Materia DC and DC travel.

[Tigerlilley]

This is the thing Denada it's constant back n forth of do I leave or wait around for it to grow but I feel like the Materia DC already peaked early on with it's population. If I wait any longer for people to get PS5s or for updates to bring new people in it's going to be the next expansion by the time I hit endgame on my alt due to the queues and having to play at very specific hours to get things done to progress MSQ. I made an alt on OCE to play PVP on a good ping, managed to get a few games of FL going early on but as soon as CC became the only PVP mode I could play on that server I knew things were dying already. Even if I queue at these supposed peak hours Frontline says more than 30 minutes and after seeing that enough times I'm just about ready to head back to JP. I try to stick around the best to my ability, I've got an alt and a house there but if I don't see growth within the first week or two of 6.3 or even leading up to it I'll probably be heading to another DC to be able to enjoy things like PVP changes and endgame.

And you're right to do so. Everyone pays a subscription to play the game. If you can't play the game, what are you paying for? I think SE really needed to step in with promotion or regional travel or just -something- so much earlier but they haven't. It's disappointing but it's no ones responsibility to keep Materia alive. If SE don't care then why should we?
Just do what's right for you. Enjoy the game

[Jojoya]

And you're right to do so. Everyone pays a subscription to play the game. If you can't play the game, what are you paying for? I think SE really needed to step in with promotion or regional travel or just -something- so much earlier but they haven't. It's disappointing but it's no ones responsibility to keep Materia alive. If SE don't care then why should we?
Just do what's right for you. Enjoy the game

I've been told by others that SE had been heavily promoting the game with the new OCE data center in that part of the world so that's not part of the problem. If OCE players aren't picking up the game, then the OCE Facebook group that had been lobbying for the OCE data center overestimated the importance of a local data center to those not playing the game.

They aren't going to force players to play on a specific world so that we can rule out as any sort of solution (even if a bad one).

If cross region data center travel has already been tested on their internal services and works as they say, then it needs to be enabled. If the JP player base hates the idea that much, then leave them out of it and allow it for NA, EU, and OCE. That would probably pull OCE and SEA player back out of the JP worlds to Materia where they'd then have more options.

If the JP player base wants to be isolated, that's their choice. No reason for the rest of the player base that isn't looking to be isolated to have to be so.

[LaylaTsarra]

If the JP player base wants to be isolated, that's their choice. No reason for the rest of the player base that isn't looking to be isolated to have to be so.

Totally agree!

Materia needs major attention. Letting it wilt and die is unacceptable. It's unfair that this small DC can't DC travel to help with queues they can't get to pop until it's had time to grow. It won't grow the way it is now and the time for action is now not with 7.0.

[Tigerlilley]

I've been told by others that SE had been heavily promoting the game with the new OCE data center in that part of the world so that's not part of the problem.

I mean, I live here. I haven't seen anything. I saw screenshots of a few billboards back in January that were posted on this forum. They're not going to entice existing players to move though. I just wish they'd paid attention to things like, having housing avaliable for people to go when it opened. Mentioning us in the live letters, maybe even an oce themed event, I dunno. Something. Waiting until the end of the raid tier to open the servers, only having 3 servers, not 5. There were a ton of miss steps.

If OCE players aren't picking up the game, then the OCE Facebook group that had been lobbying for the OCE data center overestimated the importance of a local data center to those not playing the game.

I think the biggest issue here was SEA. Obviously the BIGGEST community that isn't represented on Tonberry is SEA. When SE decided the servers were in Aus, not Singapore, we were worried. Big worried. And I think we were probably right about that. I am not in a facebook group though so I'm unsure what their thoughts were on it. Someone from SEA also wrote a super interesting post on why SEA players didn't move and the service provider SE chose was a big issue for them, routing and ping wise.

If cross region data center travel has already been tested on their internal services and works as they say, then it needs to be enabled. If the JP player base hates the idea that much, then leave them out of it and allow it for NA, EU, and OCE. That would probably pull OCE and SEA player back out of the JP worlds to Materia where they'd then have more options.

If the JP player base wants to be isolated, that's their choice. No reason for the rest of the player base that isn't looking to be isolated to have to be so.

Hard agree. Leave Japan to Japan.

[VelKallor]

Hiya Tiger I have an alt on Dynamis, may come see you sometime.

[DeNada]

The problem is DC travel is not a silver bullet solution imo.

As we have seen on Dynamis, if the queues get too long, people will just leave the DC for another which just worsen the queue situation on Dynamis itself. I would bet with my gil that the exact same thing would happen if cross DC travel is enabled for Materia.

It's just human behavior and it's very hard to change unfortunately and Dynamis/Materia would just be left to wilt and wither on the vine instead of being given an opportunity to develop themselves. As the quote goes, "Rome wasn't build in a day" and neither should we expect the community on new data centers/worlds to develop in such a short span of time.

The only solution I can think of is to have even better incentives for new players to roll on the new worlds or to restrict character creations on the old worlds, each of which has their flaws.

[Tigerlilley]

Hiya Tiger I have an alt on Dynamis, may come see you sometime.

Yes of course. Our house address is Behemoth, Ward 2 Goblet, house 19

[Tigerlilley]

The problem is DC travel is not a silver bullet solution imo.

As we have seen on Dynamis, if the queues get too long, people will just leave the DC for another which just worsen the queue situation on Dynamis itself. I would bet with my gil that the exact same thing would happen if cross DC travel is enabled for Materia.

But the population of Dynamis isn't decreasing with people giving up and moving region like it is on Materia. That's the difference. As Dynamis grows, this problem will fix itself. Materia is literally being abandoned.

[LaylaTsarra]

But the population of Dynamis isn't decreasing with people giving up and moving region like it is on Materia. That's the difference. As Dynamis grows, this problem will fix itself. Materia is literally being abandoned.

People don't get it. There is no relief here and people are leaving. This DC will die if SE does nothing and waiting for 7.0 ain't the solution.

[DixieBellOCE]

If OCE players aren't picking up the game, then the OCE Facebook group that had been lobbying for the OCE data center overestimated the importance of a local data center to those not playing the game.

The issue here is that the majority of the 'English' population on Elemental are SEA players, Not OCE.
Square Enix have no data whatsoever on the SEA region due to the game being 'technically' unavailable in those regions. Most of them have their account addresses set to Aus or NA.

When OCE opened, it split the English community between two places, with a large majority of English players still playing on JP.

Tonberry alone lost around 5000 players, which on a server that was well over the 18,000 player population, shows how few players were actually from OCE.

Materia was on a path to failure the moment that they decided to implement them in Australia and not a SEA country.