Datacenters: A Plea For Community Building, Not Fracturing

[WaterShield]

Do we know if they make use of something like AWS or GCP? AKA, cloud computing platforms where you pay for the number of instances you need on a dynamic rate and scale (literally clone and boot up) additional servers as needed. It works great for -certain- use cases designed specifically for that.

FFXIV's not doing the same. Instead, it looks like they're using dedicated machines with hard-set numbers of servers and instances for things. There are pros and cons to both. (Usually cost IMO, but one server with a lot of resources can also work out better than a bunch of tiny servers with few resources depending on how the product is designed.) This is why things like housing wards are hard-set and don't just expand based on demand/availability. (Aside from UI constraints like supporting people who play this game in 720p).

Chances are, the new datacenter IS going to involve adding a new rack (or however many they need) of new hardware instead of just spinning up a new lobby server instance and setting which worlds it can talk to. Anything that goes through Content Finder (Duty Finder, PoTD, HoH, instanced solo missions, etc) is shared among all users at the datacenter level. My assumption is that they're not going to de-allocate those servers from Aether and Primal in order to make Crystal's set. They'll get that many more servers/vms/logical partitions in addition. And that means an actual improvement for everyone.

Points for the explanation (I learned something). I still am not happy with this move though, considering the trade off is a sizeable reduction in people to pull from for PF and duty finder content. Also the split happening causes people that have cross server friends, to be forced to choose between them due to not everyone going to the same place.

I can't say what exact effect this will have on queue times given I do not have access to the demographics of each server, but I am very apprehensive.

This also does not address what happens if people dog pile back onto Aether and Primal. This could still not have the desired outcome.

[reiichi]

Points for the explanation (I learned something). I still am not happy with this move though, considering the trade off is a sizeable reduction in people to pull from for PF and duty finder content. Also the split happening causes people that have cross server friends, to be forced to choose between them due to not everyone going to the same place.

I can't say what exact effect this will have on queue times given I do not have access to the demographics of each server, but I am very apprehensive.

This also does not address what happens if people dog pile back onto Aether and Primal. This could still not have the desired outcome.

RE: People staying on whatever datacenter
It's a common misconception that roleplayers don't do content. (OK, there are some who don't. Or won't on their alts, but let's ignore those for now as they're a minority.) Balmung and Mateus have two of the largest active populations currently. Gilgamesh is also MASSIVE on its own too. Before we had commodities like the Cross-World Party Finder, or even the Party Finder in general, these larger servers weren't running into issues with people finding groups to run basic content. With the newer features in addition to the World Visit system, I don't think we're going to see any issues aside from destabilizing per-world markets. Perhaps some people ruining hunts for others if they abuse hopping to multiple worlds to get the same hunt mob.

RE: People moving "back"
I can't judge for other servers, but I can say Balmung has a pretty horrid housing situation these days where things sell out FAST. While this seems like it would typically encourage people to jump, nobody wants to have to spend that much gil again and rebuild and reobtain their nontransferable items. Between groups of friends already on a given server and the other time investments a user's made, I don't think we're going to see some massive migration of players. Surely, we're going to see some people move out from Crystal. We're also probably going to see others move in, whether for RP or not.

There are some good charts showing the general active population of each datacenter before and after the moves. They're rather balanced. Does that reflect high-end duty raiders? Not really. I've been seeing quite a lot of panic there, which I think is fairly unfounded. Unless...people don't play with their friends? Like...at all. Friend groups/Statics being broken up will suck. But at the same time, there are plenty of all-on-one-world clusters as well. And we may see more of those in the short term while people re-adjust to all the changes. Or they'll make alts and have to split their time. Friends will find a way to stay in contact and enjoy their time.

[Alien_Gamer]

I can't say what exact effect this will have on queue times given I do not have access to the demographics of each server, but I am very apprehensive.

Queue times will be largely unaffected by the split. There are 2 main factors that affect queue times, population amount and role distribution.

For population amount, as long as you have a certain base level of people your queue times aren't going to change and with the crossworld duty finder each of the DCs will have that base level of people. That said there are times on Primal and Aether when times go up, usually around 1-6am when people are sleeping. What I would expect to see after the split is for that range to increase to maybe 12-7am as the population starts dropping due to people logging off but during normal play times there shouldn't be any difference.

Role distribution is the primary driver of queue times, IE there are fewer tanks and healers than DPS. There's no reason to expect the ratio of tanks to healers to dps to change after the split so there's no reason to expect queue times to change.

Each DC has its own quirks for queue times, and those will change certainly, but as a whole I wouldn't be worried about queue times.

[WaterShield]

RE: People staying on whatever datacenter
It's a common misconception that roleplayers don't do content. (OK, there are some who don't. Or won't on their alts, but let's ignore those for now as they're a minority.) Balmung and Mateus have two of the largest active populations currently. Gilgamesh is also MASSIVE on its own too. Before we had commodities like the Cross-World Party Finder, or even the Party Finder in general, these larger servers weren't running into issues with people finding groups to run basic content. With the newer features in addition to the World Visit system, I don't think we're going to see any issues aside from destabilizing per-world markets. Perhaps some people ruining hunts for others if they abuse hopping to multiple worlds to get the same hunt mob.

RE: People moving "back"
I can't judge for other servers, but I can say Balmung has a pretty horrid housing situation these days where things sell out FAST. While this seems like it would typically encourage people to jump, nobody wants to have to spend that much gil again and rebuild and reobtain their nontransferable items. Between groups of friends already on a given server and the other time investments a user's made, I don't think we're going to see some massive migration of players. Surely, we're going to see some people move out from Crystal. We're also probably going to see others move in, whether for RP or not.

There are some good charts showing the general active population of each datacenter before and after the moves. They're rather balanced. Does that reflect high-end duty raiders? Not really. I've been seeing quite a lot of panic there, which I think is fairly unfounded. Unless...people don't play with their friends? Like...at all. Friend groups/Statics being broken up will suck. But at the same time, there are plenty of all-on-one-world clusters as well. And we may see more of those in the short term while people re-adjust to all the changes. Or they'll make alts and have to split their time. Friends will find a way to stay in contact and enjoy their time.

The bold bit is the heart of why I'm upset. I made the choice to jump from Aether to follow my friend group / raid static (from Balmung) to the Crystal DC and am losing my friend group and FC on Aether (The reaction was very negative when I informed them my main would be moving, friend list is quite a bit slimmer now).

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The bold bit is the heart of why I'm upset. I made the choice to jump from Aether to follow my friend group / raid static (from Balmung) to the Crystal DC and am losing my friend group and FC on Aether (The reaction was very negative when I informed them my main would be moving, friend list is quite a bit slimmer now).

No offense, but anyone who was a "friend" would accept a decision like that, the fact that they reacted not only negatively, but so negatively that you were pushed to unfriend them means they were more interested in what you could do for them than an actual friendship, at least thats what it says to me.

[Alael]

+1.........................

[WaterShield]

No offense, but anyone who was a "friend" would accept a decision like that, the fact that they reacted not only negatively, but so negatively that you were pushed to unfriend them means they were more interested in what you could do for them than an actual friendship, at least thats what it says to me.

No offense is taken. I'm grappling with that thought already. Also they unfriended me, not the other way around. Regardless of where the final blame should lie, the situation hurts and I wish it could have gone differently.

I just hope we don't see another split like this in the future. I will certainly be more wary of forming attachments to people due to this.

[Paladinleeds]

No offense is taken. I'm grappling with that thought already. Also they unfriended me, not the other way around. Regardless of where the final blame should lie, the situation hurts and I wish it could have gone differently.

I just hope we don't see another split like this in the future. I will certainly be more wary of forming attachments to people due to this.

Aye, I can understand why you'd be precarious. I'm not actually building a static until 4.5 because of this announcement. Although I thankfully haven't had much backlash over it, and am staying in the same datacentre. Sorry you had people react that way though. They can be sad you're leaving, but to react how they did suggests they were abusive and manipulative instead. In essence, it's a blessing in disguise.