With regards to the cross-region data center travel test...

Sorry, not sure where to put this, as there doesn't appear to be a general "game feature feedback" forum, or perhaps I just missed it.

For my part, I think the hemming and hawing about "market economy" and "cultural
differences" is a bit odd. The market stuff, I'm not even sure what that's referring to (I assume just market board prices? Too late to worry about that!), but cultural differences? Of all the games to be concerned about adding cross-region play, a game specifically about meeting and understanding other cultures as like the core theme seems especially ironic.

But more than that, we already did this with FF11. Everyone just played on the same servers. EVERYONE. And we all survived! Still do survive, in fact! Yes there's occasional friction and differences in how people do things, just like there is with people within your own culture. And it's not like each region is homogenous, "Europe" is not a culture, it's a ton of countries with distinct cultures!

My bigger concern would be further escalating the issue of people all congregating in specific servers for certain types of content, which is already an issue with cross-world travel. Which could easily ("easily" as in the solution is easy to figure out, not easy to implement) be solved via cross-world/cross-region party finders/duty finders. Again, this is already an issue and already needs to be solved.

I dunno, just my thoughts on the subject. Of all the games I'd expect to be walking on eggshells in regards to the horror that some cultures might interact, FF14 was not one of them. I say let the community evolve and mingle as it pleases, and enforce the existing rules as you have been. If new issues arise, add some new rules. But to outright avoid this intermingling of cultures for fear of friction is not what I'd expect.