killah and thecrazyrussian and thevalkyries are all correct here btw. geographically splitting the US servers isnt viable like it is in europe. maintaining multiple geographically-based server farms in the USA to keep it as one region strikes me as perfectly doable, there is just no incentive from riot to do it since the server migration is a cheaper bandaid fix for most american players, just like all of riot's networking and client fixes (fyi i hope you guys don't ever cry about the replay system). the only concern is ping consistency but many players already play with that level of fluctuation and it would primarily correspond to time anyway. which is already true for most players.
I've heard this argument made so many times and I am sick of it. No, ping consistency is not the concern for people trying to play on the East Coast on their own region's server. Ping quality is. Consistently getting 100+ ping is like consistently getting fucked in the ass: it doesn't matter if you start to 'get used to it', that doesn't make it any better. I'm sorry that Australians do not play as much as Americans do (thus why the Oceania server queue times are so long), but how is that Riot's fault?
You're right in that it is a relatively cheap fix. Yes Riot has issues to address with it's client (no replays and no sandbox makes Jack a sad boy) but if these were so simple to implement then they would've done it already.
Yo sam how much would it have cost riot to just keep the west coast servers and separate west from east coast with the Chicago servers as well. As in, literally the same model they have for Europe. Trying to pass off a decision that directly causes local headaches to everyone except the minority that is the east coast and straight up isolates a region that is largely ignored as literally "unquestionable" is hilarious.
Also when'd you become a high-traffick networking specialist?
The problem isn't keeping the server it's connecting them and allowing people to play on either, which, depending on how they set it up, would either increase EVERYONE'S ping by 20-30 or would cause the queue times in NA to be just as bad as they apparently are on the poorly-populated servers.
Secondly, neither is the east coast the 'minority' nor is this causing headaches to anyone. West coasters play with 50-60 ping, for 90% of the NA playerbase ping decreased massively. Go cry in a corner if you can't deal with 50-60 ping when most of the country has had it worse for years.
Finally the fact that you're referencing the Europe model as a good thing is highly questionable. I've literally not heard one good thing about the Europe model/servers. The only servers I've heard good things about are the Asian servers, which have the distinct advantage of having a much larger playerbase spread across a much smaller geographic region.
reminder that dota 2 has this
riot is literally a billion dollar company, finances are not the issue. poor planning/a poor client/a poor user system tied to each individual server/region are probably obstacles in preventing a system like dota's, not saying it's impossible but at this point riot is unlikely to pursue a system like that. NAW/NAE is not really viable for the reasons listed above (small, split the population, queues would be longer, huge discrepancy in master/challenger, ranked goes down every night at 12 AM PST, etc.) (
stats). cost for both servers is probably not even a slight issue, afaik they are keeping the west coast servers regardless as some sort of backup (but maybe they have bigger plans ???)
Valve is over three times as large as Riot and is willing/able to operate Dota 2 at a loss because it is not their main/flagship product. Hopefully Riot will give people the option to play on other servers with the same client worldwide, but, as you said, there needs to be one official 'NA' server for ranked purposes. And as far as location for that server goes, Chicago is about as good as anywhere to put it (maybe putting it a little further south, like in Saint Louis, would be better geographically but Chicago is an internet hub that St. Louis can't hope to compete with).