Do you play on your own region's servers when online gaming?

[Deleted]

I myself don't anymore, I really don't like most of the Europeans as some of the European countries seem to be always bad at playing mmo's.
You also have the issue of a lot of people not being able to speak English at all. I'ts not so bad with WoW but it is with the games i play.

Being asked "Spanol or GR??? isn't so nice either
Do you have any reasons why you play on EU servers as someone that lives in the US or vice versa and if so why or well why not?

[Pokemon1859]

The only reason most people would play on a EU server is if the game never intended on publishing the game for the US some good games are EU only and that would be the only reason but with that being said most of the mmo's are korean based now and not from the rest of the world so most people generally wait for it to come out in english or try to play it on korean servers and avoid getting banned. I think tera's a perfect example of mmo's that other countries play most of your EU players hate playing on the europe publisher's server so many of them are found on the US server I know with my guild alone we have at least 20 or 30 people outside of the US in places like denmark, UK, Spain and netherlands most people that aren't racist have no problem with people that speak little or no english at all it just depends on the people you run into some feel that people from another country should play on there own servers but most of us show the same respect to forigen players as we do with people from our own country.

[Dezerte]

Yeah, I prefer playing with a lower latency.

[Nohzuko]

Well, english is not my first language so yeah, I was playing Wow on a EU server...
Easier for an MMO with teamspeak and all...
I play most "normal games" in english though.

[Deleted]

Only on particularly large and well supported games do I play on non-domestic servers (which basically means I always play on US servers), e.g. WoW.

I have tried various EU region servers for several MMOs, including Tera, Age of Conan, Rift, LotrO, etc. and they have always been a massive disappointment. Whether it is the language barriers or just different cultures, but the lack of players engaging with each other can be very stark compared to US servers. Also, language purely itself is not an issue for me since I speak the major EU languages fluently.

Thankfully, latency of up to 200ms in MMORPGs is hardly ever an issue in gameplay. So, since I have a very stable connection (meaning I rarely worry about lag spikes), I get to enjoy MMOs with domestic, i.e. US, players. The only time lag has ever been an issue is playing Planetside 2, but that game is a shooter (meaning every millisecond counts) plus it basically requires a supercomputer to run well, so is far from a typical MMO.

[Prokne]

I usually play on American servers for online games but right now all of my WoW characters are on an Oceanic server. I moved them there when I lived near the Australian time zones and now Im in the US but Im not paying to move all of them and its all or nothing. Sometimes its nice to play when everyone is asleep but its hard to find raids unless you want to be up in the middle of the night or get up really early. If only you could cross realm the current tier.

[Deleted]

Most of the time ...

But when I have to deal with companies like Pro7Sat1 Games or Gameforge/Frogster I usually create an US account and play on the US Servers ...
I'm so glad I got my old Sony Online account from ye olde days, when they didn't have that contract with p7s1 games and I can play Planetside 2 and DCUO without having to deal with those bastards, and can still play on the eu servers.

[Omgarsh]

Yeah, most of the time I have to. Not a lot of online PC games in Japan, definitely not a lot of servers or communities of people playing, so I just play on US/NA servers. Pings aren't too bad for most MMOs. It only really hurts in twitchy games like Left 4 Dead.

[Deleted]

I usually play on NA servers even though I'm in the EU - purely because the majority of my online gaming friends are American or Canadian and playing with my friends > ping/lag.

[Deleted]

Dislike having high latency so I always play on European servers. I also always choose English speaking ones, and find it utterly strange to find especially Russians, but also people from other countries signing up for that server as well when they have no desire to actually speak English... There is even a Russian server for crying out loud, why not use it? Bha... I'm used to it though, whenever they refuse to speak English on an English speaking server I give them a nice heads up and ignore them. Gotta love those ignore functions...

[Kuthe]

Yes.
Oceanic on Rift and WoW due to Realm times.
Shifted to Oceanic on LoL the day they were released.

Lower Pings and sensible times > immature kids playing at night time (instead of immature kids playing at all times of the day)

[Scummer]

If I can I will always choose EU/UK servers. Lower ping. Peak times from my own time zone. Same language (most of the time).

[mitbrandir]

I prefer to play on servers within my region because the ping will be way lower, than if i would be playing on a server that's located in a different continent.

[Crackleslap]

I play Dota 2, and I play on Australian servers because I don't want obscenely high ping levels. It also pisses me off especially when damn Russians are in the Australian/ any other servers but their own. Don't speak English, don't listen, can't play because ridiculous ping levels, feed a lot, generally suck. I also have 'English' only, as my preferred language.

I'm not hating, I'm just speaking from experience.

[Lazy Gecko]

For strategy games and such I have no problem playing with cross-continent players. I was pretty active in the C&C community during the last decade which is very spread out. I even remember playing some Tiberian Sun with guys from the US, Britain, Holland, and Brazil. Simultaneously. This is why the artificial region locking in Starcraft 2 was enough to make me not buy the game.

FPS is a different matter of course but it works better than I anticipated. I live in Scandinavia but Counter-Strike was playable enough to be enjoyable with friends on their US server, smack in the middle of Texas. If anything, I am bothered more by the cultural differences when I play with random people on US servers. The predominant frat boy culture has so much more casual racism than public EU servers.