Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Pros:

- still regional servers
- no community segregation

Cons:

- way stronger segregation than just labeling according to where the data centers are because that way people would even be separated by language
- no one would know where the server they chose actually is so Eu players would be on a JP server and NAs on a EU based server....and the whole reason for this would be ignored - to reduce latency issues.

---

Fixed that for you:o

You missed the point completely. The channels are servers located in us EU JP respectively, just like they plan to do it. The difference is that you can freely change between regions with one character.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soukyuu

You missed the point completely. The channels are servers located in us EU JP respectively, just like they plan to do it. The difference is that you can freely change between regions with one character.

---

this wont happen for the same technical reasons you cant go transfering worlds on the fly. which is essentially what your suggesting.

That's simply not possible.
Because that would mean transfering all of you character data from one server on one end of the world to a server on the other end of the world every time you open that drop down menu.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scratches

Data Centers house servers/shards/"worlds" (they're all the same thing). One "world" can only exist in one data center at any given time.
There is no possible way that you can, say, connect to Balmung (a Japanese server, in a Japanese data center) whilst only communicating with a NA or EU data center, as if there were a real-time, updating "copy" of Balmung on it. It doesn't (can't) work like that.
If you want the benefits of using a regional server, then you'll have to either re-roll anew or transfer one of your existing characters to the new "Honey Boo Boo" server (the names of the new shards, obviously, have not been finalized yet).

In short: you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Square does not know how to bypass the laws of physics.

---

This explains it quite nicely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rogue

this wont happen for the same technical reasons you cant go transfering worlds on the fly. which is essentially what your suggesting.

---

I don't see a problem. Latency is not crucial for a character database update. Just have a central character database per server and make all the channel servers access it. Whether a read/write operation takes 100 or 400 ms, doesn't matter to you as a player

Edit: they even have this already with Uldah, and it even reduced the lag

Edit2:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atoli

That's simply not possible.
Because that would mean transfering all of you character data from one server on one end of the world to a server on the other end of the world every time you open that drop down menu.

---

Wrong. Servers are no monolithic constructs, there are different components, for example

- a login server
- a character database server
- an area cluster consisting of multiple servers (Uldah, for example)

All those servers communicate with each other and they don't have to be all places at one physical location. Which is why a character database server can be "global" while login and areas can be regional without issues imho.

My linkshell has both EU and NA players, and so we have scheduled 'event' times during almost all of the day for me (I'm an NA player). If the servers go regional as they suggest, we would force the people in our linkshell to choose staying with us over going where they have less lag, but also the recruitment to keep up for EU players would be very hard to do because of likely lack of EU members on an NA server. I would prefer if they could manage to slightly reduce the current lag, and keep the 'global' servers.

Could we have a player's poll about making regional servers?
I ask because often the most vocal about a particular topic are often the minority.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shaelou

I would prefer if they could manage to slightly reduce the current lag, and keep the 'global' servers.

---

They allready are reducing the current lag. People just forget why that lag is happening and blame it on the latency.

Quote:

---

Which is why a character database server can be "global" while login and areas can be regional without issues imho.

---

there is no benefit to what you describe. You also dont seem to understand that moving individual server cluster components apart from each other increases server response time and we're back at square one.

Just the lobby server (holds everyone's data) being "global' has no benefit whatsoever. Therefore your whole idea has no benefit whatsoever. Somebody loses no matter where the area servers are located. If the servers are global, everybody outside of japan loses. If the servers are regional, fewer people lose.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

If the servers are global, everybody outside of japan loses. If the servers are regional, fewer people lose.

---

...what? So everyone who played XI outside of Japan lost?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

there is no benefit to what you describe. You also dont seem to understand that moving individual server cluster components apart from each other increases server response time and we're back at square one.

---

The only times an area server has to read or write to the character DB is when you save/load your game. During your game session, your savestate is being updated periodically in case you disconnect or crash. This updating taking a few more milliseconds doesn't change anything.

Otherwise, everything happens regionally, so yes, it has a benefit you refuse to see. Prove me wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

...what? So everyone who played XI outside of Japan lost?

---

Yes. Everyone outside of Japan was at a disadvantage, especially in the days of HNMs and claiming. Since shit like that doesn't really happen anymore, it's not as big of a deal as it used to be, but it still exists to this day.

Quote:

---

The only times an area server has to read or write to the character DB is when you save/load your game.

---

This is an MMO. Your game is being saved and loaded constantly. Data is written whenever it changes and is read whenever it is needed, which is all the time. As such, this has the potential to slow down your response times even when you're on the server physically near you.

Quote:

---

Otherwise, everything happens regionally, so yes, it has a benefit you refuse to see. Prove me wrong.

---

So what happens when people from area in region server A move to an area in region server B? You can't have the different parts of the server spread all over the world. Different people will lag at different times and the lack of consistency makes this even worse. Your suggestion just makes no sense whatsoever. This is what your proposal sounds like to me:

Lobby server [japan] <Everyone connects to this to access their character data
Area server 1 [NA] - contains la noscea
Area server 2 [EU] - contains thanalan
Area server 3 [JP] - contains the other stuff
All of these combined are one game world.

So, say I'm currently in Limsa. I get the fastest response time, because the limsa server is physically located near me.

Then I decide to go to Gridania. On top of a longer delay in area change, now my response time is slower, and I'm at a disadvantage.

Are you saying that this is fair because different pepople will be at different pings at different times and this all balances out? If so, can I have some of the drugs you're taking?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Yes. Everyone outside of Japan was at a disadvantage, especially in the days of HNMs and claiming.

---

So that's why my North American colleagues outclaimed Japanese people all the time. Because they had a unfair....wait what?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

So that's why my North American colleagues outclaimed Japanese people all the time. Because they had a unfair....wait what?

---

I'd like the total data on all the HNMs you've ever been at and the number of disticnt groups at each one and the nationalities of each as proof, along with proof nobody in your shell was botting. Oh wait, you can't give me that, so don't waste my time with your vague "statistic."


Lots of people say "all the time" but the truth is they didn't really claim statistically more often than they should have for the number of groups present.

Later on in the games life they revised the claiming system and this somewhat reduced the response time advantages, but it was far from perfect and cheaters could still game the system.

So how did any of this give Japanese players a massively unfair advantage?

I'd like you to prove to me that everyone who claims it was so unfair that they didn't just suck at claiming. Seriously .1-2 seconds isn't that big of a advantage if the average human can't even react in the time frame.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

So how did any of this give Japanese players a massively unfair advantage?

I'd like you to prove to me that everyone who claims it was so unfair that they didn't just suck at claiming. Seriously .1-2 seconds isn't that big of a advantage if the average human can't even react in the time frame.

---

The burden is on you to prove that your LS outclaimed JP groups statistically more often than would be mathematically expected based on the number of different groups present. "Suck at claiming" is subjective and can't be proven.

The average human can act in that time frame, what are you smoking? And it's not like you press the button once at just the right time, you're spamming it. And most people can press a key more than 5 times in a second.

I also like how you superlative-ize my words. I didn't say "massively" unfair advantage. Unfair advantage is unfair advantage, whether it's "massive" or not.

Let me get out my mystical part charts that don't....why are you even asking for it?

because you know that for some odd reason I didn't chart my claim %'s? Your running on fumes with this strawman it's as anecdotal as any evidence you can throw at me. You can't prove wether the few MS's made any difference as much as I can prove it didn't.

Let's not get into a circular argument about this and waste eachothers time. I'm just going to say the time-lapse made little to no difference for my shell that had members from around the world at all times of day. Something NA shells outclaimed me when I was with japanese players sometimes I outclaimed JP shells with NA players, I never seen any massive imbalances you seem to perceive from this.

Of course it's all anecdotal and you could say you never got a single claim from a Japanese linkshell because of the lag and be just as "Right" as I am.

Also no the average human can not respond in .2 seconds although at worst the response lag could be near .5 seconds depending on your own connection issues as well. I'd rather they design the game away from litteraly twitch based gameplay.

If you need .3 seconds of response time to be competitive your doing it wrong.

Quote:

---

because you know that for some odd reason I didn't chart my claim %'s? Your running on fumes with this strawman it's as anecdotal as any evidence you can throw at me. You can't prove wether the few MS's made any difference as much as I can prove it didn't.

---

This isn't a strawman. You made a claim, but you can't back it up. Therfore, your claim is in all probability dubious. The fact that you're backpedaling out of the argument just backs this up further.

You're totally right about ancedotal-ity. That's why it's pointless to bring up such things like "oh, i outclaimed JP all the time!" There is no meaning to the statement whatsoever.

Quote:

---

Also no the average human can not respond in .2 seconds

---

I guess I'm an above average human then. Thanks for the compliment, I guess.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

This isn't a strawman. You made a claim, but you can't back it up. Therfore, your claim is in all probability dubious.

I guess I'm an above average human then. Thanks for the compliment, I guess.

---

No the claim is anecdotal, much like your claims that Japanese players had overwhelmingly advantages.

And yes you do fall in the beyond normal human reflexes if you respond to snap stimuli faster than .2-.25 seconds. Good for you, so you are telling me that .05 seconds makes a big difference in a MMO?

Quote:

---

No the claim is anecdotal, much like your claims that Japanese players had overwhelmingly advantages.

---

The claim that japanese players had advantages is not anecdotal. It's factual. They have lower ping times therefore htey have lower response times therefore they have a higher chance to beat a non JP player to the claim. The difference is not drastic, but any difference at all should be considered unacceptable.

Lower ping is an advantage, whether you like to think it is or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

The claim that japanese players had advantages is not anecdotal. It's factual. They have lower ping times therefore htey have lower response times therefore they have a higher chance to beat a non JP player to the claim. The difference is not drastic, but any difference at all should be considered unacceptable.

Lower ping is an advantage, whether you like to think it is or not.

---

Wether this made a difference in a slow paced game such as FFXI or most MMO's in general is up for debate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

So that's why my North American colleagues outclaimed Japanese people all the time. Because they had a unfair....wait what?

---

You do realize a couple years after FFXI was out that SE put in a random claim delay when a NM spawned. Meaning the first person to claim after the server made the monster claimable. Because NAs complained about always being outclaimed by JPs. They did this to make the field on claiming NMs more even. You try and claim a monster before he becomes claimed which is randomized by the server you get locked out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zumi

Because NAs complained about always being outclaimed by JPs.

---

I can fix this for you.

Everyone complained about botters outclaiming everyone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

I can fix this for you.

Everyone complained about botters outclaiming everyone.

---

Actually, both of the statements are true.

Again the big issue isn't if Latency is important or not. it's wether sacrificing the global community is worth a few millseconds. Especially in a genre of games where those millseconds make little difference. ESPECIALLY in the direction the game is going with instanced content.

The mythical claim wars are moot when there is nothing to claim...

I had no problems with claiming, I infact, was an amazing claimer that claimed stuff before those JPs, man those JPs are terrible people.... why do we even bother playiing with them, all they do is take our stuff and wont let us play with them!

Quote:

---

Again the big issue isn't if Latency is important or not. it's wether sacrificing the global community is worth a few millseconds. Especially in a genre of games where those millseconds make little difference. ESPECIALLY in the direction the game is going with instanced content.

---

As 2.0 rolls in, those milliseconds are going to be more and more likely to make a difference, especially for PvP fans when they finally get their PvP content.

Every penny adds up~ Every millisecond counts :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starlord

Every penny adds up~ Every millisecond counts :P

---

Every person I can play with at any time of day counts more to me and it appears a few others.

Just give us a global option at least, not just NA, JP, EU.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soukyuu

The only times an area server has to read or write to the character DB is when you save/load your game. During your game session, your savestate is being updated periodically in case you disconnect or crash. This updating taking a few more milliseconds doesn't change anything.

Otherwise, everything happens regionally, so yes, it has a benefit you refuse to see. Prove me wrong.

---

Regional channels could be beneficial, yes, but there would still be server side latency when the world server would communicate to the database. It's much, much more complicated than a simple save/load state of your character as you say. Everything that happens in the world has the potential to be some sort of database write/read.

Take a seemingly simple item drop for example; we'll neglect that you're in any sort of party so the item drops directly to you. Your current channel decides you get a drop, awesome! That item will need to be generated in the database, then that item will need to be given ownership to you as well as assigned a slot in your inventory. All this information can be passed at once to the database server to deal with, but you'll be waiting for the database server to do that operation(s) then respond back to your channel. Now not only are we waiting for our channel server, we're waiting for a second server as well that is far away. This is only for an item drop, you still need to think about experience points updates, if the character levels up off of that battle, achievement updates, statistical updates for that particular monster, durability updates to gear, etc.

That's with only one fight. With the new battle pace coming to x|v, we'll be killing a handful of mobs every couple of seconds. Now multiply that by tens, hundreds, thousands of players. The milliseconds add up.

Having a local cache of the database wouldn't be wise either, it opens up way too much potential for having synchronization issues and merging conflicts, not to mention the problems that would arise from wanting to switch channels.

It certainly is possible to host channels across the world, but it does come at a huge server latency and response cost that the player pays for in the end. There are ways to hide the latency, but that doesn't solve the problem.

I am still trying to understand why you all care that we want global servers, it really does seem insane, you can have your regional servers, they already fkn have them ready, its going to happen, people just want the "option" that you are all so fond of saying, and your trying to talk us out of it or something? FF has been this way for 12yr+, I could not give less of a damn if your accustomed to regional crap in wow and cant manage to communicate with EU/JP people, I can, and so can the rest of the people from FF11, we did it for 10yr+ and could do things around the clock.

I tried wow and was on a NA server but not a single guild had events for more than 3hrs except maby the first week after a major patch release, it just doesnt happen. You could sit in a major city and do /shout groups and after hours get a gimp group of people wearing AH pvp gear, that in the end, will never get far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeronlmo

I am still trying to understand why you all care that we want global servers, it really does seem insane, you can have your regional servers, they already fkn have them ready, its going to happen, people just want the "option" that you are all so fond of saying, and your trying to talk us out of it or something? FF has been this way for 12yr+, I could not give less of a damn if your accustomed to regional crap in wow and cant manage to communicate with EU/JP people, I can, and so can the rest of the people from FF11, we did it for 10yr+ and could do things around the clock.

I tried wow and was on a NA server but not a single guild had events for more than 3hrs except maby the first week after a major patch release, it just doesnt happen. You could sit in a major city and do /shout groups and after hours get a gimp group of people wearing AH pvp gear, that in the end, will never get far.

---

Because, it's ok for them to have what they want, but it's not ok for us to have what we want.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rokien

Because, it's ok for them to have what they want, but it's not ok for us to have what we want.

---

This is how fights occur.. I want this.. NO I WANT THIS.. Your idea sucks! Really?! I think something is wrong with you.

That's what I feel like I'm hearing out of these forums, back and forth stuff XD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

This is an MMO. Your game is being saved and loaded constantly. Data is written whenever it changes and is read whenever it is needed, which is all the time. As such, this has the potential to slow down your response times even when you're on the server physically near you.

---

Not really as updating the data is not battle relevant. I highly doubt the game dumps your HP/MP to the savestate every time it changes, that would be dumb beyond reason.

Quote:

---

So what happens when people from area in region server A move to an area in region server B? You can't have the different parts of the server spread all over the world. Different people will lag at different times and the lack of consistency makes this even worse. Your suggestion just makes no sense whatsoever. This is what your proposal sounds like to me:

Lobby server [japan] <Everyone connects to this to access their character data
Area server 1 [NA] - contains la noscea
Area server 2 [EU] - contains thanalan
Area server 3 [JP] - contains the other stuff
All of these combined are one game world.

---

And this is where you misunderstood.

- Each region server has several area clusters containing the whole game world.
- Each region server is connected to one lobby server.

Basically, all it does is change our current login process from:

authentication -> server select -> character select -> play

to:

authentication -> character select -> server select EU -> play -> server change [US] -> play

all with one character, instead of having to make additional ones just to change region.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeronlmo

I am still trying to understand why you all care that we want global servers, it really does seem insane, you can have your regional servers, they already fkn have them ready, its going to happen, people just want the "option" that you are all so fond of saying, and your trying to talk us out of it or something? FF has been this way for 12yr+, I could not give less of a damn if your accustomed to regional crap in wow and cant manage to communicate with EU/JP people, I can, and so can the rest of the people from FF11, we did it for 10yr+ and could do things around the clock.

I tried wow and was on a NA server but not a single guild had events for more than 3hrs except maby the first week after a major patch release, it just doesnt happen. You could sit in a major city and do /shout groups and after hours get a gimp group of people wearing AH pvp gear, that in the end, will never get far.

---

let me just say i couldnt really care less if there was an option for a "global" server but lets just look at things logically for a second;

how many JP would choose to join a global server? i say not many at all

and what would be the difference between them choosing to join say an NA server if global servers wasnt an option? no difference i think.

so we have narrowed it down to EU and NA- at this point the idea of a global server is allmost redundent but anyway; some EU people will choose to join an NA server and vice-versa so again; i dont see the point in just giving a server the name "global"... what difference will it make?

besides potentially lowering the number of players per server because you want the player base split 2-3 more ways.. which ironically could hinder your idea of a global server.

i dunno, jus what i think.

JP prefer global servers just as much as we do, the fact that most of you refuse to even try is not my problem. The only EU's that will go to NA are those that have wierd work hours and vise versa which also only fits into that normal server prime time. Reguardless if a NA server has EU people, they are only there because they fit prime time. We do not want 1 prime time on every server.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astora

Regional channels could be beneficial, yes, but there would still be server side latency when the world server would communicate to the database. It's much, much more complicated than a simple save/load state of your character as you say. Everything that happens in the world has the potential to be some sort of database write/read.

Take a seemingly simple item drop for example; we'll neglect that you're in any sort of party so the item drops directly to you. Your current channel decides you get a drop, awesome! That item will need to be generated in the database, then that item will need to be given ownership to you as well as assigned a slot in your inventory. All this information can be passed at once to the database server to deal with, but you'll be waiting for the database server to do that operation(s) then respond back to your channel. Now not only are we waiting for our channel server, we're waiting for a second server as well that is far away. This is only for an item drop, you still need to think about experience points updates, if the character levels up off of that battle, achievement updates, statistical updates for that particular monster, durability updates to gear, etc.

That's with only one fight. With the new battle pace coming to x|v, we'll be killing a handful of mobs every couple of seconds. Now multiply that by tens, hundreds, thousands of players. The milliseconds add up.

Having a local cache of the database wouldn't be wise either, it opens up way too much potential for having synchronization issues and merging conflicts, not to mention the problems that would arise from wanting to switch channels.

It certainly is possible to host channels across the world, but it does come at a huge server latency and response cost that the player pays for in the end. There are ways to hide the latency, but that doesn't solve the problem.

---

It might not solve the problem, but the improvement the regional channels would bring should be enough. It won't be as good as pure regional servers, but also not as bad as servers on the other side of the world as we have them now. And it comes with no community segregation as a bonus, so it's a good compromise imo

Quote:

---

JP prefer global servers just as much as we do

---

Source? o.o I wish I knew Japanese

From what I gleam on the Japanese servers through my limited understanding they seem rather indiferent about it.

From saying they don't really care, to they will miss the players from other regions. I didn't see any posts wishing the door to not hit us on the way out like some people are insinuating they are.

Like I said if anything it's not a big deal either way for them. I could be totally wrong but at least the First-middle-last pages of their thread on it seem to not be full of vitrol.

If they don't care about us, why should we care!? Protest! Protest!