I am both an employee at a local ISP and an avid Overwatch 2 player and supporter. Post the server migration to GMEC, the gameplay experience has severely deteriorated due to high ping, which upon investigation, seems to tie back to a potential hardware limitations currently which can’t be fixed by simply updated routing tables.
The people in this thread are in the right to say this is of the fault of Blizzard as this issue only came about after Blizzard’s action and with no test or warning.
This issue might not see a swift resolution and may take years. It’s concerning that Blizzard’s move seemingly pushes the Saudi player base away. I urge Blizzard to reconsider this change as it’s hindering many in Saudi Arabia from enjoying Overwatch 2, a game we have supported all these years.
I will be working in the next period with local regulators to have this escalated. I would appreciate if Blizzard showed some sense and responded to the issue rather than ignoring this till it boils over.
Dear Overwatch team
show some respect and stop ignoring us
we contacted our ISP, submitted tickets, fixed our internet, nothing changed
what alse can we do?
October 28th, still can’t join Middle Eastern servers. Been revisiting this topic every day hoping to see it resolved but I guess that won’t be anytime soon, stay safe and have a great life everyone.
To make a long story short, “ME” servers are gone for most of the gulf region of the middle east, forcing us to route to servers with over 130 ping, and of course they try to blame it on the ISPs (the servers dont even exist in the game btw) making the game unplayable, yet another greedy and pathetic way to save on money due to the “new servers” most likely being cheaper to maintain, its sad that i spent money on this game just to get perma-banned from it for existing… fix your game
I don’t believe this has to do with money. If it was about money then they just about lost it, because the biggest fan base in the middle east is going to stop playing.
Hello Devs all middle eastern are facing the same problem which is high ping (130-180) idk why u shutdown Bahrain servers even when they were perfect for every middle eastern player (20-40) , I would love too see u guys reply and fix this issue we’ve been facing it now for almost 2 months now , Please fix the problem ASAP because the game is not fun or entertaining like it used to be when Bahrain servers were up
are you F series? you as a “company” I guess, you should have already talked to our IPSs before you even think of moving the servers. don’t you want to keep players playing your game?? like how didn’t you even check before you removed the servers??? how can you even managed to ruining this. all the ME area was doing good with Bahrain servers, and you as a company somehow managed to ruining it. I don’t get how you even not fixing this already. also you did not know about the problem before we told you, how lazy you are? you should already knew that this problem will occur and fixing it before you shutdown the old good servers. shame on you. we know you are greedy and want our money and we will give it to you but at least do some thing with our problems. I know that you don’t want to talk to our IPSs so you don’t have to pay anything but this is your F ing problem not ours. we didn’t have any problem with the old servers, you had. and you fix your problem and occurring a new one but know you don’t want to do anything?? shame on you BLIZARD
There is a peering agreement ( direct connection ) between STC in Saudi Arabia and Ooredoo in Qatar but STC doesn’t share their routes with Ooredoo since 2017 due to political restrictions even after solution ( gcc crisis ) , I already spoke with my ISP in Qatar and he said the network team are aware of this problem for a long time but the other side won’t share his routes with them for some reason , I’ve tested some IP’s from STC , I do get high ping on Saudi servers , so if they moved the server to saudi arabia for example , we would face the same problem in Qatar , and my ping in previous server ( Bahrain ) was 15ms , so I do agree with the people in here to move the server back to bahrain so everyone can have the best experience gameplay.
Since Day 1, I knew that our ISPs (STC, Mobily and Zain ) will not fix the issue because of the previous political restrictions between the two countries ( Saudi Arabia and Qatar).
And It will not be fixed in the nearest future.
I hope Blizzard understand this and roll back to bahrain servers.
So this will never be fixed? Is this thread closed as in they’re not seeing it anymore? Should a new thread be made? Like why don’t they care that we’re suffering from this horrendous ping? Why do Bloxzard keep trying to fix what ain’t broke and proceeding on ruining it even more?
Thread isn’t closed, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to reply.
The OW team switched companies for server hosting. This was likely a business decision—as it is at most companies—and may not involve game client developers. So what can you do?
This happened same with SA servers, almost one entire month we was unable to playin Brazil server. Now its fixed but took a huge time for they fix this…
Our original messaging on this issue hasn’t changed. I do have one update: For custom games not seeing GMEC server selection, our team is planning on resolving this in a future update.
For Saudi Arabia players being routed to Europe and running into issues after troubleshooting with your ISP. I do recommend running a 10-minute Ping Plotter to one of the IPs below:
34.1.32.1
34.18.0.1
Copy the ping plotter link within the code blocks below and post it in a new thread Here.
`Link Here`
We will double-check these results, and if we see anything we can do to help within our networks or issues with our own peering partners, we will ensure that feedback gets forwarded properly to the right places.
This thread has different issues being reported, and for that reason, we are closing it to stay organized:
For suggestions on server locations, please post these on our General forums.
For Middle Eastern players outside of Saudi Arabia running into connection issues. We recommend troubleshooting the connection starting with the steps Here, then consulting with your Internet Service Provider. Feel free to create a new thread with a 10-minute Ping plotter to one of the IPs above if issues continue.
