EU dedicated datacenter

[Lithera]

7 EU flagged worlds. Let's get generous and assume a pure Euro data center would need an eighth world to cover transfers of NA flagged worlds. Does it make sense to maintain an entire datacenter for 8 worlds? This is ignoring investment costs which make the idea even more unrealistic. They could rent server space perhaps but I don't think SE wants anything they can't completely control themselves.

[Phe]

For it to make sense to move the EU marked worlds to an EU specific datacenter, it has to be cost-effective as well.

how can it be not cost-effective after EU players have already paid roughly 30 million dollars for the game?

[Delsus]

The thing is it will cost a lot of money to relocate a datercenter to Europe, just one datacenter is 7 worlds (each world is made up of more than one server), plus instance servers for the datacenter (again there will be more than one to increase capacity). They would all need to be shipped over, tests from around region would need to be done in order to place the datercenters in the right place, and then they would have to buy/rent a site for the datercenter (their EU offices probably won't be big enough for it).

You will be looking at tens of thousands to move one datacenter, and if they won't see any return on the investment (ie, cover the costs with more subscriptions, or prevent people leaving by moving) then it will never happen, SE are a company, here to make money, they aren't in business to increase overheads if they will never see a return on them.

[Craiger]

The thing is it will cost a lot of money to relocate a datercenter to Europe, just one datacenter is 7 worlds (each world is made up of more than one server), plus instance servers for the datacenter (again there will be more than one to increase capacity). They would all need to be shipped over, tests from around region would need to be done in order to place the datercenters in the right place, and then they would have to buy/rent a site for the datercenter (their EU offices probably won't be big enough for it).

You will be looking at tens of thousands to move one datacenter, and if they won't see any return on the investment (ie, cover the costs with more subscriptions, or prevent people leaving by moving) then it will never happen, SE are a company, here to make money, they aren't in business to increase overheads if they will never see a return on them.

You say that like Europe has no players and that nobody would invest in servers there, but almost every other MMO out there (available in the west) has servers in Europe at launch.... Why would it be such massive task for SE? Even though they have had 6 months of earnings from the game.

I know it wouldn't be perfect for everyone, but in the end it would be for the best. I have 100ms from Europe and won't see any difference, but there are countless other people that have much worse ping than me... If it was located in Europe I'm sure most people would have around 100 or less, which in return would make content easier even for the likes of me (easier to find groups that can dodge)

I don't expect it to happen, but it should.

[Sessurea]

ik about the datacentre locations....but I have much better connection to Odin ( eu ) than I do to Sarganatas ( NA? ). Even when I log in, the connection status on the character select screen says excellent for Odin, and poor for sarganatas. I think there must be more than geography to consider, given my findings.

[Surian]

You guys are still completely missing the point that with our ISP's and atlantic connection, we still get better connection speeds with the NA data center than most people in the US. This is far from needed, like, at all.

All it will do is cost SE money, and split people and FC's up because they think they can get better connections with the server in the EU. All latency issues are from the duty server being swamped and overwhelmed during certain times, not our connection speed or distance from the server. If that were true, we would not be able to dodge things on quiet days as well, which we can effortlessly do. Just avoid mondays, those are bad for everyone.

[Delsus]

You say that like Europe has no players and that nobody would invest in servers there, but almost every other MMO out there (available in the west) has servers in Europe at launch.... Why would it be such massive task for SE? Even though they have had 6 months of earnings from the game.

I aren't saying that. I am saying they would need subs to increase because the servers move to make it viable. Now if every EU player quit playing and said that it was "until the servers move to a European location" then yes it might happen, but if they move the servers, and only see 50 more subscriptions as a direct result of moving them (working in euros and assuming entry level subscriptions) that would work out at 549.50 euros per month, or 6594 per year, now if it costs them 60k euros to move the datacenters (taking shipping costs for over 20 servers, miscellaneous costs, including equipment and man hours to test various locations to place servers into accountand then acquiring a location to house the datacenters, possibly employing people temporarily to install the datacenter (freelance or short term contract workers aren't cheap), time to plan the deployment once a location has been acquired into account) it would take them almost 10 years to see any return on investment. And none of that is including the excess overheads of running a further location, like staff to maintain it, bills and upgrades.

Yes they could probably sink the money, but as I said they are a business, and they aren't here to constantly sink masses amounts of money into projects they know will never see a return. Yes they already have 6 month earnings, but that's irreverent we have been playing on servers already here, what you need is as many European people to quit playing until the servers are moved, as I said to see a return on investment the money they would make would have to be as a direct result of the servers moving, otherwise they will get the money anyway, so why not just make more money off the game.

[Zikh]

All it will do is cost SE money, and split people and FC's up because they think they can get better connections with the server in the EU. All latency issues are from the duty server being swamped and overwhelmed during certain times, not our connection speed or distance from the server. If that were true, we would not be able to dodge things on quiet days as well, which we can effortlessly do. Just avoid mondays, those are bad for everyone.

Spoken like a true fanbot. EU servers in EU has been the norm for ages in online gaming. SE is propably the only big company that doesn't understand this. It's called customer service and doing your best to offer the best possible service for you customers. This is one of the reasons I actually quit the game. I'm not paying 14€/month to play on Canadian servers. There are several reasons for me quitting, but this is one of the big ones.

[LalaRu]

I'm not going to jump ship and abandon my friends... things stay the way they are... i have a 100 ms latency ... i feel this would create more problems and rifts than it would solve.

You are in Behemot (US) and you are unaffected by this thread. Did you replied by mistake or on purpose?

If you are ok, then nothing has to be changed? Cannot agree, as long as problems you don't have, does not means they not exists.

[Mjollnir]

I was sad when we lost the JP/Oceania players and will be more sad if we lose the NA.

In 1.0 and XI, where all three major timezones played together, there were three daily login activity peaks. That was three points at which markets would become active and sales would increase. It's three points where you could re-list stuff an make more gil. Three points where you could group up and go play (if you were sleepless or a shift-worker).

We lost that with ARR, and the Legacy NA/EU worlds were reduced to two peaks. A geographical shift to encourage EU players onto their own local servers (even more than the ill-advised labels that exist at the moment) would lose the international feel of the game altogether.

I played WoW and LotRO on dedicated EU servers and it was quiet from 04:00 through 16:00, which was a real shame. FFXI & FFXIV 1.0 were great, as the world was nearly always active.


I think it would be better if the main challenge in the game's battle content wasn't dependent on how fast you could dodge (and hence latency). I wish it were more reliant on dynamic strategy and player interaction through abilities. Perhaps for FFXX...