MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

[Roris]

If 3rd party programs fixes your latency that's ...undeniable proof it's your connection's route. All 3rd party programs like battleping or whatever does is tunnel your connection around hiccups - nothing SE "can put into practice" because the connection is fine, the servers are fine...the route is not fine - SE doesn't own the route inbetween you and them.

If the route is bad then why not change the route and open up different data centers that have better routing for different players in different regions, i.e. why put all western servers even European servers in Canada in the first place?

Talking with someone like Level3 is not that easy. Providers like Level 3 (the cause of most of my game lag based on the tracerts I've run) don't talk to anyone that isn't one of their customers. Data center moves aren't cheap and carry risk of outage. It's not just FFXIV either. A good friend of mine had the same problem with SWTOR. If EA isn't going to get L3 to do something, neither is Square-Enix.

Just to be clear, I'd like SE to make things better on their side where they can. I just don't think it will solve all the problems. The infrastructure between where I am in California and where the servers live in Monteal is complete crap and I'm not about to blame SE for that.

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

[Tiggy]

If the route is bad then why not change the route and open up different data centers that have better routing for different players in different regions, i.e. why put all western servers even European servers in Canada in the first place?

Square can't control the route. That's controlled completely different companies. You can change the route by using programs like WTFast.
Opening more data centers is possible but generally there isn't much good reason to have more than 1 for the same region. Normally server locations come down to a cost issue though. It's likely that data center had a good price and was able to hit two markets at once (Europe and America). This simplifies a lot of aspects of maintenance since it's all in the same building and the same crew. When connections are good most European and American customers have a good experience so the location isn't really a big deal unless you're in Australia. They probably do need a server imo.

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

Well technically there is a Japanese and American data center. So it's two places.
Also, now that the game is at 2.5mil accounts it's even harder to start new data centers. You'd have to create new worlds with zero playerbase and economy from the start. On top of it you'd have to create a new cluster with multiple servers for the sake of duty finder. Filling those new servers quickly so that they actually can function is an incredible challenge. Anyone here on a low pop server can tell you how many extra headaches that adds.

So yes it was likely a decision made to limit how much it would cost at the beginning. Try to remember they didn't expect as much response from the American market as they actually got and the servers were woefully inadequate at launch. This is one of those things that's actually tougher to do once the game is more established. Players would riot if any plans popped up to shut servers down for a few weeks so that they could move them. After the move more other people would complain since the physical move now shifted the routing problems to other players who were previously unscathed. You can't make everyone happy.

[Teryaani]

I'd blame them for putting all the servers in one place instead of investing on proper datacenters placed on key locations in the US/Europe. The excuse back then on release was that they didn't have the proper resources for it which was understandable to some point, now that the game has 2.5 million adventurer- I mean accounts created, they should start looking into improving and expanding their infrastructure with those resources and profits they've made.

They made a decision based on cost, which I won't defend them for. I'm going through a DC move right now at work caused by a similar decision making process and it sucks.

That's not what was being argued by the OP and others (Blizzard is having faster server side polling, why aren't we?), the change mentioned at the start won't fix what many here think is the root cause of the lag. I'm not white-knighting SE. The single EU/NA data center is a stupid idea and it should have been distributed across 3-4 DCs. Faster server side polling would be nice to have, but it wouldn't fix most of the issue.

[Fornix]

If the route is bad then why not change the route and open up different data centers that have better routing for different players in different regions, i.e. why put all western servers even European servers in Canada in the first place?

Canada offers a much colder climate than east coast and west coast locations. For this reason more and more data centers are opening up there. It allows lower operation costs due to reduced cooling requirements. Temperatures can be more easily maintained at a lower level which allows for hardware better hardware longevity. And lastly heating produced by data centers can be recycled into city heating. This makes hosting in data centers in e.g. canada a much more environmentally sound choice. And are just a selection of the reasons why more and more companies do so. In Europe the Scandinavian countries likewise are getting an increased preference. Iceland is starting to build up more and more data centers as well. And there are even suggestions going around for setting up data centers in Greenland.

Fact is, data centers in the future are going to be moving further and further away from the once all too popular east/west coast locations and European cities such as Paris, London or Frankfurt. Local deals in the colder countries may very easily play in on those decisions as well. For export of heating local governments may pay data centers. Reducing costs even further, and creating a scenario of benefit for both parties involved.

Regardless of the financial aspect of it, the beneficial climate for data centers in these colder environments is luring in rather big names. Facebook not too long ago opened up a new data center in Lulea, Sweden. Google invested over 1 billion dollars in the creation of one of their biggest data centers in Hamina, Finland. And there's many, many others following suit.