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?”
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