All of us have a soft-spot within us for the city or town that we call "home", and that nowhere else in the world really compares because it is "home" after all. Quite often there will also be with this adorning sentiment, a place not quite so within our hearts, a place usually within the same area that we love to hate, and so ensues this ongoing rivalry between the two locations in a struggle to answer the question, "Where is better?" For those of who don't know, I live in Perth, Western Australia, and such a city that we "Perthies" love to hate is the city of Fremantle which is about a 30 minute drive from the central business district. Sure, the place has its charms, but I wouldn't want to live there - visit, perhaps, but not much more for a few hours at a time. The city of Perth is my home and that's where I belong. But what if I had to work in Fremantle? Well, I guess if I had to work there, that's an exception I'd be willing to make, a "sacrifice" if you will.
Funcom spoke in one of their Friday updates about some of the details pertaining to their server setup for 'Age of Conan'. Funcom has enlisted the help of e-business management solutions company, IPsoft, to sort out server hosting and all other things networking for 'Age of Conan', due for release on March 25 next year. We already know through quarterly financial reports, that these servers, at launch, will be located in two cities: one in Europe, and the other in the United States. In Europe, the server for 'Age of Conan' will be located in Amsterdam. In the United States, the server for will be located in New Jersey. Funcom is confident that the servers in these two locations will be adequate to carry the load of thousands upon thousands of players that will log in to the game on a daily basis for the years to come. So ideally, players from Europe will play on the server located in Amsterdam, and players from North America will play on the server located in New Jersey - a logical configuration, but Funcom also mentioned that which server you play on will depend on what version of the game client you purchase and install on to your computer:
"...when it comes to our main server centers for launch we are splitting them into two primary territories: North America and Europe. This is the core divider. This means that your primary server destination will be decided according to where you buy your retail box. So, North American gamers will only get the choice of North American servers, and vice versa."
To put it simply: North American client = North American servers; and European client = European servers.
Funcom went on to say in their Friday update that this was a decision made by them to ensure the best possible gaming experience for US and European players respectively. US players will get better latency time playing on the servers located in New Jersey, and players in Europe will get better latency time playing on the server located in Amsterdam - it's academic, really. But herein lays the problem: because of the nature of the internet and online gaming, namely MMORPGs, players will establish clans or guilds that consist of members from different parts of the world. A US-based guild will of course comprise of players from within the United States, and players from other continents of the world, namely from English-speaking countries within Europe. So for guilds to play together on the same servers in 'Age of Conan' will now mean that players from outside of where the guild is based and where the "native" server is located, will have to purchase the game client native to that particular region as exemplified above.
