EU-server?

[SkinnBanjo]

It is a classic way to reduce latency on online game, and it still doesn't change the fact that EU datacenter would be good but you can try to deactivate the Nagle Algorithm on your computer.

TY i will try this one out... But it should not be needed to use various "fixes" to workaround their server issues...
Iam also using a thing called wtfast (www.wtfast.com) and it reduce my ms also... Sometimes by alot and sometimes only by a small
ammount. W/O this one tanking dungeons was nearly impossible for me. Well well.. Hope is the last thing that...

[Evangela]

Is the EU market really that big? I heard a lot of games didn't sell well in EU compared to NA and everytime I go on eBay I'll see tons of EU games with very low price and way easier to find a copy of niche games. maybe European people don't play video game much?

[Asiaine]

Is the EU market really that big? I heard a lot of games didn't sell well in EU compared to NA and everytime I go on eBay I'll see tons of EU games with very low price and way easier to find a copy of niche games. maybe European people don't play video game much?

O.o
There are 'European Targeted' games, and 'European Only' games. But most people in Europe (if not all) who do play games, play the NA games.

Not the other way around tho.

[MusouMugen]

Is the EU market really that big? I heard a lot of games didn't sell well in EU compared to NA and everytime I go on eBay I'll see tons of EU games with very low price and way easier to find a copy of niche games. maybe European people don't play video game much?

Well, according to an old-ish Nielsen study, EU was bigger market than US for games in 2008. That's just EU. If we count Russia and other non-EU contries Europe has over 700 million people. So datacenters in Europe would be used for a lot of people+other countries that have EU closer than Canada. Also, I wonder how many ppl already left because of the horrendous lag, thus making the decision to not have EU datacenter because of lack of players (if it was because of that) somewhat a self fulfilling prophecy.

[amnie]

Is the EU market really that big? I heard a lot of games didn't sell well in EU compared to NA and everytime I go on eBay I'll see tons of EU games with very low price and way easier to find a copy of niche games. maybe European people don't play video game much?

I usually buy US imports because even when I buy them straight from Amazon Germany they are cheaper than the actually German version. bad argument is bad.
(iirc England is the 3rd biggest gaming market world-wide. and Europe as a whole is definitely 'worthy' for gaming companies)

that being said the gaming market as a whole doesn't really say much about it, either. take Russia for exampe. huge gaming market. little interest in Final Fantasy.

EU has 'enough' player, but a datacentre should .not. be the focus right now because the distance to the servers is .not. the reason for the huge delay. I play pretty much every MMO I play on NA servers and this is the only game with these issues.

[Sixmp]

I don't think the Data Centre is the cause of the lag problems. I am in the UK and while i see pings over 100ms it doesn't effect my game play.
MMO's don't need low latency like FPS games do. I used to connect to FFXI back in the day at 180ms and was able to do everything without any problems.
Unless there is something i don't know about that makes this MMO different to all the other MMO's i have played over the years with pings anywhere between 150-250ms i don't see the issue.

I am not saying it wouldn't be nice to have an EU date centre but i don't really see the need for it.

[Deathgasm]

from newzoo

The top 10 countries by average transaction value in video gaming transactions all come from Europe and the Middle East.

Numbers are biased because Russia is attached to Asia but consider the most of the routing for and from Russia pass by the Europe, that means the most crowded part of Russia (west) would benefit more from an EU datacenter than a JN one, and much more than a NA one.
So the answer to the question, is it pertinent and worthy to install an EU datacenter is Yes on the technological aspect and I can't answer for the marketing psychological aspect as I have no audit about this aspect.
Also: wouldn't an EU datacenter established in Germany cost less than in Canada as I see other big companies having their datacenter there?

addendum just FYI:
SE was ranked 15 in the Top 25 Companies by Game Revenues in July 2013

[Altena]

You're pinging at 200+ ms from EU? Sorry but that seems unlikely, or your ISP is doing some weird things..

While I naturally ping at 340ms (from AU) because I get routed to some weird places, I get about 250 while using a tunneling service. You guys from the EU should be pinging sub 200 for sure.

If I am pinging from about 15000km's away at 250, and worst case you are from Turkey (9000kms) and getting similar ping, then something is pretty wrong on your end.

The game has inbuilt delay which we all experience, and that part is evident. You could be living next to the building yet still experience this. It actually has little to do with the actual server structure / location, it's just plainly put - bad netcode.

[Milmoko_Gemoko]

question: How do find out my ping from my PC/ISP (Karoo/UK) to Square's servers?
I know about a speed test thing for checking generally on my pc but im playing FF on PS3 (due only having an ancient pc rig).

Oh the lag on Phoenix the other evenings was crazy in Ul'Dah and Limsa, the All Saints' NPC's were taking an age to render :/

[Deathgasm]

We are the collateral victims, us and Square Enix together, of a conflict between huge companies.

On the left America on the right Europe, between the Atlantic Ocean.
Cogent (multinational), based in America, owns the most of the transatlantic fiber network.
On the right there are multiple Internet Service Providers (ISP) that we pay each month.

The problem is much more data comes from America to Europe than the inverse, also our ISP asked Cogent to pay for the excess bandwidth but Cogent refused.
Justice gave reason to our ISP but Cogent still refuse to pay, acting like an outlaw but Cogent doesn't care, Cogent owns the pipes.

So our ISP decided to limit the traffic from America by modifying the routing and clamping the pipes to do not pay the bandwidth Cogent should pay.

So we could say we are hostages in this affair but if our ISP pay instead of Cogent, our month fee will grow, so our ISP are defending us, but it costs us to have a lot of lag when exchanging data with the north american continent.

Now that Square Enix knows this, certainly much before reading this of course, Square Enix should bring the EU servers in Europe, why?
Because a solution to this conflict is not going to happen anytime soon.

Edit: specified Cogent is a multinational enterprise