Important Information Regarding North American Data Center Relocation

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Originally Posted by Bizzy

So if NA servers are down for a max of 48 hours, we are only getting a compensation for 1 day? Come on SE you can do better then this! If we can't play for 48 hours then you should give us 2 days compensation. There is 24 hours in a day. Learn to do your math. We all pay a subscription to this game, so I feel that we should get 2 days compensation.

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From the new post if only effects game sub and not retainers, so that going to mess up billing and get two different charges (one for retainer/one for sub)? If so they could of just kept that extra day.

With the relocation will Primal and Aether also eventually get the ability to group with each other via PF and DF?

Hope it's in NY.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

From the new post if only effects game sub and not retainers, so that going to mess up billing and get two different charges (one for retainer/one for sub)? If so they could of just kept that extra day.

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The exact line they wrote was:

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Subscriptions will be extended even if your subscription happens to end at the time of the extension. However, please note that this does not add retainer service subscription.

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They're referring specifically to if your subscription expires during the maintenance and in which case that won't extend your retainer service. It doesn't say anything about not including retainer service for the normal extension so I think it's reasonable to assume that'll include it as well.

I am a player from the UK so im assuming i should expect a ping of around 110-150? Before i get critism for being on NA server it is mostly due to language barriers on the EU servers.

Also based on the comment on the EU ping im guessing its moving more to the west? if not then Ping from EU should remain fine?

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Originally Posted by Bizzy

So if NA servers are down for a max of 48 hours, we are only getting a compensation for 1 day? Come on SE you can do better then this! If we can't play for 48 hours then you should give us 2 days compensation. There is 24 hours in a day. Learn to do your math. We all pay a subscription to this game, so I feel that we should get 2 days compensation.

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Echoing this. Why are we getting ripped off here?
I assume the reason is because it's difficult for you to separate the people who would get 1 day vs 2 days? Why not give everyone 2 days? Or hell, 3 days because of how incredibly inconvenient the move is?

I'm really surprised that SE decides to be cheap here. They're normally pretty good about compensation.

Maybe to NA players they are good about compensation. Never happened to EU players.

Will SE be putting anything in place to keep spoilage from happening when people can't get on to give attention to things going on over the downtime period of up to 48 hours? (I believe this probably only pertains to growing things in a garden, but there might be other stuff too.)

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Originally Posted by Dsherman

Will SE be putting anything in place to keep spoilage from happening when people can't get on to give attention to things going on over the downtime period of up to 48 hours? (I believe this probably only pertains to growing things in a garden, but there might be other stuff too.)

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Just don't have anything in the garden when down time starts. The date and time have been released.


Link

Aether / Primal Data Center Worlds
From Monday, May 15, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 48 hours

Elemental / Gaia / Mana / Chaos Data Center Worlds
From Tuesday, May 16, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 24 hours

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Originally Posted by Dsherman

Will SE be putting anything in place to keep spoilage from happening when people can't get on to give attention to things going on over the downtime period of up to 48 hours? (I believe this probably only pertains to growing things in a garden, but there might be other stuff too.)

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They don't really need to as it be the players fault, since the giving like a 3 week notice about what going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Aronys

Maybe to NA players they are good about compensation. Never happened to EU players.

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Yes it did, perhaps if you actually looked it up:

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As compensation for the maintenance, those who meet the following requirements will have their subscriptions extended by the number of days the maintenance lasts:

Service accounts containing characters on the Worlds within the Chaos data center (Cerberus / Lich / Moogle / Odin / Phoenix / Ragnarok / Shiva / Zodiark) before Friday, September 18, 2015 at 9:00 (GMT).
Service accounts with an active subscription.

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Folks that transferred from none of the above had no downtime.

Also:

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For players outside Europe who have characters on the Chaos data center, Square Enix ask that you try it out. If you experience latency issues, you will be allowed to transfer from Worlds within the Chaos data center to Worlds within the Elemental, Gaia, Mana, Aether, or Primal data centers free of charge for one week.

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Will this change allow for character creation again on high traffic servers? Especially the servers that have been more-or-less closed for creation since the launch of ARR?

Apologies if this has already been brought up. I searched, but didn't really find though. So maybe I missed something.

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Originally Posted by ReplicaX

For players outside Europe who have characters on the Chaos data center, Square Enix ask that you try it out. If you experience latency issues, you will be allowed to transfer from Worlds within the Chaos data center to Worlds within the Elemental, Gaia, Mana, Aether, or Primal data centers free of charge for one week.

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How is this benefiting EU players again? NA players got free transfers, EU players aren't getting free transfers. Nor did EU players get free transfers to EU servers then. Please explain how it's benefiting us. I'll wait.
If you looked at the forums in the past year, they still haven't compensated for the lousy campaign they did for the maid outfits. NA got it easy. Really easy. EU didn't even get it as a whole and the ones who did, had to go through hell to get it. Again, how are EU players getting any compensation?

Well if this helps with Stormblood, then I'm all right with it. I pretty much live around the middle of NA, so I'm praying my ping doesn't get worse than it already is.
Haha... I'm excited and worried at the same time XD

I've been a part of this game since the beginning, 1.0. I have always believed SE always had the players best interest at heart. If this move will improve QoL for it player base than that is great. I also believe that SE also knows that they can't please everybody. Which is true in life, you can not please everybody. That is also why I have figured out where the new DC will be located. Where? Mars of course! Its equally far away from everybody. Lol! Just had to make you laugh! The roughamster has spoken!

So far i am from the UK and playing on the Primal data center. Its been quite good, latency never an issue (only weird thing i found was titan ex timings but that could have been my crappy reactions ;p ) Lately i have been disconnecting a lot though.

Hopefully the move won't change anything horrifically, however if it does would we get the chance to move for free?

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Originally Posted by seahawke0

I've been a part of this game since the beginning, 1.0. I have always believed SE always had the players best interest at heart. If this move will improve QoL for it player base than that is great. I also believe that SE also knows that they can't please everybody. Which is true in life, you can not please everybody. That is also why I have figured out where the new DC will be located. Where? Mars of course! Its equally far away from everybody. Lol! Just had to make you laugh! The roughamster has spoken!

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That is 100% true. Pleasing everyone will never be possible. I pretty much agree w/ everything you said... except for one thing...
The new location. IT MUST BE THE MOON!!!

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Originally Posted by Oukanna

So far i am from the UK and playing on the Primal data center. Its been quite good, latency never an issue (only weird thing i found was titan ex timings but that could have been my crappy reactions ;p ) Lately i have been disconnecting a lot though.

Hopefully the move won't change anything horrifically, however if it does would we get the chance to move for free?

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Nope. We don't get free transfers to EU servers. Ever. Only available to NA players who transfered from EU servers when they moved those.

I'm actually very scared of this move i mean for NA players would be nice but what about those who are not in NA and play from South America for example? I'm super scared actually i really hope it doesnt affect me that much or it doesnt affect me at all.

I'm certain if you are SA, this will actually help improve your situation. It is the places across entire oceans that have to worry about this. And even so unless we know its physical move location I doubt the pings are going to change overly much.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

• Increased inventory capacity
• Worldless (cross-world) party matching and friend management
• Additional content & increased field size for new areas

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Would really like to see either more retainers or a freaking glamour log added to that list. >_>

Glad to hear y'all are able to reinvest to improve things though. I hope you take full advantage of this modernization!

I hope so !

This wont work well >.>

And no! I dont transfer my chars to EU Servers and loosing all my hard earned Gil and houses, friend. Im playing since 2013!

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Originally Posted by Aronys

How is this benefiting EU players again?

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EU Players received a brand new multi-million dollar DataCenter located within the EU. Just because some players chose not to move is their personal preference. You cannot disregard the millions spent to improve the majority of the EU with their own dedicated DataCenter physically located in the EU.

Many players seem to forget that when ARR released, Chaos DataCenter was always the recommended servers for EU players. Due to primetime hrs of play and language concerns. When Chaos received its own location in the EU there was no fees for existing players on the DataCenter.

I personally see no reason why players should be compensated when they personally decided not to go on the recommended servers. The same goes for NA players that did receive free transfers. I was against it from day one because again it was their personal choice.

So we are in agreement on unfairness. However, I believe personal choices against recommendations on all fronts should not be compensated, period.

The maid outfit is a completely different issue and I agree with the EU players. I understand SE wanted to work with an EU based company. However, the agreements and requirements of the campaign and execution was horrible. Really wish they worked with Amazon or more a established company with promotions like the other campaigns. With how badly it went, I personally feel every EU based account that was active during it should receive the items, period.

I was also thinking about the moon also, Mars is so much more colorful though, lol!

Not in NA? Gaming VPNs. Find one that will route hop straight to the server region. Probably Chicago, if I was to guess.

You're welcome.

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Originally Posted by Dsherman

Will SE be putting anything in place to keep spoilage from happening when people can't get on to give attention to things going on over the downtime period of up to 48 hours? (I believe this probably only pertains to growing things in a garden, but there might be other stuff too.)

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I can pretty much guarantee that they won't as it would result in discontinuity between server times. They've never done it before, put it that way!

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Originally Posted by WarbossGrim

And people in Australia and NZ forget that they are still a minority compared to North America. There is very little reason to give NA players a shittier experience to make up for your infrastructure. If it were truly a priority, they could put a server in Sydney or something and let you guys connect over bailing twine or whatever you have for connections more easily. It's not called the "North America and also the other side of the world" data center. They really shouldn't be moving it to the West Coast to help a small, small minority.

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Unfortunately you seemed to miss the part where it's not our infrastructure that's the problem. If I can connect to game servers on the US west coast at 120ms, and the east coast at 220ms. Doesn't it make sense that TX servers should be somewhere in between those two? Except that they aren't. Games with servers in TX are 350ms. That's not an Australian infrastructure problem.

I get it we are a minority, we always will be, and our base is split between the JP servers and the US servers, hell there may even been Australians on the EU servers. Currently with the servers on the east coast in Canada my connection just barely make the cutoff for what SE considers playable. My experience with MMOs that have moved to TX is that the game will become unplayable. Someone connecting from west coast to east coast is still going to be well under the limit of what SE considers playable, it won't effect NA players in any way except that hopefully you avoid the packet loss issues that plague the game right now. The long and short of it is that regardless of where they move I can't see NA players being affect much at all - Canada, SA, EU, AUS/NZ yes, and it's not just physical distance that's at play here, internet routing is not a simple matter of straight from one place to another.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

People will likely figure out where the servers are as soon as they connect. It's not like you have exactly hidden the current servers locations. Why hide it now?

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This is the cyber era as it were, cyber crime is the largest growing form of crime globally, where as software can be detected and fixed more easily, a physical device planted by a criminal that can be activated remotely or on a timer is like finding a needle in a hay stack. This information is withheld to safeguard their multi-million dollar investment as well as our data, once we 'plug in' sure we can trace it, but at that time the data center will be secure, both physically and electronically. -- You need not ask why anyone would target a game server, DDOS attacks are quite common, this Cyber Terrorism is something everyone is exposed to, by its very definition its indiscriminate. -- For a multi-million dollar investment a bit of secrecy is a small price to pay.

I hope these new servers means better equipment to address these:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...me-too-slow%29
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...space-increase

In short if you can't do address this yet, give us a free 3rd and 4th retainer? do you think it is fair for us pay double the sub for a game shortcoming?

For me feeling lag in this game I like to point out these to posts in the animation lock thread:

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

https://i.gyazo.com/9c14cf71dc74c2bb...dc2dd43169.png
https://gyazo.com/9c14cf71dc74c2bbe1f7a8dc2dd43169
(doono how make it bigger on direct link, but it keeps in the 50's and I see lag in the game.)

Its Se server end, game is laggy as hell, it is unplayable in a sense it prevents me from maximizing my DPS. I am being picky but I do not care, a game should not feel laggy at a ms in the 50's , it is from how slow the servers are at processing and "animation locks"

Also for the comment about it being gaming device from upgrading to ps4 from Ps3:
https://i.gyazo.com/052fa3e24e57782c...2bd26627fb.png
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 2.186 sec
Scene #2 2.982 sec
Scene #3 2.398 sec
Scene #4 3.423 sec
Scene #5 6.244 sec
Scene #6 1.483 sec
Total Loading Time 18.718 sec

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

care to try again?:

https://i.gyazo.com/3d283c826278d55a...6e86731442.png

10/10
It is SE's end, not mine, that is to Quebec Canada while on the game, just now, while posting this.

What did the say the game was supposed to be playable on? 180 ping was it?


I do not call it playable when I can be hit for full damage up to 2 sec after i used Attunement. Something is wrong and the point of this thread is to get it addressed.

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Even with this, at 40-59 (max) ms , I feel lag, I can still attack things that are dead, I can use LB/and just about any healing ability like Lustrate, have it go off and not work. I seen a lot of abilities/ LB use resources, or in benediction go on cooldown, and not work. Is there going to be addressing this slow processing problems and leads to problems on server end when one tries to maximize DPS?
Following for a friend:
I noticed this problem for a long time, start of 2.0+. There should be no reason my exp chain expires when there is 2 seconds left to go and I killed something. That right there tells me servers are slow and have been since 2.0 release and I feel it is a lingering problem from 1.0+. I submitted things though the comments and suggestions ingame tool but nothing came out of it. Now that I found someone that can post for me and being outspoken on this issue, I hope it becomes addressed.

More information why the game is too slow, and these delays does not make it magically playable at 200 ms, it is just annoying to people that have a fast eye to things and want to maximize damage/efficiency.

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

Look, look:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...51#post4130751

Proof right there the game is too slow.

The BRD finished casting straight shot before the SCH died, meaning once the SCH did die, the monster should of attacked the BRD, then the PLD after being shield lob.

But because animation locks makes this game so slow, The BRD needed to wait for the animation to finish, to apply the straight shot for real, and get the buff, well this happened after the SCH died, so the monster went on reset.

Now I see why people call it animation lock because that is what it is. If I kill something with 2 sec left on the chain, I am locked in waiting for the monster to fade away and finish dying. This is unreal and takes too long, why have chain 5+ be 10 seconds then? animation locks makes this game way too slow. This also means everything has different speeds of applying and that is nonsense. bloodletter for example is wayyyy to damn slow.

If I hit deathflare in time, and in time enough for me to start the animation hop, it should not be canceled because "wore off", blizzard IV bypasses this, how come not death flare? This animation lock issue causes an imbalance from ability to ability because some are longer then others.

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It is a coding issue on when stuff is processed in tanking place, locked behind animation. This causes stuff to go on CD, but have no effect in battle. This is why things die with 2 seconds to go on the chain timer, but end up saying "time up" because the monster is still locked in animation of dying. FFXI was not like this with these delays so why do it here in a faster pace game?

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Greetings FINAL FANTASY XIV players....

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I have only one request regarding this.
Please give the players who have characters on the US datacenters a free world transfer.

Or at least to those, who are using EU versions of the game and playing on US, if everyone cannot be included in this offer.
Reason: We joined the US servers because well, more people spoke English and generally the community felt better. It was great... until now it seems.

The latency was always high, but not unbearable. Had to evade the attacks a bit sooner but it was nothing to worry about. But, this will change.

So no problem, we will learn to love the EU servers, just let us move without paying.
Thank you.
(I definitely don't want to restart my character. Nor pay tons for the transfer, or die a hundred times and be the reason of wipes because of my new latency. It would be sad if I had to stop playing because of this.*)

Thank you.

* Yes I pay the monthly price and even bought cosmetics. But an additional 15 eur is a huge amount for each character, especially if you play with friends. Dropping ~100-200 EUR to move... that would be crazy.

@ReplicaX: People don't speak English on EU servers, or rather, they don't speak at all. It's not an FF exclusive thing, that's just how people are around here. So that's why many people kept with US servers. I re-started my character after the EU open and still moved to the US after realizing that EU would never offer me any endgame play, communities, communication, nothing. Endless solo grinding.
But hey, there is only raid wipes and lag for us now on the US, so what can you do. If we can move back, maybe there will be people on EU servers who will talk and whatnot.

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Originally Posted by EUSerena

* Yes I pay the monthly price and even bought cosmetics. But an additional 15 eur is a huge amount for each character, especially if you play with friends. Dropping ~100-200 EUR to move... that would be crazy.

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You don't pay for each character one transfer covers all characters.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

You don't pay for each character one transfer covers all characters.

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if they are starting from the same world.

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Originally Posted by Pixiehawk

if they are starting from the same world.

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Well yea but that kind of their own fault then if they have multiple characters on different servers and decide they want to transfer them all to a EU server.

My guess would be that the move will be to a central time zone location, most likely Chicago or Texas. My money's on Chicago since CenturyLink bought Level 3 in October 2016 and has just built a new data center there.

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Originally Posted by cbwriter

... most likely Chicago or Texas. My money's on Chicago since CenturyLink bought Level 3 in October 2016 and has just built a new data center there.

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Chicago is also centrally located. Since the game isn't released in Spanish, there aren't many Mexican players, leaving "North America" to basically mean the US and Canada. Texas is at the southern edge of that, nowhere near the center.

I'm very nervous that this moves gives me higher ping rates me being in UK on a primal server. Right now I have l zero lag issues or latency so I'm praying that nothing changes.

I really do not want to transfer to a EU server and leave my static cause of this.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

You don't pay for each character one transfer covers all characters.

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I am sorry I meant that cost accumulatively - regarding all players in our friend circle from EU who play on US right now.
For me it would "only" mean 30 EUR, then there is Stormblood and the monthly fee. I am all for supporting FFXIV and SE, but come on.
It's not like a world transfer would really incur any costs for SE, the price is there to keep people from server hopping, which is fine in normal situations.

But in this case, I believe a free transfer is 100% warranted.
Though others mentioned in this thread that there were similar situations and no one received free transfers. But hey, one can hope. :/

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Originally Posted by EUSerena

Though others mentioned in this thread that there were similar situations and no one received free transfers. But hey, one can hope. :/

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There was one similar situation in FFXIV (move of the EU data center) and there actually were free transfers (off the EU data center). Lasted around 1-2 weeks after the transfer, so you could test your ping in normal gameplay and see if you can stand the new latency or not.

I posted this over on the FFXIV Reddit Thread but thought I'd cross post it here-

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THIS IS SPECULATION BASED. Obviously, let's wait and see if they actually end up but the images I think point to some strong evidence at least its working with this company.

In regards to the servers potentially taking a West Coats base... I find it likely based off the photos we were given.

I'll reference the comments made the in the Reddit post link above but a user pointed out that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone fully acquired RagingWire Data Centers Inc earlier this year. (confirmed here) As the reddit poster points out, NTT is a company that Square has partnered with in the past~ Initially also pointing out that the color scheme for RagingWire's data centers uses a very similar color scheme to the pictures we've been shown by Yoshi P.
From Raging Wires website:
http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/pi...cramento_3.jpg

After taking a look at it myself, went to research a bit deeper into the company and its facilities.

These are pictures referenced from the Sacramento Raging Wire base. After looking through their website page for Sacramento AND their California Data Center Tour. I believe the pictures they posted on the FFXIV Official Forums were taken from the Sacramento base.
CA01 comparisons:
http://i.imgur.com/Ef7u2SE.png
CA02 comparisons:
http://i.imgur.com/UdA7ZYq.png

Now... to be honest this move seems quite scary for most East Coasters. I would have hoped evidence pointed to a much more centralized data center...
BUTT
Raging Wire DID open a Texas Center at the end of April....
There's always a possibility they'll be located at this base... but the pictures we get that aren't a virtual tour are from their Ribbon Cutting Video at 0:50secs...but none of these pictures from the video look anything like the pictures we were shown by Yoshi P.

I did a bit more searching hoping MAYBE something could link us to the Texas base but the only remotely close thing I can find comes from a twitter post via Raging Wire which the floor plan and light plan look very similar to the ones we see in Sacramento's base and the pictures Yoshi P gave us- so I guess there could still be hope for this...
Tweet:

So again... a few things in this whole data center moving fiasco. We still have not been given a location. I'd say this is normal, except when EU servers were moved a local IP was given for Frankfurt for players to pre-test ping. My initial thoughts was this was not given to us to avoid a PR shitstorm if the servers do indeed move West Coast.
But- after researching company maybe it was simply not announced because the Data Center in Texas had not opened yet? It's very possible. I still can't snag the TX01 IP route but I can easily check ping with the companies Sacramento and Virginia bases. So that's always a possibility... but then again the whole reason this internet detective work was found was via a reddit user who stated a friend working at the data center in Sacramento got wind of it.

So who knows... I'm pretty positive the pictures Yoshi P gave us were from the Sacramento base... but it's always possible the company gave stock photos of a different base just because the base we intend to go to was not open at the time...

Fingers crossed we'll see central! I play West Coast and have average pings of 104-115 currently. It's not bad... do I savage raiding and pvp still. But I can understand why this would be really frustrating for those who currently play with sub 50 ping may see a 50+ increase.

From Cali- I ping aproximatly 32-40 to Raging Wire's Sacramento base, and while I can't snag the exact IP of TX01, other data centers located in Dallas I average approximately 54-60ish ping.