Why does everyone play on U.S.

I'm not trying to start a flame war, or to even say the usual "english only server." I really would just like to know why so many people, not form the U.S., play on the U.S. servers. Then on top of that "most" of them, at some point, complain about their ping. But, thats for another thread altogether. So, why do they do it?

I would like to ask all those Russians who play on EU West, when I mark "English" only in language section and some of them play like garbage, refuse to communicate and call me "cyka blyat idi naxui pidaras ***en obama".

Onto your question. I think that they believe, that they will find better teammates on those servers. Second option is that they marked everything to find a match ASAP (which isn't working anyway). Another reason is that they want to meet Dota celebrities. I know I am missing something, though...

Once, I met a Russian who could actually speak coherent English in a friendly manner (yes, yes, this exists, even though it's like 1 in a million). Of course, I asked him why there were so many Russians on Europe and US servers even though they can't even communicate with English speakers. He told me that the Russia servers sucked, because they crashed every 10 minutes and had garbage ping, and that even with the ping difference the EU/US servers were better for them.

I think the issue is that there are just too many Russians playing DotA and that the Russia servers can't hold them all, so they squat our servers.

DotA celebrities? Nah, most celebrities right now are Chinese or Ukrainian or something these days, not European or US.

Similar experience - spoke to a friendly russian who basically said "the pings are better". It is a huge country, and due to the topography of the internet, for some of them, they get a better connection to somewhere like Luxomberg than they do to their "home" servers.

Ok. Solved the russian question. Now what about all east asians (maylasia/singapore) and South Americans (peru/brazil)?

Like the answers so far. Keep'em coming.

South American internet routing is really bad. There's no direct connection between Brazil (where the server is) and most of the rest of the continent, the data has to rout through the US. So the vast majority of south america gets much better ping to USE (~150) than they do to SA (300+).

I haven't actually run into many asians (I guess they play on USW?), but I presume it's a similar issue.

I live in Poland and on EU West/East I have 12-14 ms. I am glad I don't have to worry about ping like the others.

Oh, no. The asians, mostly the ones I referenced above, are definitely on U.S. east with me.

And, let me get this straight. It's all because of ping issues and not that they think american players are easier to play against?

The SEA server is based in Singapore, right below Malaysia. Ping is always at 10-30 for me in Singapore, and I get a low 30-50 in Malaysia.

What I know is that most Asians (at least here in Malaysia and Singapore) only play on the US servers because they think you guys suck :P (especially "Ah Bengs" - wannabe gangsters who act like total ****wads because they think they're better than everyone else).

Everyone plays on US servers cause we have cookies...

But seriously; it's annoying trying to communicate with a team with only pings due to a language barrier.

Makes a supports job a lot harder.