We're pleased to announce StarCraft II region linking, an exciting upcoming change that will connect a number of StarCraft II communities around the world for multiplayer matchmaking and communication purposes. In conjunction with the start of Season 3, we’ll be linking the European and Russian StarCraft II communities together; North America and Latin America will also be linked together, as will Korea and Taiwan.
Region linking will benefit players in the connected regions in a number of ways. First and foremost, a linked community means a larger pool of players to improve our automated matchmaker. Whether you're an elite Grandmaster or a Bronze-league all-star, more players in the mix means that we'll be able to find you a matchup more quickly and more accurately. Players will also get access to a broader range of custom map games, which in turn means wider audiences for mapmakers. Those of you who have friends in the linked region will also be able to add them to your Battle.net friends lists once the region linking is complete.
For the vast majority of players, the process will be seamless. Just log in, play, and say hello to all of your new friends (with a sneaky drop in their mineral line). For more information about region linking, check out the FAQ.
Q. What is region linking?
A. Region linking is the process of connecting multiple Battle.net regions to each other for multiplayer matchmaking and communication purposes. The North America and Latin America regions will be linked, Europe and Russia will be linked, and Korea and Taiwan will be linked. In effect, the players within the linked regions will be put together into a single group instead of two separate ones - benefitting players in these linked regions in a number of ways.
Q. Why are you doing this? What are the benefits of region linking?
A. Having a larger pool of players means the automated matchmaker for ladder games will be faster and more effective at finding opponents at or near your skill level. Similarly, more players means faster queue times for custom games, which benefits both players and map creators.
From a social perspective, players will be able to create character and Real ID friendships with people from the newly linked region, which they couldn’t have before.
Q. When will this happen?
A. The region linking process will happen at the same time as StarCraft II Season 3, which is currently scheduled for the week of July 18.
Q: Will region linking affect which game-client languages I have access to or the payment methods I use?
A: No. The client languages and game-access methods available to you in your region will not change when regions are linked. You will simply be able to play and connect with an even larger group of players.
Q. Do I have to do anything?
A. No - linking will happen automatically.
Q. Does this mean that the ladders of linked regions will be combined?
A. Yes, players from linked regions will be combined into a single ladder. This means you'll have access to a larger pool of players at all skill levels to play against, which will improve the experience for players no matter what league they play in.
Q. How will this affect my matchmaking rating (MMR)? Will I need additional placement matches?
A. Your MMR will be unaffected by region linking. Placement matches will be handled the same way for the start of Season 3 as they were for Season 2.
Q. Will playing with players from the linked region impact my in-game latency?
A. All players in the linked regions will be connecting and playing through the same data centers that they were using prior to region linking, which is the main reason why linking these regions together is fairly straightforward. There should be no impact on game performance.
Q. I'm a map creator - do I have to republish my maps or do anything differently?
A. No special action is required. All of your published maps will be retained during the region linking process.
Q: How does region linking affect the Grandmaster league?
A: After region linking, players from linked regions will be combined into a single ladder. This applies to the Grandmaster league as well, and there will only be a single Grandmaster league between the linked regions.
Im sure this interests some people :) Also, I recall someone telling me recently that latin america players were complaining about the lack of custom maps... I guess tahts solved now :)
How about they get their heads out of their asses and link EVERYONE, fuck this shit, it's even stupider to link a couple areas then none at all. Fuck my life.
I take that back. I want to learn Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin. Attempting to coordinate ladder games seems like the best way to do this.
In fact, SC2 is probably one of the few games capable of teaching language. You can't use console games because all you'll learn are different languages' versions of negro and homosexual.
With SC2, there's the potential to learn real words. Like 'the', and 'and', and other stuff.
EDIT: But I don't want to play with Latin America. I don't even know where it is but it sounds Spanish or something. I'm from Texas so exposure to anything Spanish would not be anything new or interesting nor enjoyable.
I think they're trying to make map makers learn a new langauge so our maps become like recent video game covers in USA(not sure about Europe) where we have 20 languages in the booklets and the back of the case.
I'm so glad I kept reading after the word texas because I thought it was going to turn racist. I'm from SoCal so I know what you mean. If I want to learn spanish I just go next door and talk to my friend. Also learned sign language from him too :)
Let's see we have English, spanish, I think japanese, and I think sometimes russian. It's either japanese or chinese or korean. Holy crap I just remembered I know some koreans I should ask them to try starcraft 2.
Battle.net LA has a hundred players. That won't cause any impact on NA. Theirs maps have a really low popularity, which won't afftect NA maps popularity. The maps' list will be exactly the same for NA (but completly different for them).
Step in the right direction, but the method again by Blizzard is bad. Just like with the custom map scene.
Not to be horrible but from my experience in war3, when playing with Russians there tends to always be connectivity issues, in other words they lag out alot of games.
This isn't guessing, I can actually say with 100% accuracy as the banlist program would tell you where everyone is from. Russians actually got kicked from all customs games, as it was almost guaranteed he'd lag a bit or most definitely drop.
Again I don't mean to be horrible, but stating the truth from my experience.
Second you have the language barrier, there is nothing more frustrating than playing random team games and being unable to communicate with your ally. "There getting air, quick get some air defense. Hello? hello? Hey you there?"
All we really needed was custom maps scene, NA to EU cross linking.
I'll just wait and lurk here another year until it's actually global... in the mean time I'll play diablo 3 when the beta comes along so I can (hopefully) be at peace.
I got so excited when I read the title... They're finally fixing the largest idiocy of battle.net?! Oh, they're not, it's just more bullshit.
I guess I understand Blizzard. I mean, someone from Europe downloading a map file from a server in the US? IT'S NEVER BEEN DONE! THE INTERNET IS NOT READY FOR SUCH WONDERS!
<going back into hibernation until HotS comes out>
Friend just linked me this:
Source: Battle.net
Im sure this interests some people :) Also, I recall someone telling me recently that latin america players were complaining about the lack of custom maps... I guess tahts solved now :)
If someone else already posted this, srry >.<
Well, it's a step in the right direction, I'll say that much.
I wonder if there will be any difference in map taste between NA and SA.
unfortunately for us map makers i don't see the current regions they are linking very useful.
EU > NA Link needs to be made :(
@TheAlmaity: Go
WOW... Was not expecting this. It would be nice if there was a way to check where people are.
@Ash4meD: Go
Thats not gonna happen. :( Unlike NA/Latin America NA and EU don't share data centers :(
@grenegg: Go
How about they get their heads out of their asses and link EVERYONE, fuck this shit, it's even stupider to link a couple areas then none at all. Fuck my life.
They probably made the call to not link everyone because of performance issues.
If I'm not wrong, LA and RU people were already playing on US and EU... if they had the complete game. Those servers were for monthly-paying players.
The change isn't too impressive, since the servers are next to each other in the same offices, lol.
I guess player numbers were the real reason behind this. Everything will be better for joining games now :).
Seriously? Of all the places to link NA, they choose Latin America? Latin America sucks! I don't even think they have anything interesting.
Why can't they link us with EU or Korea. Koreans are awesome. What the fuck?
EDIT: I mean they should link the custom map publishing. I don't want to play with people if we can't speak the same language.
I seldem meet dumb players, who cant even write/understand any word in english. Let's hope that doesn't change when EU and RU are linked together...
Quote from Vexal: "I mean they should link the custom map publishing. I don't want to play with people if we can't speak the same language."
Totally agreed!
I bet people 1v1ing in Taiwan are not very happy to hear this...
I take that back. I want to learn Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin. Attempting to coordinate ladder games seems like the best way to do this.
In fact, SC2 is probably one of the few games capable of teaching language. You can't use console games because all you'll learn are different languages' versions of negro and homosexual.
With SC2, there's the potential to learn real words. Like 'the', and 'and', and other stuff.
EDIT: But I don't want to play with Latin America. I don't even know where it is but it sounds Spanish or something. I'm from Texas so exposure to anything Spanish would not be anything new or interesting nor enjoyable.
I think they're trying to make map makers learn a new langauge so our maps become like recent video game covers in USA(not sure about Europe) where we have 20 languages in the booklets and the back of the case.
@Vexal: Go
I'm so glad I kept reading after the word texas because I thought it was going to turn racist. I'm from SoCal so I know what you mean. If I want to learn spanish I just go next door and talk to my friend. Also learned sign language from him too :)
@Keyeszx: Go
In Austin, where I'm from, most everything is printed in English + Spanish.
I'm in Washington at the moment, and the most common language printed besides English seems to be Japanese.
Let's see we have English, spanish, I think japanese, and I think sometimes russian. It's either japanese or chinese or korean. Holy crap I just remembered I know some koreans I should ask them to try starcraft 2.
Battle.net LA has a hundred players. That won't cause any impact on NA. Theirs maps have a really low popularity, which won't afftect NA maps popularity. The maps' list will be exactly the same for NA (but completly different for them).
Also the language barrier unless blizzard implemented an auto translator.
Step in the right direction, but the method again by Blizzard is bad. Just like with the custom map scene.
Not to be horrible but from my experience in war3, when playing with Russians there tends to always be connectivity issues, in other words they lag out alot of games.
This isn't guessing, I can actually say with 100% accuracy as the banlist program would tell you where everyone is from. Russians actually got kicked from all customs games, as it was almost guaranteed he'd lag a bit or most definitely drop.
Again I don't mean to be horrible, but stating the truth from my experience.
Second you have the language barrier, there is nothing more frustrating than playing random team games and being unable to communicate with your ally. "There getting air, quick get some air defense. Hello? hello? Hey you there?"
All we really needed was custom maps scene, NA to EU cross linking.
I'll just wait and lurk here another year until it's actually global... in the mean time I'll play diablo 3 when the beta comes along so I can (hopefully) be at peace.
I got so excited when I read the title... They're finally fixing the largest idiocy of battle.net?! Oh, they're not, it's just more bullshit.
I guess I understand Blizzard. I mean, someone from Europe downloading a map file from a server in the US? IT'S NEVER BEEN DONE! THE INTERNET IS NOT READY FOR SUCH WONDERS!
<going back into hibernation until HotS comes out>
Lol :) It is astonishing the devolution the bnet has had.