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Servers in Africa

boymeetsleauge·7/3/2015, 3:05:58 PM·15 votes·3,529 views

You saw the title, and you were intrigued. Now, let me put this into context:

(Skip to after the numbered parts for the gude stuff)

Many people (and don't lie, you probably subconsciously think this as well) think Africa is just a cesspool of poor, thin, black people. You couldn't be any more wrong.

1.) First of all, don't really think Africa. Think of all the different areas, each with their own distinct cultures and 200+ native languages to boot. Notice how I don't say countries, and instead I saw areas. This is because when Europe cut the cake that was Africa, they did a very poor job of it. Many countries share similar cultures across borders.

2.) Secondly, all people in Africa aren't poor. Sure, there is widespread poverty, but isn't that the case in most countries? Just go to a local soup kitchen you'll see what I mean. There are bustling cities, some of the biggest in the world. They are smart, educated, well fed (don't let the commercials fool you, we have food, and good stuff, too.) There might be poverty, but there are many middle class families trying to make it in the developing economies of their respective countries

3.) Believe it or not, not everyone in Africa is black! There are white people in South Africa (they call themselves Afrikaners; they were the guys who did apartheid, remember?). There are also Middle-eastern folk in North African countries like Egypt and Libya.

Now, you might ask me, 'Boy, you've been beating around the bush. What do you want?' Well, I want some African servers. And not just one, because I live on the East Coast and I know the pain (100 ping consistently). Maybe 5 servers: Sahara (North Africa), West Africa, East Africa, the Congo Central Africa, and South Africa. And before you call me out, Africa is big. We're gonna need a few serves. Maybe even 3 would be fine. There are gamers in Africa. Game companies usually ignore the continent, and I don't know why. There is a big player base to be tapped into (And even more people who would do it for the money). In conclusion, don't leave my beloved country in the dark. Help them modernize. Bring Servers to Africa. Nidalee Rengar MonkeyKing Khazix

Edit 1: tbh, I'm going to Cameroon to see the fam in December, right when s6 starts. I wanted to start ranked, especially before school starts up again. Kinda selfish I know (ps I'm from Cameroon)

Edit 2: I know, this is really wishful thinking, and very long term. I just hope Riot puts it in their head as something to do in the future

Edit 3: If you come here to be racist just go to the KKK's website i'm sure they need recruits: https://kkk.com

42 Comments

SmokedAlmonds7/3/2015, 3:23:32 PM3 votes

I can't really say its a good or bad idea. But just a quick search says that only 24% of subsahara africa even has electricity. If that is even close to true then its probably a non starter. It also looks like most of the potential users are heavily concentrated at the very north and very south. So you'd probably see northern users directed to use EU or something in the middle east and then MAYBE south africa wouldn't be a terrible place for a server.

Noski77/4/2015, 2:36:02 AM2 votes

ya i can agree with this. Riot needs to make more servers as well. Like a japanese one, and being from the east coast of america, an east coast server.

Silents4297/3/2015, 4:08:06 PM1 votes

It's not a place efficient to hold a server in the first place, there is a reason servers aren't hosted on Africa, it doesn't have a data center, most people aren't swimming in electricity, it'd just be throwing money down the drain, especially if you think it needs multiple servers.

I am against this, it's a complete waste of time, and solves literally nothing.

Ipols7/3/2015, 6:11:00 PM1 votes

How many LoL player are there in Africa? inb4: not enough Good luck, I'd want a server if I were African, too

Eleshakai7/3/2015, 6:46:05 PM1 votes

I'm not an expert, but everything I've been able to find indicates that serverstructure and bandwidth are the reasons African servers are not typically considered viable by most companies, not some bias that nobody plays. It's too expensive and too difficult logistically to set them up right now. Perhaps in stead of asking Riot to come to Africa, first you should ask ISPs to start setting up the base serverstructure for companies like Riot to build off of.

Infrastructure has to come first. THEN companies can use it.

Keppa7/3/2015, 7:09:24 PM1 votes

The issue is maintenance. There is a lack of expertise and technology so the servers would not be maintained well. Lots of places in Africa don't have reliable electricity. The only place I can see a server working is in South Africa, nowhere else in Africa really.

I WILL TROLL YOU7/3/2015, 11:01:35 PM1 votes

[deleted]

HadesBlades7/4/2015, 12:40:24 AM1 votes

Its just not economically viable for riot to do it, yes it sounds great and a very nice idea put into action but there isnt the population, or the amount of players to sustain an African branch, it sounds nice and all but riot would actually lose money investing in moving technology over into parts of Africa. I mean I'm all for gaming and I don't hate Africa, i just don't see it being economically viable :/ sorry

lShocks7/4/2015, 12:50:54 AM1 votes

Kids in Africa could of at that post.

SnowHawKza5/21/2016, 9:25:57 AM1 votes

PLEASE JOIN IN THE DISCSSION ON MOBILE PAYMENT! http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/Vv1A9MVN-south-african-mobile-payment-system

Z Statistic7/3/2015, 3:30:14 PM1 votes

There's no real need for a Saharan server as there's already an Italian server. And I have no idea what internet infrastructure in Africa looks like. A Cote d'Ivoire server might be better than putting it in a geographcially central location like the Congo. Plus, your argument for 3 servers is kind of silly when South America works on the Brazilian server. The continent is still smaller, but people live from Panama all the way to the tip of Chile. NA is effectively "A US server with people living on the boarder of the US" because virtually no one lives north of the border vicinity in Canada, and I think most people in Central American would opt for the Brazilian server since Spanish is more common there.

But all of that is a bit dismissable. Instead, here's the one unignorable fact: Riot has one server for CHINA. Why should Africa get three?