Why are the servers transfers free only for US players?

So when ARR was originally announced why weren't Eu players told a data centre was going to be eventually added in our locality. Lots of us made our server decisions based on this, especially legacy players. Server lag for me has made the game infuriating at times with Titan being a particular memory I don't want to remember. Now we see that NA players who chose Eu servers are being offered free transfers while Eu players who are on NA servers have to pay for the privelege of moving worlds and having the game play as it should, Ie without the noticeable lag...I've tested the game today, and on Hyperion still get the lag but on Ragnarok it's just about nonexistent. Surely these free server transfers should be a two way thing for a limited period?

The free server transfer allows people to transfer away from the chaos data center regardless where you are from. Seen several people transfer to balmung that came from the chaos datacenter. But short answer is the free transfers for people that were involuntarily moved as all the servers were in one place.

Exactly all the servers were either located in Japan or the US. For NA players it didn't matter whether they picked a NA or EU data centre. Now that the Eu data centre has been physically located in the Eu people connecting to that data centre from an area outside the Eu are being offered free transfers, yet the Eu players who chose NA servers (especially Legacy players) have to pay for the privelege of transferring to the datacentre located near us.

the N/A data centers are in Canada.

for the ones that chose the N/A that was on you. with the current change that went on. it still does not effect you on the server you sit on now.

while the ones that got good connection are now in the bad connection Europe players have. so those players are directly effected while on the server you chose does not change as nothing has been done to the server. so you will still be getting the standard connection you usually would have. while the N/A now go from good/excellent to bad. their game experience now suffers while yours stays the same since that server was not moving. that is why the transfer off is free. the game experience has changed entirely. while the ones that were never on Chaos still get the same connection issues as when you joined the game way back.

I think they probably did it this way because the EU players on NA data centers won't experience any significant changes in game play, and especially not for the worse, while NA players on Chaos will be negatively impacted by the move.

I agree with you (OP) though, I feel like it's a bit one-sided because the whole reason for the move to Europe was because EU players have been negatively impacted by the server location all along, the move was to remedy that. IMO just because there's no noticeable change to the NA servers now doesn't erase the issues EU players still experience on those servers. It would have been more fair to allow free transfers both on and off Chaos.

SE has always suggested since launch that EU players play on EU servers. It was your choice to pick a NA one.

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Originally Posted by Sakuraluna

It would have been more fair to allow free transfers both on and off Chaos.

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This. I honestly thought I read somewhere that they already planning to do it this way. I can't understand why they didn't follow with that. For there are also NA players who are on the Chaos servers for whatever reason. Now they are going to have the same lag issues that the EU players had prior to the move. This only means EU can more to EU but stuck NA can't move to NA servers without paying. Cause face it, they did this so that the game play will be more optimal for those of the regions that they are meant for. However, this just screws the straggler NA players on the EU servers.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

SE has always suggested since launch that EU players play on EU servers. It was your choice to pick a NA one.

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Yea pretty sure this was planned to happen as some point which is why they told EU players to pick a server listed as EU even though they were in NA anyways.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Yea pretty sure this was planned to happen as some point which is why they told EU players to pick a server listed as EU even though they were in NA anyways.

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Technically, they also told NA players to pick a NA server and JP players to pick a JP server.

So you're arguing that no free transfers should have been issued at all.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Technically, they also told NA players to pick a NA server and JP players to pick a JP server.

So you're arguing that no free transfers should have been issued at all.

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Not really the same, because NA players that were on the EU servers are involuntarily negatively impacted by the data center move, while EU players currently on NA servers are unchanged.

An excellent question, OP. Not quite in that form, but yes.

And please - stop with BS that for EU players on NA servers the situation is unchanged. Ping to actual EU servers now is essentially a quarter of that to NA servers, I'm sure it's much more "desirable", to use the official wording. Refusing to admit this is just bigotry. And if it wasn't offending enough from SE to ask for European players to pay extra to transfer to European servers, something that was (finally, two years after launch) done for European players, everyone and their grandmothers are abusing the free transfer from Chaos to "yay finally" have characters on Balmung - because Aether, and especially that server has not been way too overcrowded for as long as we can remember, so much so that new characters can practically never be created on it............. Yes, just peachy and perfectly alright.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

An excellent question, OP. Not quite in that form, but yes.

And please - stop with BS that for EU players on NA servers the situation is unchanged. Ping to actual EU servers now is essentially a quarter of that to NA servers, I'm sure it's much more "desirable", to use the official wording. Refusing to admit this is just bigotry. And if it wasn't offending enough from SE to ask for European players to pay extra to transfer to European servers.

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because if you are on the west coast, its DOUBLE the distance to the EU servers now than it is from the EU to the servers in CA. If you are in Australia, its even further.

It would have been nice to allow free transfers both ways.

I also feel it would have swayed some people who were sitting on the fence between their investment on their NA/JP server and better ping on the EU data center.

But I also think this would have made a negative impact on their earnings; if FFXIV is being used to fund other SE projects, I think we're lucky we got free transfers on one side.

I don't know where, but I'm sure I read somewhere at some point prior to the announcement at the EU fanfest last year that there wasn't enough resources/funding to consider relocating the EU data center to Europe. Before the cash shop was announced even, which is why cash shop apologists on these forums claim that the cash shop paved the way for the relocation. If this is so, then no, EU players are not any more at fault for choosing an NA server than NA players are for choosing an EU server. They simply chose a server that they felt was the best fit for them based on the information on hand at the time.

The way they look at it is this:
Connection quality for EU players on NA servers hasn't changed with the server move.
Connection quality for NA players on EU servers just got a hell of a lot worse, so as compensation, they're allowed to move to an NA server.

Basically, it's your fault for playing on an NA server even though there was absolutely no difference between them and an 'EU' server, just like it's your fault you didn't buy more retainers because your inventory can't hold all the new 3.0 stuff.

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Originally Posted by FaileExperiment

Not really the same, because NA players that were on the EU servers are involuntarily negatively impacted by the data center move, while EU players currently on NA servers are unchanged.

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Using the argument from before, they are not in fact involuntarily negatively impacted, but rather voluntarily. They chose an EU server over a JP or NA server after all, despite SE telling them that their experience there will be less than optimal. They therefore willingly accepted that their experience there would be less than optimal, just like an EU player who now creates a character on a JP or NA world accepts that his/her experience will be less than optimal. It just happened not to factually be less than optimal for NA up until now, just like the experience of an EU player happened not to be any better on a chaos world than anywhere else against what was suggested, which is why people didn't care, neither EU, nor JP nor NA.

As such, if someone is negatively impacted, directly via worse pings or indirectly via opportunity costs, that's their own fault and SE should not issue any free transfers to compensate people for their inability to read which server would offer the ideal experience for their location.


Duly note: This is not my opinion. I am merely playing devil's advocate here.

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Originally Posted by Kietsu

Connection quality for EU players on NA servers hasn't changed with the server move.
Connection quality for NA players on EU servers just got a hell of a lot worse, so as compensation, they're allowed to move to an NA server.

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This is the point, and what I was saying before. It's not about fault, or about what server you chose to start with, etc. It's those two simple facts above. SE made a change that negatively affects some players. In other words, it's SE's fault that some players ping went up, and they are compensating for that with free transfers. If you are an EU player on a NA server, nothing changed for you and thus there's nothing to compensate for, so you aren't getting a free transfer.

SE could change their mind, who knows. I think, personally, that they should. But the above is the reason for it, and it's completely sound reasoning from SE's point of view.

The fact is though for a lot of Eu players, they had a service that was less satisfactory than NA players. NA players on NA servers don't have the lag to contend with that a lot of Eu players have. NA players who chose Eu servers are now finding out what a lot of Eu players have had to contend with all along. Are you saying an Eu player on a NA server should stay put because "nothing changed for them' when a better alternative is now available.

I honestly think there should have been free transfers to and from the new datacenter, period. As has been said, EU players made characters on many servers, not just the 'official' EU servers, because there really wasn't a difference. All of the servers were in Canada save the Japanese servers. We've had two free transfers since the Beta, what's one more?

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Originally Posted by Zumi

SE has always suggested since launch that EU players play on EU servers. It was your choice to pick a NA one.

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This is what I feel is the reason behind it, though I guess to be fair then it isn't exactly fair that only NA get the choice for choosing an EU server but EU who chose NA don't get that same privelage? It is slightly unfair and quite honestly, doesn't SE know which accounts are JP, NA and EU?

Could they not have easily just said all EU accounts get 1 free server transfer to an EU server if they choose while still allowing all NA accounts a chance to move away from EU to NA server if they choose? Seems like they could of made the process easy but they forgot about their accounts being distinguished between NA, JP and EU.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Yea pretty sure this was planned to happen as some point which is why they told EU players to pick a server listed as EU even though they were in NA anyways.

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I don't think it was really planned, more that it was in the back of their (the dev team's) minds to see if, one day, they could get support from SE to implement an EU data centre.

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Originally Posted by Undrentide

The fact is though for a lot of Eu players, they had a service that was less satisfactory than NA players. NA players on NA servers don't have the lag to contend with that a lot of Eu players have. NA players who chose Eu servers are now finding out what a lot of Eu players have had to contend with all along. Are you saying an Eu player on a NA server should stay put because "nothing changed for them' when a better alternative is now available.

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The west coast of the US is as far from the servers as the EU was. Just pointing that out.

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Originally Posted by Undrentide

Now we see that NA players who chose Eu servers are being offered free transfers while Eu players who are on NA servers have to pay for the privelege of moving worlds

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Players who reside in NA were offered the choice of a free transfer OFF any Chaos world to any NA world, yes. But all characters who have been created on any Chaos world do NOT have to pay to move to the new data center. You're already there.
I really don't understand why someone who lives in a Euro country would have made characters on a NA world in the first place...

Aren't there enough threads about this topic already ?

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Originally Posted by T2teddy

Players who reside in NA were offered the choice of a free transfer OFF any Chaos world to any NA world, yes. But all characters who have been created on any Chaos world do NOT have to pay to move to the new data center. You're already there.
I really don't understand why someone who lives in a Euro country would have made characters on a NA world in the first place...

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One reason is actually to avoid the non-English speaking Europeans...
With Chaos in EU now however, there is the reduced latency that might weigh more than that.

This is what I think, SE is gold member.
You finally get the server but its not enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS5K1GMzJT8

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The west coast of the US is as far from the servers as the EU was. Just pointing that out.

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Not really... (quick example: LA-Montreal: 4000 km. Montreal-Berlin: 6000 km)
Furthermore, you have to consider the possible stupid reroutes which could happen from Europe to Canada, which is unlikely from US to Canada.

This topic has been discussed to death already. If you CONSCIOUSLY chose to play on an NA server (no matter the reason), then you CONSCIOUSLY chose to have a worse connection to the game clients. There is always a reason for people to recommend certain servers for certain regions, the ultimate goal being to give them the best possible gaming connection. This means that, no matter what was said, it should always have been expected that EU servers get relocated at some point.

Now you are sour because you noticed your CONSCIOUS decision was wrong. Well, tough. You will receive the same service you did before. Nothing changes except that you are now sour for chosing the wrong datacenter. If you have so little attachement to the friends you made on your server that you want to change instead of playing exactly the way you have until now. Please transfer on your own cost, see it a educational fee and pick a EU server next time.

P.S. I am German but I very much prefer English communities myself. However, I have met plenty of nice people and lots of native English speakers.

Oh, and just a reminder regarding the topic....

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...psec7931ad.gif

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Originally Posted by T2teddy

I really don't understand why someone who lives in a Euro country would have made characters on a NA world in the first place...

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For the exact same reason as players who live in NA who chose a server flagged as 'EU'? Back when it was well known that the 'EU' was nothing more than a label, a lot of people went to 'NA' servers instead to join existing communities; several of the big servers have substantial fame online. Players who are in NA and chose to play on an EU server which has now moved so it's actually located in EU are being treated as though their deliberate error is more important than a European player in the reverse of the same situation. That's simply not fair.

While it is true that people with a bad connection before still have an equally bad connection now and haven't technically lost anything, I think it's perfectly reasonable to question why people are expecting EU customers to pick their servers according to the label and not NA customers. It's a blatant double standard.

(Disclaimer: I have no horse in this race as I am on a JP server by choice. I'm simply objecting to the assumption that EU players aren't allowed to make mistakes while NA players are.)