Cross Data Center Party Finder will it happen?

[Amarande]

Doubt it, simply because I would presume that would require the instance servers to be linked together as well - and one of the purposes of having separate logical data centers in the first place was specifically so that those resources would be spread out (remember Raubahn EX?).

I'd also like to see some of what little choice we still have of community partitions to play with remain a thing; the fact that "pile onto Aether" is such a popular approach already bothers me in that regard: it basically trends towards a community in which the hardcore culture gets to dictate the standards for everyone when it comes to getting a slot in an endgame party, while the more laid back communities are exterminated.

WoW has already shown the end result of this trend - I remember the days when someone behind the regional curve simply had to play on a similarly more laid back world and there was no problem. Now that it's one group finder pool per entire faction, so if you don't keep up with the national pace, you find yourself less and less allowed to even play the game (and preached at on Discord and forums that this is okay and you should just have put in more effort to keep up and are simply being the dreaded E word) until it's no longer worth your sub and you quit and pivot back to XIV.

At least we still have the option to travel to Crystal if we want a backwater. I'd hate to see that taken away by the Gilgamesh overlords as well (yes, I'm aware that not everyone who plays on Gilgamesh is like that, but it seems like players like that are permitted ever increasing power to control the entire culture of MMOs. Discord's platform policies are admittedly a problem as well, but that's probably another topic).

The sad thing though is that typically if you bring this critique of player pool mergers and its effects up, people talk to you like it's a good thing to forcibly hive mind everyone ...

[Absimiliard]

OP was really swinging for the fences on this one, eh? Thing about swinging too hard is that it normally causes you to miss.

At least we still have the option to travel to Crystal if we want a backwater. I'd hate to see that taken away by the Gilgamesh overlords as well (yes, I'm aware that not everyone who plays on Gilgamesh is like that, but it seems like players like that are permitted ever increasing power to control the entire culture of MMOs. Discord's platform policies are admittedly a problem as well, but that's probably another topic).

People keep sleeping on Crystal, but some of the best raiders in the world reside there - and not just on Gilgamesh. The trash is kept confined to two servers in that DC. Things are pretty great everywhere else.

[Amarande]

People keep sleeping on Crystal, but some of the best raiders in the world reside there - and not just on Gilgamesh. The trash is kept confined to two servers in that DC. Things are pretty great everywhere else.

Heh, I was actually attempting to praise Crystal and dunk on Aether in this case.

The fact that the best of the best are on Aether isn't really up for debate, even if Crystal has some nearly as good (and some top flight teams apparently quietly reside on Dynamis, presumably for the lower congestion and easier logins at peak hours ... but they are statics and keep quiet, while the Aether elite tend to be much more interested in controlling the culture of their player pool).

The point is that Aether routinely tends to give off a "high pressure" vibe while Crystal seems to allow you a certain degree of relaxation (at least, the degree that today's hectic sensory overload fests permit ... which only puts that much more of a premium on not throwing human stress into the mix).

But the "GCBTW" somehow sees this in the opposite way: Aether's high pressure, "do your job" sports-like atmosphere to be seen as an advantage and the "right" way to play (which should ideally be forcibly exported onto everyone else, who should be made to feel bad, disrespecting people's time, and borderline griefing if they aren't trying to reach progamer heights of efficiency), while Crystal constantly gets dunked on with "tales from Duty Finder" style jabs.

I don't remember multiplayer games (other than well known hellholes like Counterstrike, Dota, and League) having this universal pall of pressure even the ten years ago when ARR was current, and I'm not entirely sure what exactly to do about it, or if we should have to accept that in the long run we're going to be forced back to solo games and hoping enough people in our personal friends circles (which themselves seem in the mainstream like a quaint echo of the past at this point, too) to play without having to source any strangers from group finder tools for multiplayer. I don't even get why so many people think this change in the times is a good thing (TBH I assume a lot of folks like me don't, hence why jabs like "GCBTW" exist to begin with).