Suggestion: Allow Free Transfers TO European Data Center

[Kageru77]

Look. Even before we had the current datacenter structure, when you loaded FFXIV ARR back in august/september of 2013 and you went to make your very first character (unless legacy) JP, NA and EU servers (individual) were listed as such. Lich was always EU. Pheonix was always EU etc. Then they were bundles onto Chaos datacenter and moved to montreal, when the previous individual servers were in london.

Europe Datacentre | eu.square-enix.com | IP address: 209.130.141.243 - pulled this from an old lodestone blog post from 2013. This allowed you to ping the EU servers AT THE TIME, IN LONDON.

EU servers were always listed as EU! The end! If your not on an EU server, then you were never put on Chaos, then your not entitled to anything! THATS YOUR BAD!

YES they moved you guys from London, to Montreal, and that might have sucked for a while, but now they are now moving your datacenter BACK to Europe. But If you picked the right server to begin with, this would be a non issue amd we wouldnt be having this discussion!

[Culfinrandir]

I'm in the UK and play on a NA Server. When I started playing I was faced with two choices - NA servers based in NA or EU servers based in NA. I therefore ran various technical check to see if there was a difference and I got slightly better pings and clearer tracing to the NA servers than I did to the EU servers I was considering. As a result I picked Leviathan as I had a friend playing on it (I also had one on Lich [EU]).

For some reason the EU servers were not, and never have been, the *best* choice for me regardless of what was recommended. Why would I have gone for a worse service by selecting an EU server? They were also stating they had no plans to move at that time. Now I find that I have to pay to change over after they move... that is really a kick in the nads.

[Aegis]

Europe Datacentre | eu.square-enix.com | IP address: 209.130.141.243 - pulled this from an old lodestone blog post from 2013. This allowed you to ping the EU servers AT THE TIME, IN LONDON.

EU servers were always listed as EU! The end! If your not on an EU server, then you were never put on Chaos, then your not entitled to anything! THATS YOUR BAD!

YES they moved you guys from London, to Montreal, and that might have sucked for a while, but now they are now moving your datacenter BACK to Europe. But If you picked the right server to begin with, this would be a non issue amd we wouldnt be having this discussion!

Wow, so much that's just flat out wrong here.

They were never in London. I don't know what you think you found, but they were never in London. First Japan then Japan/Canada. Never in the EU. And a significant number of people did start before there was even an NA datacentre. And guess what? When they introduced the NA datacentre they offered free transfers to everyone.

EU servers were not always listed as EU The end! In fact, NA datacentres were (are?) listed as NA/EU, not just NA.

Really don't try argue things you aren't completely sure of with people who have been directly affected by this years before you were playing. EU 1.0 players have been through all this many times over the years. The first 'EU' server was located in Ragnarok and SE were clear it was labeled as EU purely for community reasons (to have a server where most players played at the same time) but they were very specifc that it was not located anywhere different. And because of this it had very poor take up by the EU community because we'd been settled in our servers for something like 2-3 years iirc.

Honestly, all this thread shows is how little the NA forum community actually cares about the rest of the community. As long as you get your stuff without inconvenience, you're fine with whatever happens to others.

[Felis]

Look. Even before we had the current datacenter structure, when you loaded FFXIV ARR back in august/september of 2013 and you went to make your very first character (unless legacy) JP, NA and EU servers (individual) were listed as such. Lich was always EU. Pheonix was always EU etc. Then they were bundles onto Chaos datacenter and moved to montreal, when the previous individual servers were in london.

1.x : all servers in Tokyo
2.x: JP serves in Tokyo and NA/EU servers in Montreal. First all servers in those 2 big server groups, later divided into smaller server groups to improve stability and the DF.

They were never in London

EU servers were not always listed as EU The end! In fact, NA datacentres were (are?) listed as NA/EU, not just NA.

[Aegis]

See? Datacentres listed as NA/EU. And back when we first started there was no EU datacentre or server.

[Felis]

See? Datacentres listed as NA/EU. And back when we first started there was no EU datacentre or server.

Yes, datacenter is listed as NA/EU, but servers are listed as NA or EU.
So people knew from the beginning which one are the servers with many european people in it, what make them european servers (where the majority log off to go to bed during NA primetime)

[Aegis]

Actually in the beginning, servers were place names like Fabul, Besaid, Selbina etc. There were no locations attached to them.

[Yshnal]

- NA player -> Chooses a server labeled as EU willingly and/or because they get the same experience as in the NA ones -> Gets a free transfer once EU servers move to Europe because his/her experience will be the same as that that those in EU have had for 2+ years

- EU player -> Chooses a server not labeled as EU willingly and/or because they get the same experience as in the EU ones -> Gets the middle finger once EU servers move to Europe in order to provide the same experience that NA and JP have had, despite having paid his/her sub for 2 years while having an inferior service than those living in the other two territories (that paid exactly the same, not more) without a better alternative to choose

Tell me again, why do NA/JP players get a free transfer and EU players not? Why does it make sense business-wise to give the middle finger to part of your customers when the status quo is obviously changing for everyone directly or indirectly affected? Moreover, and this is more a consequence of this decision, is it okay to potentially make EU servers less populated while passively preventing them from getting back some population in exchange? Really SE, you keep screwing things on the EU side as if you wanted us all to stop playing or something (expansion price disparity, limited PS3 versions when compared to the other territories, worse special events, etc., and now this "thing" once we get proper EU servers).

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we're finally getting our servers closer. But please, think about how are you handling this and reconsider it. Thanks.

[Taika]

As said, before 2.0 this was the server situation (everything was Japan or NA/EU):



Before that everything was in Japan only.

I think this also comes down to the fact that not giving European players on NA servers free transfers doesn't give any advantage to anyone, while offering them the same service the NA players on European servers get would simply be good customer service. Additionally, some of the up-to-the-fullest NA servers would profit from European players and Free Companies moving away from them (there already are many European players posting from Balmung in this thread). I don't see any sensible reason to object this request, especially as it probably doesn't have any effect on the players posting against it.

[Hirmu]

I don't understand why would anyone argue against this? It has no effect on you at all. It's a matter of us as customers asking for equal treatment.

When choosing a server we made an arbitrary decision - all the non-japanese servers were in the same physical location and no mention of any kind was given that one day they'd move. Given how MMO servers have a tendency to merge or shut down (which btw happened with XIV too) and seeing as this was around the time of version 1.2 which came in 2011 I'd say it's a tad unfair to say we should've seen this coming. If after four years they decide to finally make the european datacenter the proper and good customer service is to allow free transfer within a certain time window. And the thing isn't even about the payment, I fully expected I have to pay. What's messed up is them making it free only one way and not the other.


The thing is, the people who now have to pay are probably some of the oldest, best paying customers they have who actually kept the game afloat even when it was terrible. So yeah, we'll pay regardless. The customer service is still crap though.