Quote Originally Posted by Lexia View Post
There might of not been a EU data center but there was always servers designated as EU servers which those were the ones that where later moved to a actual data center in the EU. So actually most the blame does lay with the consumer for choosing which server they joined.
At launch, there was no indication that the servers located on the EU "datacenter" would ever be moved to an actual datacenter located in the EU. There was no reason for me to create a character on the "EU" servers.
Since I moved to XIV from playing another MMO on its NA servers (TERA, playing on NA since the EU publishers were absolutely trash), I decided to make a character on Sargatanas, along with a few people I played TERA with.

At some point before 2.2, I found out that Balmung ended up being the unofficial RP server. Since I used to play on an RP server in WoW, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of a busy RP server (Balmung had not yet reached its current popularity, back then), I decided to create a character there. Eventually moving my main there, since there was still no indication that the EU servers were going anywhere.
The announcement of the physical datacenter didn't come until 1.5 years after that. Note: this was also a year after the introduction of privately owned housing.

If a EU player decided to start on a NA server right now, then yes, most of the blame lays with them. However, you can't lay the blame on any EU players that started out way before there was even a hint of a physical EU datacenter.

That said, ping for EU players will only noticeably increase if they decide to move the NA datacenter to the west coast, and SE has been pretty hush-hush when it comes to where their new NA datacenter will be.