Cloud DC Proves Cross-Region Travel is OK

[Heavenchild]

That has a lot to do with China wanting to regulate what is and isn't in their version of the game and the ways in which they can interact with foreigners.

For Korea, I think they are supposed to have very limited playtimes so their version of the game has to have restricted playtime (but I think their players have ways of getting around it).

It was more like some kind of rhetorical question. I just wanted to speak about, how much separation we already have. And in my opinion it would be really cool, when we could at least manage it in a mmo game to come together and forget about lines on real maps.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think what you meant is, it'll solve the "problem" that communities still exist in this game and kill them off for good.

What a fun game when everyone you see you know you'll never see again, so exciting.

I'm glad the devs don't read the forums ngl, yall would just take this game and burn it to the ground.

Think about the consequences this would have on communities amongst other things.

I hope you realize that the game already is kinda like that? Unless were just pretending that everyone here can tell me who were exactly the last individuals they ran a dungeon or trial or raid with.

[Volgia]

So about the fear of this server killing local server communities further, what would you do to counteract this? Because I like the idea of visiting my friends who play JP, OCE and EU, but I kind of want to restore Primal's raiding scene.

[Avoidy]

Japanese, NA, EU, OCE and other players have all played together on the Cloud data center and it has been fine. All we did was use auto-translate to say "Hello" and "Good game" and "Thank you" and communicating with JP players worked fine. It was even fine in dungeons as well.

All these concerns about culture clashes seem unfounded.

While I kind of agree and wish a smaller "global" dc would happen, we have to also be cognizant of the fact that cloudtest players who opted into it and are actually playing the game and not just ERPing on a throwaway alt are kind of built different. Think about it. There's a thread up right now where someone's bitching about how they can't take their 50 million in cloud gil back onto their main. The thread has loads of replies of people saying "why even go there if I won't be rewarded on my main?" and so on. This type of player who's in it primarily for the incentive, was completely filtered out of the cloud population. All that's left are a lot of people who just really enjoy the game on its own, and a few people who just want to be naughty and get away with it. The result has been some of the cleanest, fastest content runs I've experienced in years. I haven't had a bad group this entire time. And others feel it too. I keep seeing in the party chat "wow this is going so fast," or "clean af run, gg," etc.

When the players are all good and just bond over their love of the game like this, an international server probably works fine because there's barely any friction to spark drama that gets heated up by cultural differences. We've also only been together for a few days so far. If you took a group of your average xiv players and mixed them like this for a prolonged period, it'd probably segregate itself really quickly because a lot of NA is self absorbed as hell, and a lot of jp really really doesn't want english speakers anywhere near them apparently ("JP ONLY"). You don't see those people on cloud much, because anyone averse to the idea of a dc open to everyone probably would've opted out of cloud to begin with, and any of NA's self absorbed narcissists were so put off at the idea of starting over and being a nobody that they stayed home (I'm not saying that everyone who didn't cloud is like this, just that the negative people who ruin communities had little incentive to come here which is why it's actually fun). Hell, think about the kind of insane JP players on cloud right now. The ping for them is actually horrendous because it has to route to the east coast U.S. instead of taking a path to cali from japan. Yet they're still here, probably on like 400ms or some crazy level of ping, and they're playing the content. I really just want to underline how the cloud players who're here and doing the gameplay side of things aren't typical, making it hard to gauge from cloud alone.

I am gonna miss this place, though. Having good dutyfinder squads has spoiled me so much and it's only been a few days. Also people ACTUALLY talk in party chat now. I went back on my main to do some roulettes last night and nobody said a word the whole way through except me, when I said hi at the start. It was like running with bots, because the report function actually works on the main servers and nobody wants to accidentally offend some fragile dude's ego and get hit with a strike on their account. It sucks here. On the cloud datacenter, we spent a long time getting orbonne monastery to pop and when it did it was actually just fun as hell because all the people in the group wanted to be there and loved the game. I've turned on every language option for queuing and I'm getting partnered up with people from all over the world; we use auto translate and get along just fine, but again, it's because cloudtest's community is just built different. I keep wondering how we can ever replicate this back home, but I don't think it's possible. Outside of club venues where people just spam beesknees for 11 hours, people seem totally absorbed into their insulated groups already. Cloud's fresh start approach awakened many people to the possibility of what this community could become though, so I hope when we all return home we can take a good piece of it with us.

[Jojoya]

I have thought this too, but then you know there will always be someone who will be upset they can't cross over to JP servers.

Also, for a maybe tiny suggestion, what if they trial ran it like these servers now? Could leave it up for a bit and see if there would be any difficulty in bringing regions together.

They could always make a character on the JP worlds. The JP worlds would be isolated because of their own preference.

Local communities still exist despite world visit and DC travel (although world visit did affect them since just before Shadowbringers).

I agree that mega servers would be what would ruin that but that is a different thing than DC travel, provided they make it undesirable to travel to the same location 100% of the time such as for raid PFs, but Yoshi-P mentioned having a plan for that anyway.

How many of those communities formed after the addition of world visit and data center travel?

Certainly there were communities created because of new content additions that didn't exist until Shadowbringers (Bozja) or Endwalker (Island Sanctuary) but some of them get treated more like information dumps than social communities.

So about the fear of this server killing local server communities further, what would you do to counteract this? Because I like the idea of visiting my friends who play JP, OCE and EU, but I kind of want to restore Primal's raiding scene.

Communities are as strong as their members are willing to make them. If the majority don't want to put in effort and are just taking advantage of what a community already offers because it's convenient, the community won't last.

If Primal players want a Primal raiding scene, then they need to get more Primal players committed to rebuilding it by playing on Primal instead of going to other data centers.

I think the truth is that MMOs have mostly been filled with solo players all along. They don't care who they play with as long as they get their clears and their loot, and they'll pick the most convenient option to make that happen. They have no interest in being part of a community.

[Jeeqbit]

So about the fear of this server killing local server communities further, what would you do to counteract this? Because I like the idea of visiting my friends who play JP, OCE and EU, but I kind of want to restore Primal's raiding scene.

They just need to block the public (not private) High-End section of Party Finder to Travelers. Possibly PvP as well, if that is a problem somewhere. For Dynamis specifically, it may help to temporarily prevent leaving the data center, but allow people to travel to it.

The result has been some of the cleanest, fastest content runs I've experienced in years. I haven't had a bad group this entire time. And others feel it too. I keep seeing in the party chat "wow this is going so fast," or "clean af run, gg," etc.

Yes, I expected this from the start. It's unlikely new players would be on the cloud DC. This is something veterans who understand the game well will be doing, so I fully expect (and have experienced) bosses being killed faster than normal. It's funny because they all keep their sprout icons, but you know they are all the complete opposite of that.

I really just want to underline how the cloud players who're here and doing the gameplay side of things aren't typical

Sure. They are the rare kind that are not only veterans but also want to help SE test. Most people wouldn't care about wasting their time with that when they have lots of other things to do. But it still seems interesting to me that all these fears didn't occur when mixing.

I've turned on every language option for queuing

Oh yes, if anyone has forgotten to do that, it is unfortunate for their queue times. I had a party leader change it and it suddenly worked and we got in.

[Volgia]

Communities are as strong as their members are willing to make them. If the majority don't want to put in effort and are just taking advantage of what a community already offers because it's convenient, the community won't last.

If Primal players want a Primal raiding scene, then they need to get more Primal players committed to rebuilding it by playing on Primal instead of going to other data centers.

I think the truth is that MMOs have mostly been filled with solo players all along. They don't care who they play with as long as they get their clears and their loot, and they'll pick the most convenient option to make that happen. They have no interest in being part of a community.

I think this was just a trade-off though, isolating a server forces people to make a community in order to clear content, and when you open it up there's more interaction between servers, but you lose that sense of community because it's so widespread.

This isn't only because Aether / Light / Mana are the popular raiding spot. Progging a savage fight in PF means trying a few times, disbanding, and trying again with another party, and it's just natural that all PF savage players congregate in a single DC so it has the most parties to try and prog or clear. It's not just the "They want to get carried for the clear and loot" argument.

Putting all the weight of fault on players is a mistake. The devs made this decision without counterbalancing that social aspect of the game and there is no real tangible benefit to staying in your own DC if you want to raid.

When you say:

If Primal players want a Primal raiding scene, then they need to get more Primal players committed to rebuilding it by playing on Primal instead of going to other data centers.

All that you're asking is that we create our own little tribe and keep people out, and I don't know if i really want to spell how that will become toxic in less that a patch cycle.

[Jeeqbit]

How many of those communities formed after the addition of world visit and data center travel?

New communities formed from across worlds, that is true.

I have no problem with people being able to visit other local communities where their friends or family may be located. The problem is when they are forced to go there, because then it results in what is effectively a "mega server".

Everyone visiting Aether doesn't quite make it a mega server, because Aether itself is still split into 8 worlds, but it's still bad that anyone feels forced or pressured to go to Aether when they don't actually want to. Data Center Travel is good when everyone is using it because they want to. It's not good when something is making them feel they have to.

Even if 40% of people just go to Aether to raid, it pressures everyone to, resulting in everyone being on the same data center which is not good, so the public High-End category needs blocking off to Travelers.

Another example is where if 60% of people leave Dynamis to do basic content on other data centers, then the other 40% of people feel pressured to follow them even though they don't want to, so their need a custom solution for new data centers to only allow people to visit them, and not allow Dynamis players to travel out. Statics would still be able to visit Dynamis to do their raiding there with their Dynamis' static members.

[Stormpeaks]

New communities formed from across worlds, that is true.

I have no problem with people being able to visit other local communities where their friends or family may be located. The problem is when they are forced to go there, because then it results in what is effectively a "mega server".

Everyone visiting Aether doesn't quite make it a mega server, because Aether itself is still split into 8 worlds, but it's still bad that anyone feels forced or pressured to go to Aether when they don't actually want to. Data Center Travel is good when everyone is using it because they want to. It's not good when something is making them feel they have to.

Even if 40% of people just go to Aether to raid, it pressures everyone to, resulting in everyone being on the same data center which is not good, so the public High-End category needs blocking off to Travelers.

Another example is where if 60% of people leave Dynamis to do basic content on other data centers, then the other 40% of people feel pressured to follow them even though they don't want to, so their need a custom solution for new data centers to only allow people to visit them, and not allow Dynamis players to travel out. Statics would still be able to visit Dynamis to do their raiding there with their Dynamis' static members.

Idk why you keep talking about locking dynamis players on their DC, people would just transfer away you know that right? It's literally too late for dynamis the damage is already done. Locking me there would literally just mean I'd transfer away immediately, everyone else gets to have fun and dc travel to any dc but I don't bc im on dyna? Nah lmao

That is the absolute worst idea i have ever seen if anything, you would kill off the already extra tiny population the dc has.

[Jeeqbit]

Idk why you keep talking about locking dynamis players on their DC, people would just transfer away you know that right?

Yes, I know that. But they are already traveling away anyway.

So the only way to keep people there is to prevent them leaving, really, but allow people to visit there.

It's literally too late for dynamis the damage is already done.

I don't think there is any damage done. Dynamis just never got off to a good start in the first place, and still hasn't. I don't think there is a really a way they can help it, other than to prevent people not using it to queue for content.

If they force people to stay there, then sure, many will leave, but the ones that stay will actually queue for content there and then other people will be more likely to get queue pops for once.