So I can't play and tell with EU/NA/JP friends in ARR...

[WHS]

Here goes, I will try to keep this simple. It is hard since I do not know if anyone on this forum is a network engineer or just a video game player. But from what I can tell about how things work on company vs. personal internet. You get what you pay for.

Companies around the world have centralized servers they house all there precious data and secrets. But they also need their employees and customers to get access to this data. If a company only used one data center and everyone used "Home Internet", then it would be a slow response indeed. What some of them do is purchase high speed connections and I mean alot faster then what we can buy at home on cable modem. This high speed links move between what these companies call "Regional Servers". This allows you and me and their employees access to this data and a substantially faster rate.

Now the servers are all connected via this "High Speed Link". But to share the data between them all there is a process called replication. It can happen very very fast. Almost instant. Almost which is where the no matter what lag comes in. Rest assured it will be alot faster then it is today in ffxiv.

This does not mean isolated servers. This means replicated or "Clustered" data as it will actually be named. This is not a term that SE is going to use with end users or customers as we are termed.

The are going to generalize this and just say regional servers = faster connections. To most people that is all they need for information at this time. However since a few people on this thread might understand what I am saying I thought I would type up a explanation in a little more detail.

Now here comes the easy part.

You log into the game and pick NA server 1 for example. Anything you do on NA Server 1 is replicated to Tokyo 1 and all other servers in the network or "Game" as I will call it. The changes take place on the master server "Tokyo 1" and are replicated at a very fast rate. You get to keep using your broadband connection at whatever speed you can afford to buy. The connections between these servers is probably fiber optic and multi threaded. We are talking very very fast. By the time you swing a sword the japan player will see it in real time. More real time then current setup in servers.

This will drastically reduce the delay or lag as it is called while at the same time provide everyone with a more competitive chance at server resources.

This means all current server players can and for most likely foreseeable future be on the same server, just on a different back end link. This connection or "regional server" option is mostly a back end solution. To most it is very hard to understand but it is not really that complicated and for the most part is transparent to almost all customers.

I currently support this very type of network in my current job daily. It has proven to be of most help to me and my customers.


This Back end solution is not the same thing as regional servers. It is possible they could end up doing this if enough people wanted to play with just their countries servers. I however have not read or watch any video that has actually come out and said this is going to happen. I have however watched video which is clear that Yoshi-P does in fact support the back end solution I have suggested in my document on this forum today. Most of you will not even know the difference except maybe you have to pick a NA server for your first login and once on you will see the same faces as before. From around the world. No difference what so ever. Well maybe faster response times for you to swing that sword or axe lol.

[Haseios]

^Best possible way to explain it. Love it. I just hope it keeps people from repeatedly freaking out, thinking we're going to wind up with region-only servers.

[Starlord]

I just got one question for you....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFPf7wrLWxg

[Enma]

Here goes, I will try to keep this simple. It is hard since I do not know if anyone on this forum is a network engineer or just a video game player. But from what I can tell about how things work on company vs. personal internet. You get what you pay for.

Companies around the world have centralized servers they house all there precious data and secrets. But they also need their employees and customers to get access to this data. If a company only used one data center and everyone used "Home Internet", then it would be a slow response indeed. What some of them do is purchase high speed connections and I mean alot faster then what we can buy at home on cable modem. This high speed links move between what these companies call "Regional Servers". This allows you and me and their employees access to this data and a substantially faster rate.

Now the servers are all connected via this "High Speed Link". But to share the data between them all there is a process called replication. It can happen very very fast. Almost instant. Almost which is where the no matter what lag comes in. Rest assured it will be alot faster then it is today in ffxiv.

This does not mean isolated servers. This means replicated or "Clustered" data as it will actually be named. This is not a term that SE is going to use with end users or customers as we are termed.

The are going to generalize this and just say regional servers = faster connections. To most people that is all they need for information at this time. However since a few people on this thread might understand what I am saying I thought I would type up a explanation in a little more detail.

Now here comes the easy part.

You log into the game and pick NA server 1 for example. Anything you do on NA Server 1 is replicated to Tokyo 1 and all other servers in the network or "Game" as I will call it. The changes take place on the master server "Tokyo 1" and are replicated at a very fast rate. You get to keep using your broadband connection at whatever speed you can afford to buy. The connections between these servers is probably fiber optic and multi threaded. We are talking very very fast. By the time you swing a sword the japan player will see it in real time. More real time then current setup in servers.

This will drastically reduce the delay or lag as it is called while at the same time provide everyone with a more competitive chance at server resources.

This means all current server players can and for most likely foreseeable future be on the same server, just on a different back end link. This connection or "regional server" option is mostly a back end solution. To most it is very hard to understand but it is not really that complicated and for the most part is transparent to almost all customers.

I currently support this very type of network in my current job daily. It has proven to be of most help to me and my customers.


This Back end solution is not the same thing as regional servers. It is possible they could end up doing this if enough people wanted to play with just their countries servers. I however have not read or watch any video that has actually come out and said this is going to happen. I have however watched video which is clear that Yoshi-P does in fact support the back end solution I have suggested in my document on this forum today. Most of you will not even know the difference except maybe you have to pick a NA server for your first login and once on you will see the same faces as before. From around the world. No difference what so ever. Well maybe faster response times for you to swing that sword or axe lol.

It looks like what I thought when I heard about this "Multidata Servers", I only was not sure about the reality of it.
Anyway if the communication with "Tokyo 1" is something like 10 or less millisecond it won't affect in any way the gaming experience.

[Mijin]

Long posts of opinions

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that what your suggesting isn't possible, and the reasons why have already been posted in this thread and many others several times over. We'll actually be getting regional servers in NA and EU that we will have the option to play on, and JP will have their own servers as well. This was confirmed by Yoshida in the recent talk show even, and in interviews.

[Scratches]

Pseudo-regional/replicated server tech, while better than what we are working with now, is still like trying to place a band-aid on a broken leg.
Unless Square has devised a way to circumvent the laws of physics, even a VPN-like link directly to the server's doorstep (from the US, sans all the encryption nonsense) would add, at the very least, an extra 100-110ms (fiber optic cables have an inherent, real world latency of ~5µs/km, and that's over a ~21,000km submarine telecom link in the Pacific, like JUSCN or PC-1). Factor in other nice things such as router and signal amplifier latencies and intracontinental travel times, and, from New York, one is easily looking at a minimum ping of ~200-250ms (~100ms East <-> West coasts, 100+ms West coast <-> JP). That's also assuming 0 overhead/compute time from the servers too, which is completely unrealistic.

Now, in contrast, instead of (or in addition to?) investing in such tech and continuing to force players to endure such atrocious (for gaming) latencies, open up a shard or two in regional NOCs -- say, Chicago or Austin for NA, maybe Cologne/Leipzig, DE or Prague for Europe -- and allow players the choice; either play with "everybody" on Square's Worldwide, Japanese servers and sacrifice your ping/response times to do so, or play on a regional server with potentially less players but with more palatable pings (averaging ~50-100ms, typically). With everybody being able to make at least one character on every realm, is this really such a bad idea?

Lastly, if they were intending on having XIV be as slow as XI, in regards to combat, then I really don't think this would be as much of an issue to people. But after Ifrit, the talk of future PvP, the vocal admiration of World of Warcraft (not a bad thing, necessarily, I'm just being truthful here), and the possibly resultant desire to make combat more "fast-paced" or "interesting", people are understandably concerned, because that means their location/residence (which, for most, is largely unmovable) will have an even greater impact than it already does on their enjoyment of such a beautiful game... not to mention when a competitor has a near-guaranteed 1/4-second head start on everything they see and do.
At least when playing on a regional shard, that kind of advantage all but disappears.

Offering players the option is the best course of action here, "purity" and "tradition" be damned...

And as a bit of an aside -- even though, funny enough, it was the main point of the thread -- it would be sooooo nice if Square reps could be, y'know, not so quiet and nebulous on issues like this for a change. I know, some things get lost in translation, but...isn't that precisely why we have community reps..? To provide clarity and elucidate..? o.O
(Quick! Someone throw a ball of yarn! lol)

[Mijin]

Pseudo-regional/replicated server tech, while better than what we are working with now, is still like trying to place a band-aid on a broken leg.
Unless Square has devised a way to circumvent the laws of physics, even a VPN-like link directly to the server's doorstep (from the US, sans all the encryption nonsense) would add, at the very least, an extra 100-110ms (fiber optic cables have an inherent, real world latency of ~5µs/km, and that's over a ~21,000km submarine telecom link in the Pacific, like JUSCN or PC-1). Factor in other nice things such as router and signal amplifier latencies and intracontinental travel times, and, from New York, one is easily looking at a minimum ping of ~200-250ms (~100ms East <-> West coasts, 100+ms West coast <-> JP). That's also assuming 0 overhead/compute time from the servers too, which is completely unrealistic.

Now, in contrast, instead of (or in addition to?) investing in such tech and continuing to force players to endure such atrocious (for gaming) latencies, open up a shard or two in regional NOCs -- say, Chicago or Austin for NA, maybe Cologne/Leipzig, DE or Prague for Europe -- and allow players the choice; either play with "everybody" on Square's Worldwide, Japanese servers and sacrifice your ping/response times to do so, or play on a regional server with potentially less players but with more palatable pings (averaging ~50-100ms, typically). With everybody being able to make at least one character on every realm, is this really such a bad idea?

Lastly, if they were intending on having XIV be as slow as XI, in regards to combat, then I really don't think this would be as much of an issue to people. But after Ifrit, the talk of future PvP, the vocal admiration of World of Warcraft (not a bad thing, necessarily, I'm just being truthful here), and the possibly resultant desire to make combat more "fast-paced" or "interesting", people are understandably concerned, because that means their location/residence (which, for most, is largely unmovable) will have an even greater impact than it already does on their enjoyment of such a beautiful game... not to mention when a competitor has a near-guaranteed 1/4-second head start on everything they see and do.
At least when playing on a regional shard, that kind of advantage all but disappears.

Offering players the option is the best course of action here, "purity" and "tradition" be damned...

And as a bit of an aside -- even though, funny enough, it was the main point of the thread -- it would be sooooo nice if Square reps could be, y'know, not so quiet and nebulous on issues like this for a change. I know, some things get lost in translation, but...isn't that precisely why we have community reps..? To provide clarity and elucidate..? o.O
(Quick! Someone throw a ball of yarn! lol)

I agree with you 100%. I already linked to an interview that is less than two days old where Yoshida confirms that they are adding new servers. If that in addition to his exact quote that they would be adding regional servers in the talk show even aren't enough then I hope people will at least consider the fact that what there hoping for isn't even realistically possible. In any case, I suspect the reason why community reps aren't commenting on the subject is because, well look at all the people qqing. They would rather just let them go on believing what they want to believe until 2.0 comes out. They'll be a lot less likely to cry after it's already out considering they'll be busy.

[Mijin]

From Live Interview 9/14:

Yoshida: I wanted to address the issue of the new servers in other countries. First off when selecting a world it will show all of them but it will also show where each server is located. They will be unlocked, so for me, say I live in Japan, I can choose to use server located in Japan, and NA player can choose to choose the server closer to their region, but we don’t want to force the players to separate by countries since we have players who want to play in Japan or vice versa, and using content finder you can join with other region players and stuff also.

So like I said, we will get our own servers in each region, but you can still play on other regions servers if it behoves you. Being right feels great. You should try it some time.

[cloverkitty]

Why is this so complicated. FFXI uses regional data servers (just not as many as 14 will) When I connect to FFXI I do not connect to Japan, I connect to Los Angeles (from Seattle). A server to server connection is much faster than a client to server connection. Most of the lag is poor design, the rest can be attributed to server path limitations of client to server. Most other MMO out there use regional data servers. This is a common practice.

Still even in 11 most of the lag is related to your local connection, ISP, and computer.
That is why people on FIOS have less lag typically than those on Comcast. (as an example)

[Mijin]

Network Engineer here. You're wrong.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...he-LIVE-Letter

How are you going to act now Mr. "Network Engineer"?