Sign if you would of Prefered this over the data Center shuffle

[Shurrikhan]

do other MMOs really not have servers (i've only played 4 in my life and everyone has them)? do they really have open world fields where you load 2000 players at the same time?

No, nor was that the point I was making.

But, many do allow (cross-server) connectivity between many more people than our Datacenters do, and especially will after the coming changes.

Their "Massively Multiplayer", for all intents and purposes, is more massive than ours, is all, in terms of how many people one sign-in/character can technically connect to insofar as servers/centers allow.

[Dyvid]

No, nor was that the point I was making.

But, many do allow (cross-server) connectivity between many more people than our Datacenters do, and especially will after the coming changes.

Their "Massively Multiplayer", for all intents and purposes, is more massive than ours, is all, in terms of how many people one sign-in/character can technically connect to insofar as servers/centers allow.

How data centers do the many MMO's have? How does their cross realm feature work? What are they doing that FFXIV isn't?

[Adeacia]

All your character data; items, money, retrainer, ect.., is stored in the Data Center. It's easy to transfer that information within the data center because it's localized in the network mainframe. To move all that information to another data center means you have to transmit all the information over the internet which takes time and could possible lose information packets. How fun would it be to wait 30 minutes to load to a new world and find that some of your gear is missing?

This.^ The worlds in a data center are all connected to each other and share the same instance servers. Data centers themselves are completely separate from each other.

This is by design to make it easier to manage the worlds and instances. Like having less people all trying to use the same instance servers at the same time, which as the start of SB showed there were still too many people at once.

Splitting up worlds to make a new data center is the best option in this case to help prevent that from happening again, or at least mitigate it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This.^ The worlds in a data center are all connected to each other and share the same instance servers. Data centers themselves are completely separate from each other.

This is by design to make it easier to manage the worlds and instances. Like having less people all trying to use the same instance servers at the same time, which as the start of SB showed there were still too many people at once.

Splitting up worlds to make a new data center is the best option in this case to help prevent that from happening again, or at least mitigate it.

To be fair, the instance clogged occurred primarily because they foolish stuck one ten quests into the MSQ. This meant the usual drop-off which would occur as players each progress at various speeds never happened. This problem was only magnified by making an instance for both Red Mage and Samurai in their opening job quest.

[KokoChibata]

Simple proposal sign below if you would of preferred to see a Cross Data Center party finder implemented first before the implementation of World teleport/data center shuffle? Honestly it makes more sense to do it this way than upsetting the community to me anyway. However this more a simple yes or no rather than can it be done exercise because if enough people want it, it will happen "points to chocobo being out while queuing for df" took em 4 years but they did it!

I am curious as to how many would of preferred it done this way.

We have a cross world party finder already.........

[Shurrikhan]

How data centers do the many MMO's have? How does their cross realm feature work? What are they doing that FFXIV isn't?

WoW. You can play with any player from any region through their realm visitation system. Guilds and standard matchmaking are still limited to Battlegroups, but you can play with all players.

BDO. All one data NA/EU data center. All character and clan data is stored separately from servers. You pick the server to log in on based on whichever has best ping at that particular time. Some events and bonuses set to particular servers to draw relevant players, but generally it's just a matter of additional/excess servers being made or crunched as needed for ping, with a graduated transition of some three seconds as your server or mini-server is crunched or split.

B&S. Crunched to one NA/Oceania server and one EU server, with cross-connectivity. (Russia, China, Japan, and Korean clients all wholly separate entities.) Channels are made/crunched similar to above for purposes of ping.

GW2. Now uses only mega-servers for all gameplay intents and purposes. NA or EU. Separate instances made/crunched as needed.

Playing on an NA server on any of these MMOs I have access to nominally 50+ to 100% of players playing the same game, worldwide.

[Dyvid]

WoW. You can play with any player from any region through their realm visitation system. Guilds and standard matchmaking are still limited to Battlegroups, but you can play with all players.

BDO. All one data NA/EU data center. All character and clan data is stored separately from servers. You pick the server to log in on based on whichever has best ping at that particular time. Some events and bonuses set to particular servers to draw relevant players, but generally it's just a matter of additional/excess servers being made or crunched as needed for ping, with a graduated transition of some three seconds as your server or mini-server is crunched or split.

B&S. Crunched to one NA/Oceania server and one EU server, with cross-connectivity. (Russia, China, Japan, and Korean clients all wholly separate entities.) Channels are made/crunched similar to above for purposes of ping.

GW2. Now uses only mega-servers for all gameplay intents and purposes. NA or EU. Separate instances made/crunched as needed.

Playing on an NA server on any of these MMOs I have access to nominally 50+ to 100% of players playing the same game, worldwide.

WoW, from what I read, has CRZ "Cross Realm Zoning" within in the data center as default. All others you mentioned use one Data Center. All those MMORPG automatically place you in a CRZ where as FFXIV's plan is to give players the choice to move to another world. SE isn't doing anything different, they are really just playing catch up.

[KDSilver]

We'll probably have DC cross-pf one day.
They just do things step by step.

Nothing to worry about.

[Niraye]

move Balmung. im fine with what is happening, it needs to happen.

[Shurrikhan]

WoW, from what I read, has CRZ "Cross Realm Zoning" within in the data center as default.

And?

WoW : Can visit and play with any server, from any data center.

XIV : Can visit and play with any server, only from within your own data center.

Are we really going to debate whether a sixth is greater than a whole? WoW objectively allows you to connect with a larger percentage of players. 100% > (12-%)

All others you mentioned use one Data Center.

Separate server sites. Except in BDO, full character data is bound to separate datacenters, just as described above. Dallas and Frankfurt, each with separate character registries, do not a single data-center make.

All those MMORPG automatically place you in a CRZ where as FFXIV's plan is to give players the choice to move to another world.

And? What makes that difference in fundamental tech somehow so... inherently flawed(?) that any reference to it or its benefits in terms of the percentage of playerbase you can connect to with a given character would be irrelevant or profane?

SE isn't doing anything different, they are really just playing catch up.

Then what do you have against the other designs? Or rather, what is your point? You asked how many data centers they had. I answered. You asked how their cross-realm feature worked. I answered. You asked what they're doing that XIV isn't. I answered. You have four at a glance examples of other ways to provide connection with a greater percentage of players from a single character. For what reason apart from "well, they aren't XIV" is each irrelevant, fundamentally or otherwise?

If XIV is finally playing catch-up to parts of 2012 and parts of 2014 WoW, why is it somehow -- what? -- profane or fickle for me to hope that they might go the step further and allow for greater connection between players, extending it in some form past one's own data center alone rather than reducing the amount of players we can group up with via CSPF, potentially splitting CS friends and statics, in the meantime? At the least, I don't see why it's somehow reprehensible for me to be a bit disappointed that I'm not going to be able to party up with certain friends just because of what is, for now, a fairly fundamental design difference.