Has There Been Any Additional Information on Cross-region DC travel?

This announcement in January made it quite clear that (at that time) there was no intention of adding cross-region DC travel in 6.1. Has there been any additional information on this recently? Personally, it's incredibly disappointing to be locked into regional DC travel, as I have friends on EU and OCE servers which I would like to be able to play with at 90 without investing hundred(s) of hours or a bunch of money on story and level skips.

According to aforementioned announcement, cross-region travel is "technically" possible, but both that and "implementation is still under consideration" could mean anything. At this point I'm wondering if I should just give up on waiting for it and just pay for a transfer, as I've been wistfully hoping for and being teased by the promise of DC travel for about a year, at this point.

I don't keep up with or know where to find news outside of what's posted on the Lodestone, so I don't know if there is or isn't new information on DC travel which I am not privy to.

There has not. Realistically, I doubt regional travel will happen any time soon; certainly not within this expansion. They danced around it but suffice it to say, NA and JP have a very different culture and attitude. Neither will gel well with each other. Which does, unfortunately, leave OCE alone on an island.

Thanks, that's quite disappointing. I'm a new(er, < 3 years) player, and I've found the dev's transparency to be quite refreshing. With the notable exception of how loosely they've skipped around ever saying much about DC travel. (At least from what I have seen). I've seen cultural differences thrown around as a reason not to allow cross-regional travel a few times, but I've never seen much in the way of definitive examples and am curious as to what exactly that means.

The announcement of DC travel had me quite excited to finally be able to play with both my NA and EU based friends, and I didn't feel as if regional restrictions were initially implied when they revealed it. It's been a bit frustrating.

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Originally Posted by probablyquill

I've seen cultural differences thrown around as a reason not to allow cross-regional travel a few times, but I've never seen much in the way of definitive examples and am curious as to what exactly that means.

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After having lived in Japan, the best way I can describe it is in many significant ways Japanese culture is 180 degrees opposite of Western, especially American, culture. Add the increase in assholish behavior due to internet anonymity and you've got a recipe for some extremely upset Japanese players. Even considering the overall kindness of the community, allowing free-for-all transfer between Western and Japanese data centers is just asking for significant culture-clash.

It took me some time to adjust to the culture of a JP server compared to NA servers in previous games when I started XIV, and I had experience with Japanese culture! Having no experience on an NA/EU server in XIV, I can't speak with 100% accuracy, but going off previous games the "different values" thing is real; not just the strategies in duties, but even things as simple as not /yelling /saying much in public spaces. I think it would be lovely if the NA, EU, and OCE data centers allowed inter-DC travel, but it's best to leave the JP ones out of it.

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Originally Posted by probablyquill

Thanks, that's quite disappointing. I'm a new(er, < 3 years) player, and I've found the dev's transparency to be quite refreshing. With the notable exception of how loosely they've skipped around ever saying much about DC travel. (At least from what I have seen). I've seen cultural differences thrown around as a reason not to allow cross-regional travel a few times, but I've never seen much in the way of definitive examples and am curious as to what exactly that means.

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It mostly boils down to NA's individualism contrasting with JP's collectivism. For specific examples, NA will likely call out individual mistakes, favor uptime strats and generally has a "how the team failed me" mentality. JP will largely say nothing, even apologizing for other players making mistakes. They adopt the safest possible strats and will not deviant from them whatsoever in PF and tend to have a "how did I fail the team" mentality. It's why you'll see NA players leave parties if things start going poorly whereas JP puts up a Vote Abandon usually following three wipes to the same mechanic that wasn't their prog point. You even see this in loot distribution for PF. JP has everyone roll left to right and should you win, you're expected to leave without rolling on anything else. This is all based entirely on the honor system, though you will get blacklisted fast for being "greedy". NA, meanwhile, is complete FFA. Roll on everything and be a loot goblin.

The two just wouldn't coexist together. Which is why I suspect the devs are extremely hesitant with regional DC travel.

I wouldn't mind being limited to transfer only between US and EU data centers while being locked out of the JP ones. I have a lot of friends on the EU side I'd like to play with without needing to make an entirely new character from scratch!

I think that cross-region DC travel will happen but it's not happening yet. They are still evaluating the effects it will have (such as on the economy) and would also like our opinions on it on the forums. We just need to keep posting about it so that they decide to do it.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

After having lived in Japan, the best way I can describe it is in many significant ways Japanese culture is 180 degrees opposite of Western, especially American, culture. Add the increase in assholish behavior due to internet anonymity and you've got a recipe for some extremely upset Japanese players.

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Then the Japanese name them on some blacklist site and excommunicate them in silence. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

Then the Japanese name them on some blacklist site and excommunicate them in silence. Problem solved.

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Blacklist has limited entries. There are far too many players in other DCs to fit them all on it.

It will happen, its just when. And it might be only NA, EU & OC. Or only one Japanese data centre will have it. I think they may be worried about Toxic players from the west trolling them. Which really isn't a thing in FFxiv, so they can rest easy, however its difficult maybe for them to understand. Its a bonus playing in any region. I am sure they will capitalise on that.

We can already make alt characters on Japanese worlds (we already do). We can already do paid transfers to there. I am very doubtful that it could get much worse than it already is.

What is there for us on Japanese worlds? Once you go there you discover a pretty obvious thing which is that they speak Japanese and there is not a lot of point in playing there. OCE players used to have a reason but that has reduced even more now that they have their own data center.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Blacklist has limited entries. There are far too many players in other DCs to fit them all on it.

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I think they’re referring to JP’s public blacklists that they have. JP players have been known to publicly blacklist players (along with reasons why they’re being blacklisted) on sites like 2chan.

I completely understand why JP wants to be excluded and I accept their request. I think it would be nice to allow DC travel between EU, NA, and OCE.

That solves the issues and if somebody really wants to go to the JP DC, they will have to purchase a transfer.

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Originally Posted by Frogstone

It will happen, its just when. And it might be only NA, EU & OC. Or only one Japanese data centre will have it. I think they may be worried about Toxic players from the west trolling them. Which really isn't a thing in FFxiv, so they can rest easy

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It definitely is weird to see this situation represented as a one way street as if the terrible Americans and Europeans will harass and torment the Japanese players. I've seen some of the comments when the OCE DC was made and a lot of those seem pretty toxic and aggressive towards EN players.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It definitely is weird to see this situation represented as a one way street as if the terrible Americans and Europeans will harass and torment the Japanese players. I've seen some of the comments when the OCE DC was made and a lot of those seem pretty toxic and aggressive towards EN players.

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I doubt too many of the JP players would venture away from their DC though. So it's not hard to imagine they fear the influx, rather than feeling any desire to go into EU or NA, or even OC servers.

Some would, of course. There are always outliers in everything.