Aether Data Center Not allowing Me to Connect

[worldofneil]

I think it's because there is a total lack of resilience and fallback in the way that the inbound network connections for FFXIV are routed.

Sorry, but I think you have some confusion about how network communication over the Internet actually works.

Ideally, if Level 3 goes down, SE's service provider should have an alternate routing to fall back to so tat service is maintained, even if it's in a slightly degraded form while the primary is fixed.

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, at all.

Your computer/console connects to THEIR servers. SE Server do not connect to you, ever. It doesn't matter how many how many resilient connections their network has, you are the one instigating the network traffic and if your ISP routes you along a path with blockages/problems so that your traffic never even gets to SE or it gets there in a garbled state, there is nothing Square Enix can do.

If they were connecting to you then yes they could redirect the traffic accordingly, but this game is your typical client-server model. Your computer/console (the client), contacts their server and maintains/opens new connections as needed so the data can go back/forth. It doesn't matter if SE tried to send the data back a different route if every connection you make to send them client data goes through the blocked routes and never gets there or gets there in a degraded form.

It's not realistic for it to be the other way round as the servers are sending out information to all connected clients about player positions/what people are doing and if you went another way like a giant peer-to-peer mesh not only would you get random latency issues depending on who's in the mesh, you would suffer from massive cheating problems due to each client being responsible for reporting the data of what is happening (why GTA V has massive cheating problems due to their P2P mesh for online play).

Basic contingency planning says that you have to have a fall back that goes beyond telling your customers that it will be fixed in due course.

There are other routes to the SE servers... the ISPs just have to use them when there's a problem.