Cross Data Centers?

[Sollex]

I was wondering if there was any info on the possiblity of a cross data center party finder. I thought I heard something about this when the cross world party finder was implemented, but now I can\\'t find any info on it. Is this still a possibility or will it only be ever those in our own data center we can party with?

[reiichi]

From my understanding of the game's architecture, cross-datacenter gameplay would be an absolute mess in terms of latency optimization. (Remember, SE ideally wants players only connecting to their nearest datacenter to ensure players have connections under 200ms so that the game works relatively the same.)

They could maybe link up Aether/Primal or Elemental/Gaia, but crossing continents typically introduces much higher latency and the potential for packet loss. This is all under the assumption that their existing architecture could even cope with sharing instances between them. (Because at that point, just merge the two datacenters into a single bigger one.)

...perhaps you're thinking of them considering cross-world free companies? (Since we've already got friends, parties, alliances, and now linkshells)

[KisaiTenshi]

I was wondering if there was any info on the possiblity of a cross data center party finder. I thought I heard something about this when the cross world party finder was implemented, but now I can\\'t find any info on it. Is this still a possibility or will it only be ever those in our own data center we can party with?

This wouldn't be possible since the data centers are in different geographic regions, and aren't guaranteed to even be in the same building.

[Alien_Gamer]

I was wondering if there was any info on the possiblity of a cross data center party finder. I thought I heard something about this when the cross world party finder was implemented, but now I can\\'t find any info on it. Is this still a possibility or will it only be ever those in our own data center we can party with?

The short answer is its not possible.
The long answer is it is technically possible but would involve rebuilding the server code and game engine from the ground up...might as well make a new game at that point.

[Fhaerron]

The short answer is its not possible.
The long answer is it is technically possible but would involve rebuilding the server code and game engine from the ground up...might as well make a new game at that point.

Considering the spaghetti code and the stone age servers we currently have, I wouldn't mind this at all.

[Sollex]

I was afraid it was going to be something technical that prevented this from happening. I guess I could hope that both data centers for North America could possibly have a cross data center of some sorts, but it's probably best I don't hold my breath.

Thank you to everyone who replied to this thread.

[reiichi]

I don't think such a thing would require source code changes to the game or servers, but the usefulness of purposely introducing latency to physically separated datacenters is minimal. And further blurring the lines of the datacenters that potentially -are- next to each other defeats the purpose of separating them, whether that was for UI, some sort of infrastructure limitation, or arbitrary reasons.

[Paladinleeds]

As others have mentioned, this wouldn't be possible for all. For JP datacentres, you could potentially merge the datacentres from 3 into 1. And have them work together. Same for NA and its 2 datacentres, but EU would be the odd one out. I can't merge or cross-datacentre with any of the other datacentres, as there are no others in Europe. Plus then there's the spaghetti code others have mentioned (given all the technical limitations you hear, it's probably a safe bet to say even code in Malbolge is easier to understand). All in all, I don't think it is technically feasible to do this. Maybe if EU got a second datacentre, one could revisit this idea. But until then, I'm going to have to say no. Plus, they just keep adding to EU realms (as we seem to be filling up fast), rather than simply adding a new datacentre, so I doubt we'll see EU ever get another datacentre.

[reiichi]

The long answer is it is technically possible but would involve rebuilding the server code and game engine from the ground up

As others have mentioned, this wouldn't be possible for all.

Plus then there's the spaghetti code others have mentioned (given all the technical limitations you hear, it's probably a safe bet to say even code in Malbolge is easier to understand). All in all, I don't think it is technically feasible to do this.

The code itself isn't really all that bad. Keeping these sentiments just continues to spread misinformation. (However easy digested it is.)

From a technical standpoint, adding in more servers to the existing cross-world list is probably just a configuration or database change at the least. Hopefully some firewall adjustments if SE's done their due diligence to keep the datacenters isolated from each other. The reason they probably won't be linking datacenters is moreso for data integrity/storage and to prevent some other sort of information conflict.

We've already seen cases where users with the same name on different servers in the same datacenter in the same instance causes some glitches with emotes. (And I wouldn't be surprised if other quirks existed.)

So again, it's not a technical limitation in terms of programming. It's a technical limitation in terms of latency and possibly networking, with the possibility of encountering issues that haven't been tested. It would be silly to relay all of the character information between different physical locations and then have to broadcast that to all the players.

[Alien_Gamer]

Since Yoshi has admitted the code is a mess and its a combined mass from several different third party developers and a partial rewrite in house, yes its spagetti code. Also, the decisions for how worlds communicate has to be made very early in the development process. If you don't specifically set it up to allow for it then yes you do need to rewrite significant portions of the code to make it happen later; it is not as simple as adjusting a firewall or IP setting. Its taken the devs a long time to give things like cross world friends lists and LS because they have to sort out the spagetti code and rewrite it to allow for those things. While not impossible, it would be hugely impractical to have cross datacenter parties and thats before you even consider things like latency.