Bulkhead is rolling out region locking in multiplayer first-person shooter Wardogs to, in the studio's words, protect "the largest amount of players from an influx of regions that are more prone to cheating." However, legitimate players in Asia have raised concerns, and cross-region players have criticized the developer for blocked from joining their friends.
The region lock is done by limiting the maximum ping — the player’s connection with the server — to 175. On paper, this is a fair, non-discriminatory way to stop players from distant regions from entering games with an unstable connection. According to Bulkhead, this would cut down on cheating, too.
“We have decided [to protect] the largest amount of players from an influx of regions that are more prone to cheating,” Bulkhead tweeted. “It’s disappointing for us to have to put these divisions in place with social experience being such a core focus of Wardogs, but we must prioritize the largest group of players over the minority.
“Region locking is in progress on the backend, but is more than a switch to make a meaningful impact to the desired effect. We’re sorry we let it get to this point that we are forced to make this decision, but we felt that giving certain regions the opportunity to prevail was the right move. Unfortunately, it has not panned out as we’d hoped and we’ll be getting stricter on cross pollination of regions.”
Some players are already asking for refunds after being blocked from being able to play with their international friends. “As an American with Australian friends this is a bulls**t change,” said one player. “Why don’t we just call a spade a spade and stop access solely from China?”
"Oh that's cool, I'll be getting a refund then," another player said. "F**k this rugpull bulls**t. I didn't buy Wardogs to play some hardcore shooter, I got it to play with my mates, and there was no bulls**t ping limit. Nor will this actually stop cheaters."
“What you clearly should be doing is strengthening the anti-cheat mode, yet the measure you've taken is to outright ban us Asian players,” said another player. “We have to endure discrimination against Asians: a normal kill on a player gets flagged as a high-ping player [and is] instantly labeled a ‘Chinese cheater’ in the public channel.
“This comes from a group of people who don't bother verifying anything and jump straight to accusations, stuffing their slanders with all sorts of profanity and personal attacks. And yet, we still choose to keep playing your game under all these negative effects, even helping to dispel rumors for fellow Asians ourselves, instead of abandoning it.”
There are dozens of posts with similar sentiment in the replies to the Wardogs announcement. The general vibe seems to be that this is a poor change that will negatively impact players across all regions, instead of dealing with the core issue of identifying and quickly banning cheaters.
In response to a YouTuber backing the company decision, Wardogs CEO Joe Brammer said the team is working on solutions for global players. “Appreciate that we’re harming a % of players to protect the larger,” he said. “We will find a solution, this issue is bigger than Wardogs though… We’re working on solutions for global players… Sucks.”
Brammer went on to say the current ping-based solution is a quick fix, "not a permanent solution."
"That is coming but takes longer than it needs to be," he continued. "It’s not as simple as 'flip a switch'... tracking where people are actually based is not straight forward (VPN etc etc)."