Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

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Originally Posted by Leo_Hart

So, we not sure if it is for all world or just regional we already start crying? QQ

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They originally planned cross-server. They said that like, two years ago though. The proposed set up said by Yoshida would make that very difficult.

It's not life-altering news to me, though I do find it rather displeasing to know. Running into Japanese parties and engaging in hilarious language barrier conversations was some serious fun in XI. Now, not that it's "forced" but I can't see why any NA player would pick a JP server, or vice versa.

It really will be lacking a good bit of cultural diversion with these region-based servers.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

It is that simple. I've known of US players playing on EU servers for games, just like some EU players choose to play on US servers. I've tried it, hated the latency, moved back to a US server. I'm not willing to put up with it, but some are.

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I don't know what game your referring to but based on what we know now for THIS game, there is no server transfer option as of yet, there might be one come 2.0 but until something like that is confirmed, people will worry. I personally have no intention of leveling a character and all the jobs all over again just because i don't like the server later on. Also your solution solves nothing, my issue is i don't want to pick between friends. If i go to the EU server based on your solution, then I'm picking my EU friends over my NA or JP, and the same applies no matter where i go.

Also to whoever said that they payed for the game so they have the right to regional servers if they want..... you payed for an International/Global Game, this is something everyone who bought ffxiv was most likely aware of so saying since you pay for it you should get regional server makes no sense.

I can't stress just how annoyed I am about this. I have friends in Australia and North America who bought the game in the past month or two so they could play it with me after I convinced them for months and months. And now they're being segregated, along with the other people from the states (Hawaii included), Brazil, Canada, Australia that are already in my LS. This is literally tearing up a family we have built up amongst each other and I'm gutted. I also have been told by many others that they were going to buy once 2.0 is out and play with me, and that's not going to happen now, either. I'm just plain gutted. None of them will pick an EU server for the very obvious reason and it's not lag. It's the fact that it will never really be busy during their time's peak hours. They will not be able to put together parties when we're all asleep or working! Arrrrgh. So damned annoyed. Why, SE? Why? :( My poor friends, my e-family!

Poll? Would this already be a poll if legacy player service fees were expected to exceed new player service fees? We'll likely have to align to whatever the largest audience might be, and it seems SE is betting on the new player.

Many of us have played XIV and XI with friends from all over the world that speak our language. I see good morning in my chat log at almost any time of day.

I was hoping for a less isolating solution to ping latency. A much less expensive solution to ping latency is to actually use latency as a calculation rather than remove it by spending tens of millions on new regional data centers and bandwidth contracts.

Where we (mostly) care about lag is in instances. As the instance starts, the software that operates the event could ping the 8 players and get a response time. The server can then add ping time to the required reaction time to determine whether the player reacted. The server sends a message to the client "ifrit:eruption" and the player moves, causing the client to send a stream of new coordinates to the server. Currently, the server has a fixed time requirement that does not adapt to varying network traffic outside the player's control, it holds a 20ms ping player to the same requirements as a 220ms ping player. With latency factored into the software, and a 220ms ping time, the player in the instance furthest from the server gets a quarter second reaction time in addition to the designed reaction time. The server evaluates their actual response in a manner consistent with those players who use the same network access provider as SE's facilities in Japan and only have 20ms added to their response times.

So since it's too late to do anything about this, it's good to know that we'll have almost two months to again say goodbye to friends like we did in the merge shuffle.

This is the first Takana I've seen from the Yoshi team. The experience is about the people and eliminatiing national boundaries in a virtual world. If I fall on my face for the 19th time due to animation lock during eruption, I can laugh about it with someone from a place I've never been and try again. The item or achievement are not the game, the people are.

What twist in fate has brought us to roads which run so near?

If ARR is a new game, then you should treat it as such.

I wonder how easy it was for those who made the transition from XI, to be able to keep their friends, every single last one of them.

At this point, I'd discovered that JP players are even worse here than XI for all the JP ONRY bull that I get constantly, even though I actually can speak some Japanese. Thusly, I'm kind of glad I won't have to deal with shouts wasting my time only to reject me. (Not to mention the lag!)

Edit: BTW please add in "Language Barrier" to auto-translate so they don't sound so damn racist. It's a chore having to explain that to everyone I start yelling at for giving me JP ONLY as an excuse.

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Originally Posted by Shura

I don't know what game your referring to but based on what we know now for THIS game, there is no server transfer option as of yet, there might be one come 2.0 but until something like that is confirmed, people will worry. I personally have no intention of leveling a character and all the jobs all over again just because i don't like the server later on. Also your solution solves nothing, my issue is i don't want to pick between friends. If i go to the EU server based on your solution, then I'm picking my EU friends over my NA or JP, and the same applies no matter where i go.

Also to whoever said that they payed for the game so they have the right to regional servers if they want..... you payed for an International/Global Game, this is something everyone who bought ffxiv was most likely aware of so saying since you pay for it you should get regional server makes no sense.

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I also payed for a MMO game that should give me the best possbile MMO experience, and I can tell you that 1.0 did absolutely not deliver that. The servers we have now are not going away, you can stay on your server if you want but no player should have to suffer the lag they get because the server they're on is on the other side of the planet just because you want everyone on the same server.

Well, in the end everyone will get used to it, friends will keep in touch, servers will but lag-free(ish). Make new friends to be in part of a person's (e-family). As long as the game itself is good, everything else just falls into place.

I don't really care about this..I mean, its nice we will have NO lag...really really nice. Lag is very frustrating to me ><

What I do care about is...SE will you post the server list BEFORE 1.xx goes down please? No offense but I do not want to have to give contact info to tons many people outside the game. As long as they do that, its all gewd. I mean they can find me on my DA yeah sure, but that is kind of a pain...

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Originally Posted by Loony_BoB

I can't stress just how annoyed I am about this. I have friends in Australia and North America who bought the game in the past month or two so they could play it with me after I convinced them for months and months. And now they're being segregated, along with the other people from the states (Hawaii included), Brazil, Canada, Australia that are already in my LS. This is literally tearing up a family we have built up amongst each other and I'm gutted. I also have been told by many others that they were going to buy once 2.0 is out and play with me, and that's not going to happen now, either. I'm just plain gutted. None of them will pick an EU server for the very obvious reason and it's not lag. It's the fact that it will never really be busy during their time's peak hours. They will not be able to put together parties when we're all asleep or working! Arrrrgh. So damned annoyed. Why, SE? Why? :( My poor friends, my e-family!

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For the last time no one, I repeat NO ONE is getting segregated, period. Our old servers will exist the same as always, one server might have its data center no longer based in Japan and that's it. Did you people throw this type of tantrum when Ragnarok went live, did you throw this type of tantrum when new servers went live and some friends decided to transfer to it in FFXI? This is the worst that is going to happen, people are not forced to become segregated, they will choose it of their own free will if they decide community vs lag. This would have happened anyways when more language and region preferred servers went live (Which we have known for more then a year there would be), instead we get a bonus! now not every NA and EU needs to be second best lag vs Japanese players, they have a choice when they didn't have one before, stop being so selfish about this people would have left anyways for the language specific servers when they went live anyways. If people are happy in their community, they will stay, those that aren't will move and there isn't anything you or I can do about it other then make server transfers impossible, never opening new servers and never merging servers.

All of this stuff is very true, but no one is hitting the endgame portion of this... latency is a negative in pvp and pve endgame, if you dont go to NA server, and your NA, your gimp to your ls, simple fact, you are. If i go to a JP server (which i would prefer) i would have lag they would not, and I would never do well in pvp, and cause wipes in pve.

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Originally Posted by Lirion

I also payed for a MMO game that should give me the best possbile MMO experience, and I can tell you that 1.0 did absolutely not deliver that. The servers we have now are not going away, you can stay on your server if you want but no player should have to suffer the lag they get because the server they're on is on the other side of the planet just because you want everyone on the same server.

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Love all the exaggeration about server lag, there is lag in the game and but majority of it is caused by the core engine that tries to confirm everything server side, this was a feature they added to counter RMT but ended up screwing everyone else over it, SE admitted it and said that was one of the main reasons they are changing the engine. You guys make it sound as if the server lag is so bad that if u try to move the game crashes. Also your right you did pay for it, but you payed for a international/global mmo so you should get the best possible experience for a international/global MMO. Based on your justification, i should be able to buy a FPS game and complain its not a racing game.

From the looks of this so far, our LS will be impacted. Heck our leadership is 50/50 EU/NA. LS discussion imminent.

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Originally Posted by Shura

Love all the exaggeration about server lag, there is lag in the game and but majority of it is caused by the core engine that tries to confirm everything server side, this was a feature they added to counter RMT but ended up screwing everyone else over it, SE admitted it and said that was one of the main reasons they are changing the engine. You guys make it sound as if the server lag is so bad that if u try to move the game crashes. Also your right you did pay for it, but you payed for a international/global mmo so you should get the best possible experience for a international/global MMO. Based on your justification, i should be able to buy a FPS game and complain its not a racing game.

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Now THIS doesn't make sense, how the fuck did you get my post to "Based on your justification, i should be able to buy a FPS game and complain its not a racing game."?

And you have no idea how much lag I suffer from this game, getting R0 all the time, so don't give me that shit about exaggeration.

No one of us have played ARR and no one knows how bad the lag will be for a EU player on a JP server, sure you can say it went alright when yoshi played it at gamescom but they were like 4 players on the server. How do you think it would have been if there were thousands online?

All the servers are still international, you can play on any of the servers but who are you to decide if I should play on a server based in Japan or one in EU? If I can get the best possible experience by picking the server in EU then I should be able to pick the server in EU no matter what the original idea Tanaka had. You gotta remember that this is a new game with a new producer. If you want to stay on your server, stay on your server, if your friends want to change to a server at their location they should have every right to do so.

i bet the JP are like hell yes jponry sever

Yeah JP probably doesn't care at all.

Overall this is a good thing for the game. Yes, it's going to create some segregation, and yes some of you will lose friends. If you played XI, didn't you lose friends when server migration would open up once in a while? I did, in fact I even had to choose between Linkshells like some of us may have to do when ARR is launched. It's simply unavoidable.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the majority of players will accept the change with open arms and people here complaining are in the minority (usually the forums community is a minority compared to those playing). This really is a non-issue.

For those wondering how cross-regional content finding would work, it could be as simple as having the instanced hosted by the party leader's server, then giving the player a choice to only be in a pool of certain regions. Simple.

For those questioning why can't it just be like XI? Well the JP regional servers will be. You'll still be connecting to a hub that then has to get/send data to the server in japan (this is simplified). There really isn't anything different there; there's no magic behind it. So if you want an experience like XI, play on a JP regional server, I'm sure a lot of others will be.

Just remember that SE is giving players what they asked for. They're not making anyone move servers, that will be of their own choice.

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Originally Posted by Darkillumina

Friends are temporary. Lag is forever.

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Favorite post in the whole thread. You get all my Likes.

I play on odd hours. If I go with a sever located in my country I'll be screwed because i cant play peak time. If I go any other server Ill get lag. :/

Damnit this really bothers me. Just remembering the lag we have now for Atomos and teleported already makes me sick.

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From the looks of this so far, our LS will be impacted. Heck our leadership is 50/50 EU/NA. LS discussion imminent.

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My Ls too sadly we are from all regions EU/NA/ASIA

ITT, drama!

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Originally Posted by Croy

This is the worst that is going to happen, people are not forced to become segregated, they will choose it of their own free will if they decide community vs lag.

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Community vs. Lag or Community vs. Timing? If people start to choose to split, the damage is done and the floodgates will open up. It's about the timing of when you play. I can play with my LS all day and always have people active because I've made an effort to get to know people from all regions. If the server was guaranteed to be active all day around, I wouldn't give a rat's arse how much lag there would be. I play for the community and for the people. I play because I know no matter what time I get on, I can hook up with a party of friends, and I have a lot of them. Now we are being split. What's to like about that? Perhaps you play for endgame content and being able to do things hardcore and get off plumes perfectly at all times, but I would prefer to hang around with all the fantastic people I have met in the game. To do that, now, I will have to level on multiple servers and I simply don't have that kind of time available to me.

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Originally Posted by Holy_Dragoon

From the looks of this so far, our LS will be impacted. Heck our leadership is 50/50 EU/NA. LS discussion imminent.

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You guys are forgetting servers are not region locked. You can pick a server and say were are going to play on server X. Then everyone in your ls can go to that server.

"Hey guys we appreciate you legacy players who have supported the game for the last 2 years and as a show of our appreciation we'd like to give you another chocobo and a discount and the ability to play this one-time content. The small print though is that we're going to make your social history and friendships become totally insignificant by segregating the playerbase and you will need to find new friends with our new resolute plan to get people to stop whining about dying on Ifrit, even though we already fixed animation lock, the number one issue besides stupidity that was causing people to wipe."

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Originally Posted by Rjain

"Hey guys we appreciate you legacy players who have supported the game for the last 2 years and as a show of our appreciation we'd like to give you another chocobo and a discount and the ability to play this one-time content. The small print though is that we're going to make your social history and friendships become totally insignificant by segregating the playerbase and you will need to find new friends with our new resolute plan to get people to stop whining about dying on Ifrit, even though we already fixed animation lock, the number one issue besides stupidity that was causing people to wipe."

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They aren't segregating anyone, people can chose to segregate themselves yes. Anyone can pick any regions server. Wish you people would stop complaining about this. Why is it so hard to get talk to your friends and say we are going to play on this server. It will be the same in terms of lag just like how it is now to the people who are out of region. If playing with your friend is that important you can deal with the lag because if they left it as it is then you still have the lag.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

You guys are forgetting servers are not region locked. You can pick a server and say were are going to play on server X. Then everyone in your ls can go to that server.

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To this I will add that no matter what region your LS chooses to settle on in ARR, lag-wise you could not be worse off than where you are now.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

"Hey guys we appreciate you legacy players who have supported the game for the last 2 years and as a show of our appreciation we'd like to give you another chocobo and a discount and the ability to play this one-time content. The small print though is that we're going to make your social history and friendships become totally insignificant by segregating the playerbase and you will need to find new friends with our new resolute plan to get people to stop whining about dying on Ifrit, even though we already fixed animation lock, the number one issue besides stupidity that was causing people to wipe."

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkADY3p3OM

That's not animation lock...

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Originally Posted by Loony_BoB

Community vs. Lag or Community vs. Timing? If people start to choose to split, the damage is done and the floodgates will open up. It's about the timing of when you play. I can play with my LS all day and always have people active because I've made an effort to get to know people from all regions. If the server was guaranteed to be active all day around, I wouldn't give a rat's arse how much lag there would be. I play for the community and for the people. I play because I know no matter what time I get on, I can hook up with a party of friends, and I have a lot of them. Now we are being split. What's to like about that? Perhaps you play for endgame content and being able to do things hardcore and get off plumes perfectly at all times, but I would prefer to hang around with all the fantastic people I have met in the game. To do that, now, I will have to level on multiple servers and I simply don't have that kind of time available to me.

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-.-;;; So what you are saying, no region preferred, no language preferred, every JP player always, always gets better latency (in PvP and PVE) and you would deny people even the choice to go somewhere else? Because that's what it sounds to me. You and your friends are not forced to leave your server, hell if your shell or your friends really are so mixed why do you assume they are suddenly going to leave and go to a different server if everyone is happy where they are at? What is stopping your EU friends from going to Ragnarok which is already in game, what is going stop NA friends from going to an NA preffered server in 2.0 like they have stated multiple times is coming before this recent post. What is it about data centers actually being spread out that makes you so feared compared to what was coming before? Why do you assume you won't be able to do content with friends using content-finder, or others that can speak your language during the off hours. Why is it other people must suffer the limitations of the system just because of some hypothetical fear that your friends are all going to scatter at the touch of a button when it and will always be their choice, its not like the original server merge idea, the servers everyone is on now is not going to vanish, its not going to change, its going to get a little notation that says "Data center Atlantic Region" or something similar. What about that makes you so full of fear?

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Originally Posted by Zumi

They aren't segregating anyone, people can chose to segregate themselves yes. Anyone can pick any regions server. Wish you people would stop complaining about this. Why is it so hard to get talk to your friends and say we are going to play on this server. It will be the same in terms of lag just like how it is now to the people who are out of region. If playing with your friend is that important you can deal with the lag because if they left it as it is then you still have the lag.

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This is where logic comes in.

Say you've made 15-30 friends that you play with on your server. They are in NA, Europe, and Japan, along with other places that might be closer to regions outside of your own.

Those people also have friends, most of which probably closer to their own area.

So I'm just gonna say "ok guys all of you have to come to my North American server"? Even if we were to take the time to see how many of who is closer to what (which would take forever), we'd also have to take into consideration their friends from OTHER servers that want to come play with them (and friends that haven't played the game yet but want to).

Why they didn't just keep the same sort of server structure is beyond me. It's hard enough getting people to choose one server exactly how it is now, let alone with this new shit.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

Why they didn't just keep the same sort of server structure is beyond me.

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Because it was very badly built and people made sure to let SE know about it.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

This is where logic comes in.

Say you've made 15-30 friends that you play with on your server. They are in NA, Europe, and Japan, along with other places that might be closer to regions outside of your own.

Those people also have friends, most of which probably closer to their own area.

So I'm just gonna say "ok guys all of you have to come to my North American server"? Even if we were to take the time to see how many of who is closer to what (which would take forever), we'd also have to take into consideration their friends from OTHER servers that want to come play with them (and friends that haven't played the game yet but want to).

Why they didn't just keep the same sort of server structure is beyond me. It's hard enough getting people to choose one server exactly how it is now, let alone with this new shit.

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This occurs any time when they add new servers let people switch. Everyone can't play on the same server as is the nature of servers.

But why leave all the servers in Japan where everyone who not in Japan is at a disadvantage due to latency. With these new data centers in NA and EU regions at least SE is giving people the choice to have less latency and a overall better game play experience.

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Originally Posted by Faiyez

Because it was very badly built and people made sure to let SE know about it.

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Yeah that's why XI failed horribly.

Hey wait a second.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

Yeah that's why XI failed horribly.

Hey wait a second.

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You're talking about a game that launched before WoW did. Luckily, standards have gone up since then.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

Yeah that's why XI failed horribly.

Hey wait a second.

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FFXI server structure was horrible and ill fitted for a modern MMO. They had to put claim lag on their servers to keep JP from having an unfair advantage in claiming NMs, and although fun Ballista suffered in a similar way when fighting people between regions. Just because it was less noticeable does not mean it was non-existent. FFXIV is just so much worse from FFXI we delude ourselves in thinking it was acceptable for todays standards, hint, its not for most people. People 'coped' with it. I know plenty that were shouting from the roof tops hoping for servers to be spread out so people at least had the option not being second best to the JP side.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Since you clearly don't value friendship as much as other people do, it's understandable why you use the term "freak out", when it's perfectly reasonable to be upset people will be separated from friends they care about.

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This person's stance does not mean he doesn't value friendship. There are different levels of friendship though. Friendships that extend outside of the game, and aquaintences that you play with in the game but don't really contact outside of it. I have close friends, that I will stick with, and aquaintences that I might become seperated from, but it will be on good terms. If I should desire to talk to them in the future, I can create a character on their server. Ideally, there will be a game-wide friends list so I can still chat with people on different servers.

These kinds of problems are not caused directly by regional servers, and are a consequence of any server change, such as adding new servers and merging old ones. Whenever either of these events happen, there will be some seperations- and these kinds of situations are unavoidable. If new servers are added, some friends-of-friends-of-friends may take different paths. When servers merge, the same thing can happen. These things are unavoidable because the population will grow and shrink over time. Regional servers may bring about this change at an unexpected time, but a similar situation would eventually happen regardless of if they did it or not. It's something you have to accept or not play the game.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

Yeah that's why XI failed horribly.

Hey wait a second.

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For all we know, they could have. XI was designed and built for PS2 on a 56k connection, PC was a completely after thought. XI is also 10 years old, the internet and its tubes have come a long way where latency really shouldn't be an issue for XI tiny packets.

X|V is a beast on bandwidth which causes the large latency issues. I wouldn't be surprised if it ran worse on XI's architecture.

This mean plears who dont want lag will use us servers and eu will use eu servers etc . way to kill the game ffxi servers were in japan ran fine use that server style

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Originally Posted by Lirion

And you have no idea how much lag I suffer from this game, getting R0 all the time, so don't give me that shit about exaggeration.

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That's the thing isn't it, because clearly there are those of us who also live on the other side of Japan and don't have this lag issue. The fact that it seems to work fine for some and not for others suggests the problem lies elsewhere and not the location of the server. If it was the server that's causing this unplayable lag where players R0 and D/C all the time, EVERYONE outside japan should be experiencing it since everyone is connected to the same sever.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

This person's stance does not mean he doesn't value friendship. There are different levels of friendship though. Friendships that extend outside of the game, and aquaintences that you play with in the game but don't really contact outside of it. I have close friends, that I will stick with, and aquaintences that I might become seperated from, but it will be on good terms. If I should desire to talk to them in the future, I can create a character on their server. Ideally, there will be a game-wide friends list so I can still chat with people on different servers.

These kinds of problems are not caused directly by regional servers, and are a consequence of any server change, such as adding new servers and merging old ones. Whenever either of these events happen, there will be some seperations- and these kinds of situations are unavoidable. If new servers are added, some friends-of-friends-of-friends may take different paths. When servers merge, the same thing can happen. These things are unavoidable because the population will grow and shrink over time. Regional servers may bring about this change at an unexpected time, but a similar situation would eventually happen regardless of if they did it or not. It's something you have to accept or not play the game.

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Precisely, and for the record I am not leaving my server even if it becomes JP zoned. I am pretty sure most of my friends are going to stick around on the server and if not oh well, work on what will be best for my playing experience, move on. Saw plenty of people leave for Ragnarok, in FFXI when various new servers were added our shell even contemplated moving, didn't happen, saw large ls swath take off, we stayed, life went on. Hell we got more disenfranchised as a shell when FFXI had its server merges because people got forced to make name changes and start new shells because the shells broke during the merge. That had WAY more issues then this change will ever make and it gives people the option to play the game in much the same way the JP players have been able to do for years now.

Perhaps I'm biased because I apparently have super hero special powers to not let lag hinder my play performance in MMOs after years of playing them and experiencing it, and resorting to prefer the social element of the game and the people I play with from around the world over a tiny bit of lag which is going to exist regardless of whether or not the server is in Japan or right outside my house.

If someone was to ask me "brand new game coming out would you rather have one set of global servers in one location or data centres in different regions"? I would say data centres in different regions. I'm not blind as to see that the people complaining (including me) are probably a minority because the new game will probably get far more players than it currently has. I just felt like voicing a bitter complaint because it's going to kick the community structure that has existed for ages in the ass.

That said, and in response to the lag video that was posted, I will repeat what I've said in every case someone has complained about lag. I, geographically and technologically speaking, live almost the farthest you can possibly get in the world from Japan's network (besides living off the coast of Brazil in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or the south pole). It takes me like 2 minutes to upload a 10 MB file there at times. Not only that, I play on a mid-grade laptop and have low FPS. Apart from the first 10-15 attempts at endgame where I cried lag, I have never had a problem since. The only issue I see people ultimately having is they cast a special, get stuck in an attack, and can't get out of said attack before the attack goes off based on what the server is seeing (animation lock). That has been fixed in ARR. I've watched videos of the Japanese players on Ifrit, I hardly see a difference in the slightest between lag. A difference exists, but so insignificant it's not even worth mentioning.