Sign if you would of Prefered this over the data Center shuffle

[JunseiKei]

BDO. All one data NA/EU data center. All character and clan data is stored separately from servers. You pick the server to log in on based on whichever has best ping at that particular time. Some events and bonuses set to particular servers to draw relevant players, but generally it's just a matter of additional/excess servers being made or crunched as needed for ping, with a graduated transition of some three seconds as your server or mini-server is crunched or split.

BDO is two data centers; one for NA, one for EU. If you make a family on one, when you switch over, it'll prompt you to create a new family name, meaning it's not interchangeable as your statement would lend one to believe. The other "servers" in BDO would be called channels/realms/shards in some other games, like TERA. Adding a new channel/realm/shard isn't nearly as costly as adding a new server or data center, but is meant to split the player-base apart to avoid things like overloading the server. BDO's servers are all of the regions (Olvia, Velia, Balenos, Serendia, Mediah, Calpheon, Kamasylvia, Arsha) - they share certain chat features when you are within that server. The shards are numbered (Calpheon 1 is the first shard of the server Calpheon; Calpheon 1 to 6 will share the same server chat, but when you switch to Mediah, you stop hearing Calphone's chat and gain access to Mediah 1 to 6's instead). World chat broadcasts over the entirety of the data center.

FFXIV is devoid of the shard-server model; the server is the channel/realm/shard.

Links are what I'm greeted with when I pick between NA and EU DCs in BDO.