[Data Center USA] Ping increased. Report your changes here.

[technole]

Western Canada, Australia, and other Oceanic locals will definitely benefit from less hops, but mainland US will definitely be fine as I mentioned if it holds true, this data center has direct connects to the largest ISPs in the country. There might be some ping hikes here and there but stability shouldn't be a question.

[Vhailor]

All of this is still somewhat uncertain. That said, if the location is in Sacramento, I think it's a large-enough shift that they should allow temporary free transfers both to (and from) the new data centre. It's the least they can do.

That wouldn't necessarily apply had they made a shorter (and arguably more logical) hop to, say, Chicago, but moving 3000 miles is significant. It makes the server newly-viable for people in Oceania, and completely screws people who were on it from the EU. It's not a relatively minor shift.

Speaking personally, though, I think a shift to Sacramento would be a tremendously stupid idea. It's not balanced for North America (just as Montreal wasn't), and this is supposedly the NA data centre. Dallas, Chicago, even Denver would have been far better choices from a geographical standpoint, and all three have perfectly adequate support infrastructure. Coupled with the lack of prior notification, and a lack (thus far) of free transfer windows, and this move just reeks of borderline-incompetence. Then again, so does most everything technical in regards to FFXIV, from the engine limitations, to the "too much character data" excuse given in response to a host of player requests, to now the (possible) server placement. Colour me completely unsurprised.

[Ayerinn]

Speaking personally, though, I think a shift to Sacramento would be a tremendously stupid idea. It's not balanced for North America (just as Montreal wasn't), and this is supposedly the NA data centre. Dallas, Chicago, even Denver would have been far better choices from a geographical standpoint, and all three have perfectly adequate support infrastructure..

*Technically* if the NA region lumps in OCE players (which lets face it - OCE players almost always go for NA servers in any MMO I have ever played,) Cali actually IS more "central" than Chicago or Dallas...

[Vhailor]

*Technically* if the NA region lumps in OCE players (which lets face it - OCE players almost always go for NA servers in any MMO I have ever played,) Cali actually IS more "central" than Chicago or Dallas...

True, but I'm not certain that this is the case for FFXIV. The game is years old now. Given the poor initial choice of Montreal for the NA data centre, many OCE players have been playing on the Japanese data centre for most of their time in FFXIV (hence the English-speaking community on Tonberry).

All that to say, I don't think SE can claim with any honesty that the NA data center has historically been for OCE players. If they're making an intentional effort to change that, Sacramento makes sense - but they haven't given any indication of this. They didn't publicize a 'west coast' data centre presence, they haven't made any mention of allowing free transfers from the Japanese data center over to the new NA location, etc.

[kikix12]

*Technically* if the NA region lumps in OCE players (which lets face it - OCE players almost always go for NA servers in any MMO I have ever played,) Cali actually IS more "central" than Chicago or Dallas...

Many people from Europe ALSO go to North America servers. Why?! Because unlike US, Europe is divided by languages. It's a place with very many countries that have huge population per square kilometer (compared to countries like US, Russia or Australia), each with their own language. Heck, there are countries that have more than one language in and off themselves. Since for large part of European students the secondary language in school is English, many DO pick NA servers to avoid the extreme mix of languages that's possible on European servers (not to mention, some people do not like playing MMO's at peak hours, but rather at the hours that it's either starting to get more crowded or starts to thin out).

You can say all you want about Europeans having their own servers, but the fact of the matter is that the difference between European servers for European people and Australia and Japan is not nearly as large as people make it. It's still a language barrier. We're still more likely to come across people that do not speak the same language as we do than otherwise. Just a slightly higher chance of coming across someone that does know English, albeit...often poorly.

I don't know why every company and their mother have to either start or move to California or the neighborhood...Every single game that is located there that I played (and that would be vast majority of the MMO's I came across) is there...And it absolutely sucks. With such network use, is it REALLY any good?! Is the network there really so superb?! I don't think so...

[Ayerinn]

Many people from Europe ALSO go to North America servers. Why?! Because unlike US, Europe is divided by languages. It's a place with very many countries that have huge population per square kilometer (compared to countries like US, Russia or Australia), each with their own language. Heck, there are countries that have more than one language in and off themselves. Since for large part of European students the secondary language in school is English, many DO pick NA servers to avoid the extreme mix of languages that's possible on European servers (not to mention, some people do not like playing MMO's at peak hours, but rather at the hours that it's either starting to get more crowded or starts to thin out).

I already addressed this in one of my earlier posts - they gave EU their own datacenter 2 years ago...playing on NA servers from the EU is your own choice not one forced onto you. In other words - when relocating NA servers they should only really be considering NA datacenter players located in NA (and OCE,) not EU.

[kikix12]

I already addressed this in one of my earlier posts - they gave EU their own datacenter 2 years ago...playing on NA servers from the EU is your own choice not one forced onto you. In other words - when relocating NA servers it should only be of concern to players located in NA (and OCE,) not EU.

Wrong. It should only be of concern to players located in NA. Not Oceania. And if it would, then it would be in the center of NA and I couldn't find a single reason to complain about that choice then (actually doing any move is another part).

You have the same choice of Japan where there are some people that speak your language and many people that don't as European people have. Do read my post in whole (and I had to edit it in because of this forums restrictive 1000-sign count).

[Stormbad]

As someone who lives within Sacramento County, wow. I can cancel my gamer VPN subs now.

[Fourbestintoner]

It would be such an idiotic choice, what would be the reason behind it? Getting rid of the aussies on jp data center?

[LaylaTsarra]

I may have missed it but where was the Data Center before? I heard it was in Canada but where exactly?