If you can only login to play during the evening hours on a EU server...

[Feronar]

In my experience the best way to get on is to login early in the morning. I got up today at 0630 Eastern (0330 Pacific) to play on NA, and there were maybe a dozen or so other players in the queue.

[MaryRose]

Those aren't even listed on my world.

[Ranaku]

You fellas need to understand though, they had to dump the numbers they took out of the combat system somewhere.

[Catwho]

There is a year long backorder for data center equipment. It cannot be had for any price. We're not talking about PC parts you can just stand in line for at a Microcenter and pick up first come first serve (and even then, good luck if you want a 3000 series Nvidia card. I only got one because a friend won a Newegg Shuffle.)

I used to be in marketing for Hitachi's blade servers. Even in times when equipment was available but cash was scarce, it could take months for a sales project to go through for just one rack of those servers (which usually costs about $120,000 these days) due to the complexity of their configuration. Rack mounted servers are even more expensive, and that's likely what they use in the data centers. Square Enix can't just write a check and buy it - it has to go through a formal procurement process. They also can't necessarily get used servers, because commercial equipment has a limited lifespan (usually max of 5 years) and if you're dropping half a million dollars to add multiple server clusters, you definitely don't want to have to repeat that any less than those 5 years. So it's almost always new equipment to come with the warranties provided by the manufacturer.

The XIV surge happened over the summer. Once SE realized that the "lull" of pre-expansion with a delay wasn't going to happen, they started trying to source new equipment, and probably got put on a long, long waiting list.

1. Why not rent equipment? It's a temporary solution, and if they make servers, they would rather have them be permanent additions.

2. Why not use the cloud like AWS? Because moving an application like an MMO to AWS is not something that you can do after the MMO is live; it needs to be designed for the ground up for it like New World was.

3. Why not use inferior equipment if you can't get the good stuff? Because the risks are too high. Your character data is safely backed up every 15 seconds right now. The last thing they want is to use cheap, off brand equipment and have people's stuff get lost or have to get rolled back because the server exploded.

[lezard21]

maybe they can borrow some servers from the "dying" wow.

Imagine cracking jokes at other companies when the company you are white knighting for failed hard to deliver the expansion. Twice.

[Samhain1983]

Imagine cracking jokes at other companies when the company you are white knighting for failed hard to deliver the expansion. Twice.

I don't feel that it failed. I am almost 87 now and doing my MSQ and Dngs without any problem.

[Wolwosh]

I don't feel that it failed. I am almost 87 now and doing my MSQ and Dngs without any problem.

Great for you.
I've easily spent 4 times longer in que than I've been able to play.
I only just barely managed to get to 81.
I haven't had that happen to me in ARR HW SB or ShB.

[Fhaerron]

Login issues aside, EU needs a 3rd datacenter

I disagree. The game is too heavily instanced. At least now you can see some people every now and then when you move away from Limsa.
94.68% of the zones felt like a total ghost town just before we had the heavy influx of new players. I much prefer having some issues the first few months of the expansion as to having no issues at all and having everything feel like a ghost town again.

[Sceros]

EU servers are on freaking fire at this point. I feel the EU data centers are experiencing the worst of what is happening right now. Login queues aside, the servers are not stable.

EU servers are the oldest of the bunch if I remember correctly. I assume Japan has the best quality in regards to servers and connection in general. New Oceanic servers are a good thing for asia and american regions as well. Besides, US-Servers did get upgraded already. So .. no wonder EU-Servers are dying.

[Warlyx]

Kinda funny that they'd point to new servers being added years ago as a sign that SE is somehow not doing enough. NA hasn't gotten a new server since 2014.

Simple fact is EU population exploded far beyond what anyone would've reasonably expected. Feels like it wasn't that long ago that folks over there were complaining that they had too many servers.

expected? we have been having queues all summer ...up to 500 ....so no , SE saw that coming from months.

Login issues aside, EU needs a 3rd datacenter

No we need 1 server more on each DC ...we have the less servers on each DC