The Brazilian guild Nilbas Academy, located on Azralon, qualified for TGP (The Great Push) despite playing with high ping. They competed in TGP with 240ms, as the tournament server is in a region where they experience that latency. Even during the second phase, they didn’t finish last—on the contrary, out of eight teams, they placed fourth (and their tank from Argentina even lost power for 30 minutes, Although he is Brazilian, he lives in Argentina). They made a comp with frost too.
When will this region get its own server? I see great potential, but playing a tournament or WoW in general where a few seconds can determine the fate of the keystone, all while dealing with 240ms, seems quite difficult for them.
Probably when the demand signal (# of paying subscribers there) is greater than the infrastructure cost to establish a Data Center there.
They’ve consolidated down to only three Data Centers (Chicago, Los Angeles, and Sydney AUS), but there used to be as many as four in different locations in the Americas & Oceanic per (Data Center Knowledge article from 2009). That consolidation is mostly cost-driven, but if Blizzard were to open a Data Center in Central/South America then local taxes, unfavorable currency exchange, safety of the infrastructure personnel & equipment also under consideration, etc. are all part of the “cost” that has to be outweighed by subs (converted to USD) in the area served by the Data Center to justify opening & maintaining it.