MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

[Fornix]

Maybe you should get yourself a better way, to find out your ping, because your way is broken.
Not even the best internet can get you such a good ping overseas.

Iceland is still Europe. That might, with low possibility, be possible.

[Teryaani]

Pretty much, if there's some problem with the routing then you'd think they would find a way to improve it on their side, maybe by changing data centers or contacting their providers about it. I get it wouldn't be exactly cheap, but hey those fabulous 2.5 million accounts created should help, right.

Talking with someone like Level3 is not that easy. Providers like Level 3 (the cause of most of my game lag based on the tracerts I've run) don't talk to anyone that isn't one of their customers. Data center moves aren't cheap and carry risk of outage. It's not just FFXIV either. A good friend of mine had the same problem with SWTOR. If EA isn't going to get L3 to do something, neither is Square-Enix.

Just to be clear, I'd like SE to make things better on their side where they can. I just don't think it will solve all the problems. The infrastructure between where I am in California and where the servers live in Monteal is complete crap and I'm not about to blame SE for that.

[Tupsi]

If 3rd party programs help improve latency for a lot of people, you'd think they'd work to apply some of the same principles behind those 3rd party programs on their infrastructure, especially now that ARR is so profitable like they always keep implying, surely they can afford it.

If 3rd party programs fixes your latency that's ...undeniable proof it's your connection's route. All 3rd party programs like battleping or whatever does is tunnel your connection around hiccups - nothing SE "can put into practice" because the connection is fine, the servers are fine...the route is not fine - SE doesn't own the route inbetween you and them.

[Roris]

If 3rd party programs fixes your latency that's ...undeniable proof it's your connection's route. All 3rd party programs like battleping or whatever does is tunnel your connection around hiccups - nothing SE "can put into practice" because the connection is fine, the servers are fine...the route is not fine - SE doesn't own the route inbetween you and them.

If the route is bad then why not change the route and open up different data centers that have better routing for different players in different regions, i.e. why put all western servers even European servers in Canada in the first place?

Talking with someone like Level3 is not that easy. Providers like Level 3 (the cause of most of my game lag based on the tracerts I've run) don't talk to anyone that isn't one of their customers. Data center moves aren't cheap and carry risk of outage. It's not just FFXIV either. A good friend of mine had the same problem with SWTOR. If EA isn't going to get L3 to do something, neither is Square-Enix.

Just to be clear, I'd like SE to make things better on their side where they can. I just don't think it will solve all the problems. The infrastructure between where I am in California and where the servers live in Monteal is complete crap and I'm not about to blame SE for that.

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

[Tiggy]

If the route is bad then why not change the route and open up different data centers that have better routing for different players in different regions, i.e. why put all western servers even European servers in Canada in the first place?

Square can't control the route. That's controlled completely different companies. You can change the route by using programs like WTFast.
Opening more data centers is possible but generally there isn't much good reason to have more than 1 for the same region. Normally server locations come down to a cost issue though. It's likely that data center had a good price and was able to hit two markets at once (Europe and America). This simplifies a lot of aspects of maintenance since it's all in the same building and the same crew. When connections are good most European and American customers have a good experience so the location isn't really a big deal unless you're in Australia. They probably do need a server imo.

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

Well technically there is a Japanese and American data center. So it's two places.
Also, now that the game is at 2.5mil accounts it's even harder to start new data centers. You'd have to create new worlds with zero playerbase and economy from the start. On top of it you'd have to create a new cluster with multiple servers for the sake of duty finder. Filling those new servers quickly so that they actually can function is an incredible challenge. Anyone here on a low pop server can tell you how many extra headaches that adds.

So yes it was likely a decision made to limit how much it would cost at the beginning. Try to remember they didn't expect as much response from the American market as they actually got and the servers were woefully inadequate at launch. This is one of those things that's actually tougher to do once the game is more established. Players would riot if any plans popped up to shut servers down for a few weeks so that they could move them. After the move more other people would complain since the physical move now shifted the routing problems to other players who were previously unscathed. You can't make everyone happy.

[Teryaani]

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

They made a decision based on cost, which I won't defend them for. I'm going through a DC move right now at work caused by a similar decision making process and it sucks.

That's not what was being argued by the OP and others (Blizzard is having faster server side polling, why aren't we?), the change mentioned at the start won't fix what many here think is the root cause of the lag. I'm not white-knighting SE. The single EU/NA data center is a stupid idea and it should have been distributed across 3-4 DCs. Faster server side polling would be nice to have, but it wouldn't fix most of the issue.

[ApolloGenX]

Trust me, guys - Even though you might not have these issues in any other games... and even though a much older game can pull off a much faster and superior polling rate - It's the internetz

Seriously? I don't really care if it's because of bad data center placement, badly coded telegraphing processes, or whatever - this game still has performance problems that are massively outperformed by a much older game.

Some people will defend ANYTHING. (Or blame others)

[Tiggy]

Trust me, guys - Even though you might not have these issues in any other games... and even though a much older game can pull off a much faster and superior polling rate - It's the internetz

Seriously? I don't really care if it's because of bad data center placement, badly coded telegraphing processes, or whatever - this game still has performance problems that are massively outperformed by a much older game.

Some people will defend ANYTHING. (Or blame others)

Some people prefer to understand why so that they can blame the right people. Blaming square won't solve anything if 90% or more of the problems are caused between you and the server.

Some people will refuse to understand ANYTHING. (Or just blame someone anyway)

[ApolloGenX]

Some people prefer to understand why so that they can blame the right people. Blaming square won't solve anything if 90% or more of the problems are caused between you and the server.

Some people will refuse to understand ANYTHING. (Or just blame someone anyway)

There is absolutely no argument to be made for slower polling. To what degree it might help or not help players is another conversation. So, please feel free to deflect with the back and forth about impact (which I think we all know would vary greatly from player to player)... while ignoring the fundamental point that their methods are outdated and perform at an inferior level to a much older game.

What I do think is fair to claim is that "that other" company thought the impact of faster polling to be worth the investment to improve their rates.

Yes, it is true that it might impact people more in that other game, since there might be fewer people suffering because of that companies badly placed datacenters that cause terrible data transmission.... but I am not sure why that would be the fault of players, either. To be fair - when that other game launched and there was massive lag, you had the same kind of people blaming it on people's internet connections and routing... but miraculously, the other company still managed to fix things....

[Teryaani]

There is absolutely no argument to be made for slower polling.

It was done to help alleviate performance issues on the servers themselves. So while there is no excuse for the hardware to be that bad, there was a reason for it. To Roris' point, SE should allocate resources to put better infrastructure in place. I completely agree with that.

It's a pain to migrate, even so they need to, before the game gets more bogged down.

To what degree it might help or not help players is another conversation.

No, it's the main premise of the OP's post. It's the conversation we're having right now. The argument being had is that this would fix lag issues when largely it won't.

What I do think is fair to claim is that "that other" company thought the impact of faster polling to be worth the investment to improve their rates.

You are comparing an MMO that has been in place for ten years with a development and infrastructure team to match and which has a much smaller footprint than FF does with an MMO in it's first year (ARR is a nearly complete re-write of 1.0, so this is it's first year) which has a green infrastructure team.

They need to fix the problem, but we can't pretend that because Square made an MMO that resembles WoW that they are suddenly Activision/Blizzard.

also:

Trust me, guys - Even though you might not have these issues in any other games... and even though a much older game can pull off a much faster and superior polling rate - It's the internetz

You chose to ignore this, but as others have said, this is happening in other games too. Not just FF.