marketing, shipping, etc).
They have for some countries, individually, but that's more for on and off business/subcontract relationship. Think of who will hold fanfests or support for the region.
It's wasted opportunity, true. I'm hoping they will consider it after SB, there's a lot of context in there taking stories and names from Asian native tongues.

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Originally Posted by Slirith

Pretty much /thread right here.

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yep.
sometime back in 2015 I had an issue with my recurring payment, and I learned through CS that it had something to do with my IP. then eventually I learned SEA is technically NOT serviced by SE. this is also apparent with FFXIV not showing up in our local version of the steam store, and why upon account registration SEA countries are not listed (except SG, I think.)
on one hand this may look like SEA is low-key IP banned by SE, on the other, it seems fortunate that the issue was resolved and that I'm "allowed" to continue to play in spite of all this.
what I'm saying is that it seems SE from the beginning has expected SEA population would be low, that they've even put up "safeguards" on transactions coming from certain SEA countries. I do wish someday there will be an SEA data center, but I can't blame them if they think it's bad business. I mean games like Black Desert Online outright IP banned us :/

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Originally Posted by LuxConcordiae

Isn't SE an asian company? (Japan) Why feel the need to ignore us?

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Historically they've done worse than ignored you. Unfortunately that bit of xenophobia might be part of it. Is there enough people in the SEA region to have their own server? Blizzard and Daybreak think so. Are enough players going to want to play FFXIV with bad exchange rates? Probably not. But its not a fact of not enough business. SE doesn't WANT their business.

Maybe it's just like their internal localisation teams don't do those languages and markets, and they don't think it's viable to promote it there without a proper localised version, and they don't have a 3rd party partner to oversee the region like they have in Korea and China. Most 'global' game companies only do JP, NA, EU/AUS.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

Maybe it's just like their internal localisation teams don't do those languages and markets, and they don't think it's viable to promote it there without a proper localised version, and they don't have a 3rd party partner to oversee the region like they have in Korea and China. Most 'global' game companies only do JP, NA, EU/AUS.

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Nope.. as you can see, the OP is writing in pretty good English. As does most of that region. So the localization needed has already been done.

As I said, Blizzard and Daybreak have no issues in those areas. SquareEnix shouldn't either, especially since they are geographically closer. But they've decided not to.

I feel like language is the biggest issue. I don't know how it would work for spreading players around, but it would be great if there were "English" and "Japanese" recommended data centres within the Japanese servers. Tonberry has the unofficial reputation, and I'm in that data centre at least - but I still end up paired with Japanese players in the duty finder more often than not, and it makes communication difficult.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I feel like language is the biggest issue. I don't know how it would work for spreading players around, but it would be great if there were "English" and "Japanese" recommended data centres within the Japanese servers. Tonberry has the unofficial reputation, and I'm in that data centre at least - but I still end up paired with Japanese players in the duty finder more often than not, and it makes communication difficult.

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The official language for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore is English. Translation's been done to say the least. Most gamers from the other countries speak pretty decent English as well.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

The official language for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore is English. Translation's been done to say the least. Most gamers from the other countries speak pretty decent English as well.

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I'm Australian. I'm aware that the people on the Japanese servers who do speak English speak it well BUT there are also many people who do not speak it. I am often in a duty with three people all writing in hiragana and I cannot read any of it. (I have set my own party finder language preferences to English only, but apparently a lot of people just tick all the boxes regardless.)

There are, if I remember correctly, two data centre groups on the Japanese servers. If there could somehow be an official suggestion (or have been a suggestion much earlier in the life of the game) when you're creating your account that English speakers pick a world from Group A and Japanese speakers pick a world from Group B, we would all be less likely to end up grouped with a party member we can't communicate with.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Translation's been done to say the least" - of course the game's been translated? But the language I'm playing the game in doesn't have any bearing on what people I am grouped with in duties. Or if you mean the auto-translate function, that's very limited beyond simple game terms and phrases.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There are, if I remember correctly, two data centre groups on the Japanese servers. If there could somehow be an official suggestion (or have been a suggestion much earlier in the life of the game) when you're creating your account that English speakers pick a world from Group A and Japanese speakers pick a world from Group B, we would all be less likely to end up grouped with a party member we can't communicate with.

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Except that the JP datacentre are catered to JAPANESE and not oceanic or SEA players. So technically you have no say when playing in a JP datacentre. It's either you learn Japanese or you live with what you have.

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Originally Posted by Dalmacus

Except that the JP datacentre are catered to JAPANESE and not oceanic or SEA players. So technically you have no say when playing in a JP datacentre. It's either you learn Japanese or you live with what you have.

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Not entirely correct. Every new player is told at the beginning to pick a data centre close to their region. The Japan data centres are only labelled Japan because surprise; they're located in Japan. Not because they're targeted exclusively to Japanese people.

The simplest solution has always been to split a data centre into multiple languages like EU, but in this case ENG/JP. There's no cost to doing that; pick one server, change the affix to ENG. Done.

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Originally Posted by Dalmacus

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Well that's not entirely true. If you only count the JP players, then it doesn't justify having 3 data centre for them exclusively. For SE it's easier to set these up in they home country to serve other parts of Asia, so they did expect SEA/Oceanic players to have a factor in how many worlds/servers they would have.

Should players on the JP server expect to know Japanese? No but they should always consider it may well be the most popular language there. It's like smaller EU countries playing on the EU server, I'm sure they would like a world where they meet people who use their language (Polish, Nordic, Dutch etc) but English would be more common. There are however EU worlds more popular with French or German users, so it's not impossible to have a JP world or two dedicated to Oceanics.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

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You need to follow the whole discussion. This was in response to someone saying that they 'can't' open new servers because of a langauge barrier that would require new translations. Obviously this is false and I was pointing that out.

I did follow the whole discussion. But you seemed to be replying directly to my post, and I was not talking about needing the game translated, which is why I was confused.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Nope.. as you can see, the OP is writing in pretty good English. As does most of that region. So the localization needed has already been done.

As I said, Blizzard and Daybreak have no issues in those areas. SquareEnix shouldn't either, especially since they are geographically closer. But they've decided not to.

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Well I checked Singapore census and it's less than 5% as much as the population of Japan, and localisation is more than just language as they have to respect culturally sensitive things and conform to different software ratings boards in different countries, and set up support centers to assist those users, etc. I think it's not just racism/xenophobia but rather not seeing the potential return on investment being significant enough for the scale and complication of rollout and providing ongoing service.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

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As I said before, Blizzard and Daybreak seem to think differently. There's a reason why most people I know from Singapore I've met through Everquest and World of Warcraft.

^ Yeah, those companies are exceptional in this online entertainment space. I think S-E are exceptional in some different ways like doing Fan Fests on multiple continents and streaming Live Letter information to the fans regularly. They have a good connection with the fans in the markets that they focus on, I feel, compared to industry average. More can be done to grow the game in other regions and I look forward to the continued growth of Final Fantasy XIV. I hope players in these countries who feel neglected can get what they want some day, regarding payment options and having designated worlds on an existing datacenter if not their own Oceanic datacenter. :)

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Originally Posted by duvvvv

I mean games like Black Desert Online outright IP banned us :/

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That's probably because there is a SEA version of Black Desert Online. This would force other versions to blacklist the region from theirs to force players to their specific regions. IE: SEA and ENG cannot play on KR versions; KR cannot play on ENG or SEA versions anymore than we can't play KR or CN versions of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Is there enough people in the SEA region to have their own server? Blizzard and Daybreak think so. Are enough players going to want to play FFXIV with bad exchange rates? Probably not.

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Blizzard has SEA servers for Overwatch (World of Warcraft doesn't have a SEA server or it's AUS?), but their servers aren't exactly great. The ping is worse than using the American servers or the South Korean one. When I look up Daybreak SEA, I find there was a SEA server, but it was moved to Tokyo. It sounds like, in general, there is simply not enough of a draw from the region to have dedicated servers there.

Just posting to point out that South America doesn't have any dedicated servers, either, and those players got shafted especially hard when the servers moved westward.

I think it's safe to say that SE does not care about SEA or SA, which sucks :(

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

That's probably because there is a SEA version of Black Desert Online. This would force other versions to blacklist the region from theirs to force players to their specific regions. IE: SEA and ENG cannot play on KR versions; KR cannot play on ENG or SEA versions anymore than we can't play KR or CN versions of FFXIV.

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OMG thank you for letting me know about this. I've given up checking the official BDO site for any updates on lifting the SEA ban. I mentioned the game because SEA BDO is new, I've been checking since 2015. It seems the SEA server closed beta only started around August of this year. my point was, Pearl Abyss didn't want to publish in SEA specifically until now. reason might be player demand, payment merchants, regional offices (as mentioned previously), possibly the same reason as Squeenix with FFXIV.