Please lock OCE servers to OCE players (At first)

[Superskull85]

SE knows where you are located in the world, its how they dictate what currency you are charged in... Well... they know your country anyway, They think New Zealand is somewhere in Europe i think as i get charged in Euros.
It doesn't matter what datacenter region you play in, they know your country and no, you cant change that on your account, i tried awhile back to set it too US so i would be charged in US$ and got told by support that its not possible.

Square Enix only knows what you tell them when you sign up for a Square Enix Account. The signup script will detect your registered region automatically but that is something you could configure signing up. The signup page literally asks you which country you are in. They don't actually detect that, you tell them what it is. Proxy do and are being used to change regions (it happens all the time when any service (FFXIV or not) is region locked). Practically speaking putting a strict arbitrary gate on players will exclude OCE players (not to mention that proxies could still easily be used to setup new accounts defeating the purpose).

As for which currency you are charged, 90% sure that is based on the registered region (ie general) and not your specific nation. I say this because Canadians will get charged in USD instead of CAD.

They can probably suss out the player's location based on billing address or other such data-driven things that I know little to nothing about.

This is a dangerous slope to go down. Someone's billing address has no impact on nor does it indicate where their physical location is. Billing addresses are used to verify that you are authorized to use the payment method that you have one file. It completely feasible, legal, and has actual usage, where someone could use a payment method from someone they know with permission of that person. A feasible example: one person goes to an OCE location to study but is originally from Europe. They have a sibling or parent that is paying and need their address so that there is no conflict with the payment method. The player is in OCE (physical location) but the payee is in Europe.

[Divinemights]

Hear me out here please.

With how crowded the US servers are right now, Im thinking there is going to be a huge flood of US based players jumping over for a number of reasons potentially making things difficult for OCE players looking to transfer over.
The Bonuses. Silver feathers and 1 mil Gil aside, I can imagine we are going to see a flood of fresh character's taking up names for people just playing for the free 15 days game time with the intent of transferring the character back to US once that opens up or worse, left sitting unused potentially taking someone elses name.
Housing is a big one, you know US players will be more than happy to lose a little ping to get a house, There are likely quite a lot of OCE players who have been unable to ever get a home due to the ping situation we have. There's a lot of dropping dead to mechanics that didn't hit us in combat, I imagine its the same with the spam clicking the sign with how competitive housing is.
Im half awake right now and wanted too get this out before the thought fades, Im betting there are going to be other reasons for US players to jump too these servers as well and make life difficult on launch day, But i cant think of them right now.
As mentioned in the title, Not saying keep people outside the OCE region from rolling/transferring permanently, just at first while there are bonuses and we are trying to get our community sorted then open the flood gates, alternately if it looks like there are not enough of us to keep 5 servers alive.

Funny, US servers have been housing OCE players all these years yet once they got their own datacentre you want to restrict entry?

[-BlueGreen-]

I don't think it's going to be all that bad. Most of the concerns I've seen in this thread to this point aren't that big of a deal:

• Housing - Low, probably no threat. Sure, the new DC will have 5 fresh, new worlds available, but none (not even existing districts available in current servers) of the housing will be opened up until patch 6.1. Even then in Fall 2022 and and summer 2023, the NA datacenter will have a combined total of 8 new worlds added. This is on top of the fact that all existing worlds will get new houses added to the new housing distracts in Ishgard. Europe has even more to offer with a total of 12 new worlds added over that same timeframe. If there's any threat of "invaders" taking houses, it'll be from the Japanese playerbase who aren't seeing any planned new worlds in this timeframe (I think SE's expectation is that the Japan DC will benefit the most from the Oceanian players moving out).
• Free 15 days/gil/silver/ feathers/exp - Low threat. This isn't a new program they're launching, it's the same one that's already available for creating a character on a preferred world. Any vet that's been around long enough and interested in this has already done this and it's limited once per service account (except the exp bonus and silver feathers, which are per new character). For example, if I create a character on the new DC and get to level 30, I won't see any of those bonuses because I already managed to get them before on a character I created on a different NA world prior to the recent population explosion. The free world transfer is one-way. An NA player wanting to transfer back off of the datacenter back to NA would have to pay, I think $18.
• Gold Chocobo Feathers/exp buff for transer in - Medium Threat. With the cost to eventually transfer back being $18, this would be the cheapest way to get gold feathers assuming you're willing to spend money to get them. Of course, you have to transfer in, which would be free, but you can't take your house with you (if you have one). That automatically excludes some people interested in it (I doubt people would want to give up a house they already have just for 10 gold feathers and the cost to get back). You'd also have to leave your FC (so there goes your FC room) and your apartment also can't go with you. If you're "established" where you're currently at, moving servers is a big deal. Then to top it off, apparently you can't transfer again until a number of days (30/45? I'm not sure), but it's safe to say you won't be playing with your friends for a bit. Also, people going in just for the gold feathers aren't going to take up houses and they also will only take up names for a short bit until they transfer back off.

Personally, I'm considering creating a character on opening day simply because there's a 1-day window where only new characters can exist before the floodgates open and existing characters can transfer in. I'm interested to see a world in that state. I'm not sure if they'll create such a situation again because this isn't something I think they've ever done before (excluding, of course, 1.0 probably). Even at the launch of 2.0 you had legacy characters not starting fresh as well as some who had progress from the last of the betas that got carried into release. In these servers, everyone will roughly be level 1 from the start except for those who buy skips from the mogstation (I'm sure there will be those that do that).

Of course, if the patch that gets applied on that maintenance doesn't fix the sound, I might not bother. It's pretty boring playing without sound.

[Tigerlilley]

As an OCE player -

Region locking is a horrible idea and one that will only come back to hard bite us in the butt later. Hard disagree.

[Hanayumi]

Theres just far too many ways to get around regional lock out anyway...

[LianaThorne]

Funny, US servers have been housing OCE players all these years yet once they got their own datacentre you want to restrict entry?

This though. Hope US floods it. I wasn't even planning to play on OCE at all but I probably will now.

[Illmaeran]

With this mindset of yours you still created a character on a JP Server without being a Citizen of Japan or any other East Asian Country? So why should anybody else then be blocked from creating a character on the OCE Datacenter? The double standards are strong with you.

Please take a look at what I said again. I was specifically speaking about transferring, not making a new character. The Oceanic and SEA player base has been asking for a data center in their region for a long time. Now that they're getting it, I would like to see them given the chance to establish the social and economic foundations of the DC on their own, without interference from people who aren't going to make it their permanent home. Having a large number of well established characters with all of their accumulated wealth transferring to the new DC to take advantage of the nascent economies then go back from whence they came a short while later can be a major source of instability. OCE players deserver every chance they can get to build their new home how they want it.

Regarding my rolling on a JP server; we're discussing the opening of an entirely new data center here, not a new player starting the game on an established server on an existing data center. For what it's worth, I was a legal resident of Japan not long before I started playing the game and rolled on a JP server to maintain contact with friends there and to help encourage my Japanese fiancee to play the game with me. I've only ever played on Atomos and will never leave. My investment in the server not not merely long-term, it's permanent.

The point of what I said was in response to someone in the OCE region asking to keep people living outside of that region from creating new characters or transferring there to give the Materia data center the opportunity to establish its own culture, social norms, and economy. That's a desire I agree with given the reasons the OP stated.

My understanding of the intent of the OP's message is to avoid a dumpster fire of non-OCE located players going to Materia for short-term gains, causing significant disruption to those who will be there for the long-term. This is something I've encountered in other games as one on the long-term investment side of the coin and sympathize with the OP's message.

Final point: I did also mention the option of having a 12 month block on transferring off the OCE server should someone from another region wish to transfer to Materia to be with their friends. The intent of this is to allow people who genuinely want to be there permanently the option to do so, but give people who only want to take advantage of a new DC reason to seriously consider their decision prior to making the move.

[Eriane_Elis]

Those one-time-per-account bonuses are not for transferred characters. They are for new characters.

How many people will roll a trash alt on OCE and get them to level 30 for 15 days free playtime? A tonne!

Extra thought... A million gil per new level 30... imagine the gold seller spam in a week! Ugh. At least if we lock to regional players, then that is reduced.

I have a lot of alts on different servers and I have done exactly this before. I forgot that you could do this and I'm going to do this specifically for the bonuses. I'm missing a bit of gold feathers at the very least for my other mount so it's more than enough motivation. It takes a good 3 hours to get to level 30 with the MSQ complete which also unlocks the saddlebag and retainers. Had you not mentioned this I wouldn't have remembered and may have not had the motivation to do it. These types of complaint topics always has a way to have a Streisand effect don't they? Don't worry, I won't steal a house I already have a nice one and it's limited to one per account.

[MaxCarnage]

I get your concern, but I don't imagine many NA based players are going to transfer to OCE, just based on ping alone. If they did, it would be to stay with friends, but I personally wouldn't sacrifice ping to get a transfer bonus.

[Myrany]

They can probably suss out the player's location based on billing address or other such data-driven things that I know little to nothing about.

I agree with the OP. People who are in the OCE region should be the ones to populate the data center at first. It's an unfortunate fact that people will go somewhere for short term gains and ruin it for those who will be there for the long run. Let the servers on Materia be a closed system (no realm visit, etc) so they have time to develop their own cultures, figure out social expectations, and build stable economies before letting people from outside the DC go in and stir things up.

If they do decide to let people actually located in NA, EU, and JP transfer to Materia, they should have a year-long lock on transferring off that server.



When WoW Classic launched I was on the single RP server because my friends and I wanted an RP guild. It was great until the second day when all the assholes from PvP servers made new characters there because the queues on the RP server were much lower than elsewhere. They completely ruined the server's atmosphere and culture nearly from the get go, turning it in to a steaming pile of Cess Pit of Unusual Size and Unknowable Depth. I was the last one to hang on and even then only lasted until I hit 60 a month later. Everyone else was gone within a couple of weeks.

I don't want the equivalent to happen to the Oceanic/Aus/NZ players transferring to the data center put up specifically for them.

I am a NA player. I have one character on Kujata that was created over a year ago to specifically play with my Aus friend with whom I have gamed for nearly 8 years and over multiple games. He is making the move to the new servers so I will be moving to whichever server he moves to. Go ahead put in a 12 month can't transfer off. Heck make it you can never transfer off. Fine by me.

I don't care about feathers or gil. I do not want to own a house which is WHY he will be giving up is on Kujata. He offered it to me. I don't want a house. I rarely engage with the marketboard. Most wouldn't even know I was on the server.

My entire point in doing it is to continue to play with my friend.

Now the discriminatory gatekeeping I am seeing towards NA players however just ticks me off to no end. There are both bad and good in all datacenters. There will be in OCE as well.