Please enable data centre travel between regions

[hagare]

If this happens, I'm gonna make a tour guide job

[Sheriyana]

Let's not do that. I don't think there's any room for xenophobia or needless division here. It's bad enough that these stupid pointless borders exist to begin with in the real world, we don't need to be constructing them around ourselves in a virtual world as well.

I think people like to exclude Japan because they're the ones who have expressed concern over cross regional data center travel. Being concerned about the gameplay style and culture being too different in the West and ruining their way of doing things. Personally I'd prefer Japan to be excluded from it over not getting cross region DC travel at all, it's just stupid to punish the rest of the world for something Japan doesn't want to happen but everyone else does.

[Tigerlilley]

As always, +1 for cross region. If it means Japan is excluded then exclude them. They won't mind and neither should we.

[DeNada]

How is the English speaking population received in Japan usually?

I seem to remember the legend of JP ONRY when NA players have to play with japanese players on their home servers in FF11 but is that still a thing in FF14?

[Larirawiel]

EU and NA are pretty compatible in terms of mentality. I play on both and i see no real differences. Traveling between EU and NA should be possible, IMHO.


Cheers

[LaylaTsarra]

How is the English speaking population received in Japan usually?

I seem to remember the legend of JP ONRY when NA players have to play with japanese players on their home servers in FF11 but is that still a thing in FF14?

I have an alt on Chocobo and have always enjoyed playing there. Haven't been there so much lately but overall I've seen the experience as positive. I think there is a major language barrier for those wanting to play high level content there and hoping for DC travel. I need to get around at some point to getting my alt through the Endwalker story.

Relative to Materia they need to do something because 5 servers isn't enough to support game play and makes many duties hard to fill. Japan will have 32 servers soon and Materia has 5 something is wrong there and needs to be addressed. Given many on Materia are from Japan the Japan DC would be a good solution and it's the closest as well.

[hagare]

How is the English speaking population received in Japan usually?

I seem to remember the legend of JP ONRY when NA players have to play with japanese players on their home servers in FF11 but is that still a thing in FF14?

tbh, it's more like jpn language only rather than jpn only.

[Digit4lC4m]

I see a lot of people expressing concern about cultural conflict between the NA/EU and JP populations...I don't think the NA/EU will come all way to play on JP DC, just to suffer from high Ping. I don't see the reason for NA/EU to come and "ruining their way of doing things." as the Japanese worry about. As long as Duty finder only pairs people on the same DC, it shouldn't be a problem.

Tbh, being an English speaker, despite being on JP DC, I would rather play with English speakers on NA, EU and OCE. It's not that I dislike playing with JP, It's the language barrier. The only reason I want cross-region travel is so I can run contents on NA, while still be able to play with my RL friends on JP DC. If the Japanese doesn't like playing with English speakers, doesn't Cross-region travel actually benefit them? English communities on JP DC finally get to travel to NA/EU and play with the English speaking populations there instead of being stuck with other Japanese players.

[Illmaeran]

How is the English speaking population received in Japan usually?

I seem to remember the legend of JP ONRY when NA players have to play with japanese players on their home servers in FF11 but is that still a thing in FF14?

The EN community primarily congregates on Elemental and as long as we follow JP social expectations we're generally well received. I've only ever played on Elemental servers so I have no reference for the other DCs. In general, we have no issues doing bilingual DF level activities where we don't really need to communicate with any depth. As far as PF goes, the majority of us avoid listings in Japanese unless we can read Japanese well enough to understand their communication. There are still "JP only" listings, generally for ease of communication reasons, and that's something EN speakers must respect. It can be quite nerve-wracking to not be able to communicate with people who don't understand your native language; in this case, the official standard language of the entire DC. Just like I wouldn't want to go into a party of all German speakers that I couldn't communicate with, I avoid JP Only listings.

It's essential to consider that Japanese culture is 180 degrees different from US culture (especially) and Western in general. Other than the folks who congregated on Tonberry and Kujata as the unofficial OCE/SEA servers, the vast majority of EN speakers on other servers, especially in the early years, specifically chose a JP world to get away from unpleasant behaviors and attitudes in Western MMOs and to some extent the NA/EU servers in this game. A lot of us are expats or people who'd lived in Japan in the past and intentionally accepted the social contract to abide by Japanese standards of conduct. Something as simple as using /say or /yell in public that are common on Western servers are a major faux-pax on JP worlds. We're the visitors there and it's our responsibility to abide by their standards, not the other way around. The "You don't pay my sub" attitude will get you blacklisted faster than you can blink.

After going back to try a couple big name Western MMOs since starting XIV, it's abundantly clear that the behaviors and attitudes I went to Elemental to avoid are only worse and more prevalent than they were in 2014. I do not, under any circumstances, want JP DCs open to the world. It took us long time and a lot of effort to get the EN and JP populations integrated to the point we're at. We don't need a flood of people who don't know how to behave DC-hopping to Japan and creating problems.

Linking NA/EU/OCE DCs for travel is a fantastic idea for a host of reasons and I support it 100%, just keep the JP DCs on their own.

[Jojoya]

Relative to Materia they need to do something because 5 servers isn't enough to support game play and makes many duties hard to fill. Japan will have 32 servers soon and Materia has 5 something is wrong there and needs to be addressed. Given many on Materia are from Japan the Japan DC would be a good solution and it's the closest as well.

JP already has 32 servers. All SE is doing is splitting the existing worlds into 4 data centers instead of the current 3.

I agree that Materia is at a disadvantage only having 5 worlds but I don't think they could allow cross-region play for Materia without allowing it for all regions and SE probably wants to be cautious about cross data center travel at first to make certain there are no issues that weren't discovered in testing.

I see a lot of people expressing concern about cultural conflict between the NA/EU and JP populations...I don't think the NA/EU will come all way to play on JP DC, just to suffer from high Ping. I don't see the reason for NA/EU to come and "ruining their way of doing things." as the Japanese worry about. As long as Duty finder only pairs people on the same DC, it shouldn't be a problem.

Most players wouldn't. Most probably won't even travel outside of their current data centers other than a couple of trips for curiosity's sake at first.

But there absolutely will be trolls who delight in stirring things up. And that's going to be just as true of some JP players. There are still the occasional bad seeds there just as much as NA and EU. I suspect that's why SE added in "Each data center will also be judged based on the social customs of that data center's region in the real world." to the Prohibited Activities update last year. They wanted it stated so action could be immediately taken against those using cross region travel to stir up trouble once it's implemented.