Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

[Lirion]

Here is my reasoning on why I like regional servers much better the international set up they have now.

First off I live in the US in the Pacific time zone, typically I play during the evening. These are just estimates based on data SE gave awhile ago for FFXI, FFXIV prob similar but about 50% of the players are JP, 40% are US and the remaining 10% are EU. Now then I can't really do much of anything with JPs I am not fluent in Japanese. I am actually Japanese American though but don't speak the language. For the most part I don't see too many EU players I could play with them however they aren't usually on when I play unless they play weird hours that lets them play in PST evening. So essentially I have a server where I can play with about 40% of the population and there are character caps on servers so no new characters can be made. Meaning I probably won't be able to play with 60% of the people on my server due to time zone differences or speaking JP.

Now here is the problem I am currently having with the game. I leveled all the jobs to 50 quite some time ago, pugged lots of mog got all the weapons then started doing Ifrit. When reilcs came out I wanted to do them. However the FFXIV community is pretty closed off when it comes to inviting new people to join their group or LS. Most people on the server have their set group of 8 people and almost never invite new people to join them. Basically I looked pretty hard and found nobody that wanted to do relics. I was stuck trying to pug hamlets but was very unlucky and didn't win any seals. More recently I try finding people on the forums on the servers forums, I might of got 700+ views on my topic but nobody was like hey join my group or LS we can use someone to go out and get relics together. Everyone seemed so set in their ways with set groups they made awhile ago that I pretty much had very little chance of finding 7 other people interested in doing this. FFXIV seemed to be much more clicky then any other MMO I played, FFXI, Aion, WoW, Swtor. In those games I had no problem finding a group to do end game.

The problem lies in only being able to play with about ~40% of the playerbase. When regional servers come out and I pick a NA server with about ~90% of the players will play at the same time I do, and speak English. I think it would be much easier to come by a group that wants to do some serious endgame. Which is why I can't wait for the regional servers because I actually want to do stuff in FFXIV not sit around in Uldah thinking maybe ill get lucky today and see a good shout so I can get some progress on my relic quest.

This is exactly my problem and since I live in EU it's even worse.

[Aenarion]

stuff

TBH, your issue has more to do with the fact that FF14 has low player population period. Those JP/EU players isn't "taking up" space that would otherwise be occupied by NA players, as those NA players simply doesn't exist, if they did, SE wouldn't have had to merge servers.

Also, keep in mind that a server where the vast majority of the population plays during the same prime time also means that anyone who can't play during those hours are essentially forever screwed, and that if you want to get anything done in game, you'd HAVE to play during those hours.

It may work for you, but it certainly doesn't work for everyone.

[Jeronlmo]

FFXIV seemed to be much more clicky then any other MMO I played, FFXI, Aion, WoW, Swtor. In those games I had no problem finding a group to do end game.

The problem lies in only being able to play with about ~40% of the playerbase.

I really think the problem lies somewhere else... partially to the game having very low population to start with, but the way the game is/was designed around 8 person content, that creates these clicks, my ls itself has huge problems with this because we took our large ls of 50-60 people from ff11 to FF14, we currently sit around 30 active members and an average of 15 on for events daily, 15/8, it doesnt work. (Very rarely have we had an exact number to fit into events, and when we have, jobs havnt matched up because dungeons take fairly specific job setups and people are almost always sitting out.)

FF11 had content like sky/sea/dynamis where you could bring in 40-60 people and do everything at once, every part of the zone and it was just amazing, or if you log on late at night you could go solo/duo NM's in sky/sea to farm god pops. FF14 100% lacks anything like this, there is no give or take on party size, its 8, that is it.

[Lirion]

TBH, your issue has more to do with the fact that FF14 has low player population period. Those JP/EU players isn't "taking up" space that would otherwise be occupied by NA players, as those NA players simply doesn't exist, if they did, SE wouldn't have had to merge servers.

Also, keep in mind that a server where the vast majority of the population plays during the same prime time also means that anyone who can't play during those hours are essentially forever screwed, and that if you want to get anything done in game, you'd HAVE to play during those hours.

It may work for you, but it certainly doesn't work for everyone.

Good thing everyone can pick whichever server they want then, or stay on their current one.

[Jeronlmo]

Good thing everyone can pick whichever server they want then, or stay on their current one.

Based on dev post, all servers will be regional, hence the problem with many of us. Maby im taking what your saying wrong, but I have seen this exact same responce many times, people assuming the current servers will stay as they are (global), when the exact opposite was stated.

[Lirion]

Based on dev post, all servers will be regional, hence the problem with many of us. Maby im taking what your saying wrong, but I have seen this exact same responce many times, people assuming the current servers will stay as they are (global), when the exact opposite was stated.

All servers are global, they're just not only located in Japan anymore, you will have servers located in EU and NA as well as japan but will be able to join any of them no matter where you live.

Do people even read the op?

What's going to happen is a player will be shown a complete list of worlds. Within the list, players will see which worlds are tied to which data centers (i.e. this world and this world is tied to the data center in Japan, this world and this world is tied to the data center in North America or Europe). Players will have the freedom of selecting any world they prefer.

[Jeronlmo]

Japan is where they would likely be located, as they were for ff11, and ff14, its about new players, that is it, if a new player sees the options:
NA
NA
JP
JP
EU
EU
If they are NA, they will go to NA, JP will go to JP, EU will go to EU, it will happen.

If a ls that exist now goes to a JP server thats NA/EU (like mine), if will die over time, it just will, there will be little to no new NA/EU people, the same goes vise versa for any of the 3. The current population is to small to expect it to last any decent amount of time unless you never lose a single member for any reason, ever.

All people have been asking for, stated throughout this thread many times, is for World servers, located in Japan, we dont care where its at, at all, if its listed as "Global" or something, people will know they can expect people from all 3 time zones.

If you do not lable it global, people will not mix, people will not expect people of their own language to be there at all. A JP server will be 95%+ JP, NA and EU will be the same situation, very small prime times will happen.
Server list:
NA
NA
EU
EU
JP
JP
Global
Global

This is literally what this entire thread is about, right up there.

Got tired of retyping this after the 4th time or something, sorry~

Edit: Whether they call it "Region Locked" or not, it has the exact same effect, the only extra freedom it provides is letting you pick your prime time server based on your schedual.

[Ingolf]

Global servers are necessary. I can't even overstate the importance.

[Lirion]

Got tired of retyping this after the 4th time or something, sorry~

Just because they are not named global doesn't mean they are not global. Anyone from all over the world can join any server, all servers now except Ragnarok(?) are japanese which already makes them regional. You people just seem to want S-E to hide where the servers are located and name them global so that players dont join server based on their region and that's just deceiving.

[Jeronlmo]

If the listing is
NA
NA
EU
EU
JP
JP
Global
Global
and people dont understand that Global isnt in some way different from NA, even though the listing is there, they... just never mind.
Its not deceiving, it informs people that there will be people from around the world on those servers with more prime times.