Tokyo - Rolling Blackouts through Summer

[Grit]

Original Article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=T2

Tokyo (CNN) -- The loss of two nuclear power plants means the Tokyo region will face the summer peak demand with a loss of about 20% of capacity, the plant's owner said Thursday.

Other utilities can supply only a limited amount of additional electricity to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. grid because Tokyo Electric runs power at a different frequency from the rest of the country, according to industry officials.

And with two of Tokyo Electric's nuclear power plants knocked offline since the March 11 earthquake that battered northern Japan, the company said it sees no alternative to a series of rolling blackouts across the Tokyo region.

Tokyo Electric, Japan's largest power utility, uses 50-cycle power, while most of the rest of the country uses 60-cycle electricity. Because of a lack of machinery, only a limited amount of about 1 million kilowatts can be converted and shared, according to industry officials.

Tokyo Electric said it doesn't yet know how the blackouts will be implemented but said the electric supply will be narrowed by as much as 10 million kilowatts, roughly 20%.
Short of the construction of new power plants, there is no end of the shortage in sight. Some mothballed facilities may be brought back online, but this would not compensate for the loss of the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini nuclear plants.
Some blackouts have begun in eastern and northern Japan already.

Both plants have been shut down since the earthquake and tsunami, and Daiichi has suffered several explosions and leaked radioactivity into surrounding areas.
Building conversion facilities to share power from other grids would be almost as expensive as building a new power plant, a Tokyo Electric offical said Thursday.

It's difficult to say how this will effect Square Enix and the FFXI/FFXIV servers in the long-run. Although they are doing their best to conserve electricity, random (temporary) shut-downs of the servers may be inevitable.

What are your thoughts?

[Betelgeuzah]

Well, the lack of proper lightning won't be a problem during the Summer but I bet they'll start missing their air conditioning starting June.

So expect frustrated, anguishing developer's comments during that time.

I can already see Yoshida's 13th letter: "It's 30 plus degrees outsides and my PC isn't helping a thing. You could boil an egg on my head. However, fortunately the artist team has gained inspiration to start the development on the new Hell-region."

[Onidemon]

Original Article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=T2



It's difficult to say how this will effect Square Enix and the FFXI/FFXIV servers in the long-run. Although they are doing their best to conserve electricity, random (temporary) shut-downs of the servers may be inevitable.

There is a simple solution to this.... Region dedicated servers. Have some servers in NA and Europe and leave the current servers for Asia. Yes i'm talking about splitting the players into their own region.

This will reduce lag a lot and also NA and Europe won't be affected by these blackouts. It might seem unfair for the Asian players but from a business point of view it is better to save 2 regions then penalize everyone. In it's current state FFXIV can't afford much more down time....

[Vackashken]

I am in favor of electricity

I am strongly against tsunamis and earthquakes

You're becoming lamer by the day.

Aside from that - maybe we'll get lucky and they're finally decide to put servers somewhere else as well.

One can hope.

[Cendres]

No segregated servers, please no. I want to play with the world not with just NA, arrgghh please no. Thanks.
Shut it down if you have to, as fickle as gamers are you may 'lose' players to other games but that doesn't mean they won't come scampering back.

[Len]

You're becoming lamer by the day.

Aside from that - maybe we'll get lucky and they're finally decide to put servers somewhere else as well.

One can hope.

Don't hold your breath on that one.

[Vackashken]

No segregated servers, please no. I want to play with the world not with just NA, arrgghh please no. Thanks.

Who said anything about segregated servers?

Don't hold your breath on that one.

Yeaaaaaaah, I know. Ah well...

[Galamantyl]

You're becoming lamer by the day.

Aside from that - maybe we'll get lucky and they're finally decide to put servers somewhere else as well.

And you're becoming an ass.

Aside from that - it would indeed be nice if they just decide to move servers elsewhere. I'm sure there's other countries where hosting would in fact be cheaper too with acceptable maintenance levels as well. The only problem is performance might suffer for Japanese players.

[Eekiki]

This was to be expected, but I don't think it will affect SE too much. There are other ways to keep cool besides A/C.

Yeah, that's right, SE needs to install a swimming pool in their office!

[Lerris]

Who said anything about segregated servers?

The suggestion was put forward earlier in the thread.

There is a simple solution to this.... Region dedicated servers. Have some servers in NA and Europe and leave the current servers for Asia. Yes i'm talking about splitting the players into their own region.

IMO, segregated servers are a bad idea. Global servers are part of the game's appeal.