Cross Data Center Party Finders

[KisaiTenshi]

It would be great if it were possible to add cross data center party finders. I.E myself on Aether being able to play with someone on Chaos. Being able to play with friends on any data center would be amazing and would make the game a whole lot better. It'll be a technical challenge but if possible I think it could make FF 14 a much better game.

Won't happen. That's why they are in different data centers. When the servers are in the same data center, they go through the same switching fabric, and thus there is negligible latency between the machines. When they are in different data centers, they have to go across the routers, so synchronization becomes impossible, especially if players are in Japan and Europe want to play with players in NA. Which direction is your data going? Circumnavigate in which direction?

The data centers in NA might have "next door" ip addresses, but that doesn't mean they are in the same building, or even in the same city. We only know where they are due to the trace logs.

[NephthysVasudan]

Previous Reply is not entirely correct...but valid none the less.

It CAN happen....but it wont.

Each "DC" is in a different physical location....and data centers are not "Everywhere" (I work at one...not an SE one mind you...but at a Datacenter none the less)

The reason you don't see "Cross DC" parties is the connection required would be rather intense in terms of VPN/Proxy/Tunneling.

People make the mistake of thinking in terms of them and a couple people....when they need to multiply that in the thousands.

Add to that any DC's that are "Out of country" - each country has different bandwidth challenges and "allowances" in terms of cost and what they are allowed to push/pull.

It's costly...is the point.

It grows exponentially when you factor in people who use it.

Bottom line - can it be done? yes
Will it get done? Not unless SE decides to dump a ton of money on it....not likely to happen in the immediate time frame...let alone medium. Even if it could..you'd run into very weird latency issues.