[Data Center USA] Ping increased. Report your changes here.

[Raikki]

That's not very central, at least from geographic point of view. Even if accounting the map stretch giving slightly wrong image.

It's central as far as Internet infrastructure goes. Kansas City, MO, is more of a "true" centerpoint, but it's rarer to see major hosting done there. Chicago and Dallas are the usual places you're going to see "Central" servers located.

[Raikki]

It's central as far as Internet infrastructure goes. Kansas City, MO, is more of a "true" centerpoint, but it's rarer to see major hosting done there. Chicago and Dallas are the usual places you're going to see "Central" servers located.

Expanding upon this, here are some pings to that IP (24.105.62.129, Blizzard US Central in Chicago) from backbone servers in various locations:

Portland, OR: 49ms (Northwest US)
San Diego, CA: 54ms (Southwest US)
Boston, MA: 24ms (Northeast US)
Miami, FL: 33ms (Southeast US)
Frankfurt, Germany: 109ms

Residential pings will be a bit higher obviously and may not have as good routes as these. Hopefully it's obvious that not only would a huge percentage of North Americans be getting stellar latency, but the impact on European players may have been reduced significantly enough to allow them to stay on their preferred server.

[cakesphere]

Expanding upon this, here are some pings to that IP (24.105.62.129, Blizzard US Central in Chicago) from backbone servers in various locations:

Portland, OR: 49ms (Northwest US)
San Diego, CA: 54ms (Southwest US)
Boston, MA: 24ms (Northeast US)
Miami, FL: 33ms (Southeast US)
Frankfurt, Germany: 109ms

Residential pings will be a bit higher obviously and may not have as good routes as these. Hopefully it's obvious that not only would a huge percentage of North Americans be getting stellar latency, but the impact on European players may have been reduced significantly enough to allow them to stay on their preferred server.

People saying "100ms is good" just show their ignorance of other online games, really. There's a reason so many other games place their NA servers centrally or run several server locations across the continent.

[Ryuko]

People saying "100ms is good" just show their ignorance of other online games, really. There's a reason so many other games place their NA servers centrally or run several server locations across the continent.

I understand your point, but the thing to remember is that FFXIV was specifically balanced to consider the fact that many players will experience a 100ms+ ping. Other games can afford to demand a quicker reaction time from players because there are more datacenters available to accommodate more regions. SE only has three separate datacenters, and there are many players who are outside of the 'safe' zone of 100ms. This is why 100ms is okay in this game, but not in others. I'm not sure what the 'magic number' is, but I know Yoshi P has been asked about this and specifically mentioned that the game was balanced to accommodate players with higher ping -- but only to a point. I am way too lazy to look it up, but someone else can feel free to post it if they want to. (In case anyone was wondering, this is why those of us on the East Coast were so spoiled -- we could fit a LOT in before running out of an AoE because we knew we had time to do it. Players on the West Coast are going to learn to appreciate that privilege very soon. :P)

[MistakeNot]

I understand your point, but the thing to remember is that FFXIV was specifically balanced to consider the fact that many players will experience a 100ms+ ping. Other games can afford to demand a quicker reaction time from players because there are more datacenters available to accommodate more regions. SE only has three separate datacenters, and there are many players who are outside of the 'safe' zone of 100ms. This is why 100ms is okay in this game, but not in others. I'm not sure what the 'magic number' is, but I know Yoshi P has been asked about this and specifically mentioned that the game was balanced to accommodate players with higher ping -- but only to a point. I am way too lazy to look it up, but someone else can feel free to post it if they want to. (In case anyone was wondering, this is why those of us on the East Coast were so spoiled -- we could fit a LOT in before running out of an AoE because we knew we had time to do it. Players on the West Coast are going to learn to appreciate that privilege very soon. :P)

Fact is that most MMOs (not just FFXIV) are perfectly playable with ping times as high as 150-200ms. People may notice the difference between 50ms ping and 150ms ping, but it will not make the game unplayable.

I have played FFXIV on both EU servers (~40 ms ping time) and on NA servers (~120 ms ping time in the old data center) and did actually not notice much difference between them.