I've been playing this game since Alpha 2010. Heck my forum member number is 134... I've not given up on the game and I've even given blind faith in the dev team that they will always do what's best.

That said... it now comes down to me actually thinking if I even want to play anymore.

My initial goals in the game:
• Make international friends in Japan/EU.
• Have a great linkshell (we didn't have FC's at the time)
• Create some lasting memories.

All three were going great; until 2.0.

SE decided to segregate the server population rather than setup VPN peering to reduce latencies. In that I lost my linkshell which I had spent quite some time in and lost friends.

In their grand scheme they had failed to identify some MVP scenarios:
• cross realm/dc/server friends list, partying, etc
• server architecture
• custom DC's vs cloud DC's
• auto-scaling

Ideally we would have these items from 2.0's onset:
• cross realm/dc/server friends list, partying, etc
• zone instance scaling like GW/GW2/Aion whereby extra slots would be added for each zone if it was full (not like the have now where it's static counts, and 10 people could be in a zone)
• scaling in general

They did decide to have their own custom DC's created and while this can protect X from B and prevent things from happening; it also limits their geocaching/scaling abilities (in my own opinion anyhow).

I speak from experience having worked on geo-location based speed enhancements to API's; location driven tuning, etc coming from my line of work.

We now have a clunky (but working) cross-dc /tell system and friendslist. It's about damn time and I'm at least very thankful for this. Great job!

I don't mind the ward system; I like community. I don't mind instanced systems as well and I won't debate the two here. However; here's some things to think about going forward:

Housing:
• Get rid of S/M/L plots; and replace it with a system whereby all plots support a "large" house; you just get more grass with smaller ones.
• Make it up to the player how/when they upgrade their estates to have larger construction through user fees/etc.
• Add scaling in that when all wards are full; another one is added.
• Add down-scaling in that if housing zones are becoming empty users have a chance to vote themselves into another one that has some room; until the dev team forces a merge of housing.
• Keep in mind that if we get rid of s/m/l plot sizes; it comes down to location and not size that makes a difference in "plot".

System:
• Add support to store UI/Macros/Hotbars to the server. The excuse that data is stored in different formats is just plain BS. Every platform has it's own client. There's nothing hard about having the client contain a couple of functions to convert json<->formatted data back and forth. FFXI did it.
• Reconsider per platform fees. I will have purchased 12 copies of this game by the end of this year. That's so my wife and I can jump back and forth between PS4/PC when we need to based on gaming needs/time of day. It's crazy expensive and FFXI allowed you to play on PS2 (yes you needed discs, hence the extra fee), but you could go to a friend’s place and use their PC without fail.
• Implement live patches that allow a user (forced logout after X time) to restart the game and just get it
• Store the password in the login box, or allow us to set a PC as permanent and never ask for token's/passwords after that unless there was an account change. Other MMO's do it just fine.

Zones:
• Get proper instancing in action that actually scales properly and doesn't need a maintenance period to add.

SubSystems:
• Allow us to choose if we want to play with people across the world and let us chat and party.
• Don't stonewall us into locations. If you want the segregation then give NA it's own login server setup, it's own DB's/etc and not have key components of the system hosted in Japan.

It's not like I haven't invested time and lost income into this game. Over the last 7 years between domains, site hosting, conventions, meetups, guides/resources, etc; along with the actual cost of the game and mogstation items ($75 on mogstation) I've "invested" a few hundred thousand dollars. I kid you not.

I spend on average 1-2 hours a day outside this game, for the game. Unpaid. I have nothing but respect for how hard anyone works; community site managers, podcasts, youtube streamers. With that said; please consider not pandering to the "we-wants" all the time. Everyone deserves a house. Period.

Yes; I've made some "we want" requests; but this is architecture level changes that should be in the game or even thought and explained "why we didn't choose".

Thank you for your time!

P.S. I've decided to live with the ping difference and move to another DC instead of NA since I can actually get a house on another DC.