Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

[Alhanelem]

1) It's a nice little perk, yes, but it's not essential to the game. I really truly don't know anyone who bought this game based on the fact that it has more cultural diversity.

2) This is a massive exaggeration. Regional servers does not mean off peak ghost towns. WoW doesn't seem to have this problem. Yes, there won't be as many people on, but enough people have differing life schedules that you have some people on at all times.

The internet is a global affair, segregating people by region should be a thing of the past.

Yeah well unfortunately life sucks and the world segeregates people by country, by culture, by market, by tastes and preferences, yada yada. DVDs and blu rays are region locked, video games are region locked, you're lucky to have this game that even after this change, won't be region locked.

The thing is, this isn't segregation. Everyone is still welcome to play with people on any server in any region. The fact that we're kept on our own servers initially helps reinforce this. A lot of people aren't going to move and some people specifically want to get away from their own region and will choose other servers. There will still be some mixing.

There is no magic way to please everyone here- this debate will rage on forever.

[ShellQ8]

It was... *fun* reading the 980+ replies to this thread, took me long hours, but I was very interested, I wanted to know what everyone was thinking about this decision. It showed me how messed up our community can be, and made me think "Wow.. I'm so happy for the Japanese players, and I'm a bit jealous, because they won't be playing with such people anymore."

Of course I'm not talking about everyone here, there were many people in this thread who said what I wanted to say literally, and they kept explaining themselves over and over even though they didn't have to do that.

But I'm talking about the people who have no personal attachment to the game other than having their own demands answered, and then trolling and ruining other people's posts who want nothing but the best for this community.

First, let me clarify that there are many English-speaking players who do not live in NA, EU or Japan. Yes, it's true, surprise surprise.

And many of these people might be *close* to one of those regions than the others, but as far as the latency go, it won't be faster or slower for them. It does not matter which region they choose, it will just be the same. And these are the people who are hurt the most from this decision. Because their friends from NA, EU and JP are going to be divided, and they have to cut their losses and choose one of the 3 regions.

I honestly wanted to read all the 980ish replies so I'd know what to expect from our beloved forum readers, and to guess the brilliant repeated answers they will throw at me, because apparently they took it upon themselves to answer every question and request we direct towards Square-Enix FFXIV Dev.Team as if they were hired by them or something. If it's your job, if you're getting paid by turning this thread into a 99-pages thread that's full of insults and repeated arguments, then good for you, but if you're doing it for simply no reason at all, then please, just close this page, and go do something better with your time.

Second, and mainly, I'd like to request Globally-labeled servers as a 4th choice after the 3 regions.
Yes, I know, we can't have "Global" servers because the server has to physically exist in a country. (This was debated and explained over and over in 200+ posts) We just want a server to be labeled "Global" and it can just exist in Japan since Square-Enix is originally a Japanese company. Or it can exist in NA or wherever, it doesn't matter.

And before you start going "What's the use of just naming it Global? You can just choose one of the three types of servers you have, they are all global, just located in different places, labeling will deceive people."

No, it won't deceive people, when people go through the character creation menu and jump to the servers list, and when they see the labels "NA", "EU" and "JP". They won't think "They are global but they are just data centers in these locations" No, this is a game, they won't start researching the meaning behind the labels, the simplest idea will pop on their heads and they will think:
"NA means: for NA players", "EU means: for EU players" and "JP means: for JP players" and they will choose the server that's located in their region, and that kills the concept of "global servers"

When you make a 4th choice, and call it a "Global server" it just means "A server for everyone" that simple. This will insure that everyone has a choice. An actual choice.

Yes it might be bit "laggy", but I doubt it will be that bad, and for us players who aren't in NA, EU or JP. It will be the same speed anywhere, anyway. And we are confident that, at the very least, it will be faster than how it is right now.

So.. time for some fun: FAQs by Trolls

"Why don't you just choose one of the three regions already?"
Because I want to play with all of my friends, selfish, right? Well, Square-Enix introduced them to me in its global online RPGs. And I don't want Square-Enix to be the reason I begin to choose which to follow and which to leave behind. I have awesome friends who are always fun to hang out with, from all over the world, and it will be an honor to keep hanging out with them in ARR. We're not asking for a miracle, we're asking for a feature that's supposed to be in this game forever.

"Then why don't you just ask your friends to come with you?"
It's not a simple thing, it's a long chain, this guy has to be in a NA server because his wife will go there, because she promised her sister. And this guy has friends who entered the game for him, he has to go where they decide to go as a group. And this LS decided to stay...etc
Yeah it's not simple at all, they have their friends/family in-game, and these friends/family have friends..
And they are all saying the same thing, "If only there was a Global server", they are all willing to compromise.

"Then why don't you just stay where you are????"
The current servers aren't global, they won't stay global, they will be labeled under a region, and people of that region will fill the place, leaving no spot for global interaction. I love Japanese players, but I don't want to be one of 50 English-speaking players in a world full of Japanese players, and the same goes for EU and NA players, there has to be a balance.

"Just get new friends" "friends are temporary, lag is forever"
Stuff like that has been said over and over, and I feel bad for the people who meant that, if you look down on your online friends, or if you couldn't find real friends online, then it's your problem, not ours. There are people out there who actually care about their online friends and would like to keep hanging out with them.

"Make a new character for each region."
Yeah right, we spent 2 years on our characters, only to make a new character for each regional server later. I'm absolutely sure this was said by people who didn't spend much time in FFXIV, so it didn't matter much to them.

"Then quit"
We invested so much time on this game, and supported it with everything we got, from monthly fees in a questionable time, to votes and attention. We love Final Fantasy XIV and Square-Enix, and we are going to keep supporting it. Who are you to tell people to quit?

of course this FAQ has a looo~ng list, but I'm going to stop with these.
Thanks for reading my post, and I'm sorry if I made it long, it's just the result of reading this entire thread.

One last thing to the people who are going to reply for the fun on it:
This request was intended to reach Square-Enix and to be replied by them hopefully, unless you're in their team, you don't really have to reply, really, you don't. No one is going to give you a trophy for shooting people's ideas down. And you won't lose anything, you will still have your pwecious~<3 regional servers if you want an "attaboy", we will give you one in advance. 1.. 2.. 3.. ATTABOY! Now go away.

[Alhanelem]

Because their friends from NA, EU and JP are going to be divided, and they have to cut their losses and choose one of the 3 regions.

Their friends won't be divided. they can simply choose to join the server their friends are on instead of what's most convenient for them.

Divisions occur in every world server-based MMO whenever new servers are added or old ones retired. This is not new, only the circumstance under which it is happening is. Accept it and move on. Sometimes you do forge true friendships in these games- and those are the people you stick with. Most "friends" are just aquaintances, and while it sucks to leave them, jjust like the new kid on the block, you will make new friends, and for me that's actually something to be excited about.

One last thing to the people who are going to reply for the fun on it:
This request was intended to reach Square-Enix and to be replied by them hopefully, unless you're in their team, you don't really have to reply, really, you don't.

You're not going to get dev replies just because you ask for them. They reply to topics when they have news that is relevant to the topic- not because someone wants to be replied to (Who wouldn't want community rep responses)? Therfore, you can skip the disclaimers because people are going to read it, and they're going to reply to it. This is a debate with two sides and no real gray area. People are either on one side or the other. Nobody's shooting ideas down, but people are being firm about their opinions and that's just fine. And on that note, while I disagree with yours, I do respect it.

The addition of regional servers is by no means a holy grail of amazing goodness, but while it isn't a perfect solution, it does have its benefits.

[Soukyuu]

And in this thread, you can see the discussion cycle being repeated all over again for the hundred time....

[moriandrio]

The topic has been discussed for a million posts already.

1: we've been promised an international community since way before the launch of the game. Cultural diversity is a plus to many, and it was one of the element that made the Final Fantasy XI community one of the best in the MMORPG market.

2: global servers mean constant traffic at every hour. Local servers mean that playing at off times people find themselves in ghost towns.

3: Many of us have established contacts and friends from all regions (If i want to play only with Europeans, I'll walk out of the door with a soccer ball), and find that idea of splitting the current community, forcing people to chose between their friends in choosing to what regional server to go, is pretty much asinine.

The internet is a global affair, segregating people by region should be a thing of the past, and I'm rather appalled to see people (albeit an obvious minority) supporting it.

Hopefully SE will read and understand that the community doesn't want it.

You have forgotten an very important fact:

SE promised to fix the latency problem, and if its the only way they can do it, its sad cause you might have to choose between lagfree endgame or internationality but thats still your choice.

It's not like in other games where you cant go to anothers region server, you can still play where you want...

And there is a part of the community that wants it if its the only way to play the game without massive latency problems.

[Abriael]

Their friends won't be divided. they can simply choose to join the server their friends are on instead of what's most convenient for them.

It's funny how the few people that support segregated servers seem unable to read and understand a simple concept. let me help you for the sake of clarity.

When you have friends from three different regions and those friends are suddenly split into three different servers, you can't "simply join to choose the server your friends are on", because many of your friends will go to the servers of their own region, forcing you to choose between them.

It isn't rocket science. Of course it's very convenient to ignore this not so little detail, since it invalidates the already weak pro-regional servers justification.

There is no magic way to please everyone here- this debate will rage on forever.

Of course. When you can't please everyone, you please the majority, and it's quite evident where the majority stands.

The addition of regional servers is by no means a holy grail of amazing goodness, but while it isn't a perfect solution, it does have its benefits.

They do not, when the netcode is decent. Regional servers are nothing else than a cop out.

You have forgotten an very important fact:

SE promised to fix the latency problem, and if its the only way they can do it, its sad cause you might have to choose between lagfree endgame or internationality but thats still your choice.

You have forgotten a very important fact:

Latency is fixed by good netcode, not by segregating the servers. I'm from Europe, and play on US servers on basically every MMORPG that allows it. I have no appreciable lag, and my average ping of 100-110 on most games doesn't influence me in the least.

On TERA, that is probably the MMO that is impacted most by latency, i play on the US servers as well, and guess what? no problem at all. In Nexus, that has me complete against a whole server of other tanks for aggro, my rotations are still faster than most and I can hold aggro more consistently than anyone else in my server.

Why? Because they have implemented decent netcode in their game.

And there is a part of the community that wants it if its the only way to play the game without massive latency problems.

Looking at this thread, and at many threads before, that part of the community is a vast minority.

Global servers were a major publicized point for this game. Hopefully SE will withdraw this localized servers cop-out and go back to the right track, with a quality netcode that supports it.

[moriandrio]

Fact is as long latency doesnt get fixed in some other ways (i know that its possible without regional server) its an option that alot EU player gonna use, cause they have way more problems with delay then NA players.


As long the latency problem isnt fixed this discussion will never end. If they fix it prolly 99% of the ppl gonna vote for global servers, but i doubt they just gonna change their mind and find another solution in the next 2-3 months.

[Abriael]

Fact is as long latency doesnt get fixed in some other ways (i know that its possible without regional server) its an option that alot EU player gonna use, cause they have way more problems with delay then NA players.

Bad EU players have problems, mind you. I can tank and deal damage like any american without the slightest problem. Have always been since release. Wonder why?

Maybe I just don't suck

As long the latency problem isnt fixed this discussion will never end. If they fix it prolly 99% of the ppl gonna vote for global servers, but i doubt they just gonna change their mind and find another solution in the next 2-3 months.

So since so far they seemed to be unable to implement decent netcode in their game, you support a cop out? Yeah, great idea, instead of pushing them to actually fix the problem.

The majority is expressing their favor for global servers anyway. Segregating the servers with the community already formed is just a terrible idea.

[Jynx]

As long the latency problem isnt fixed this discussion will never end.

They allready showed us how good the latency is at gamescon they were connected to the server in japan in germany and had no noticable lag at all.

People are now only worried about milliseconds not large delays.

*edit*

Also using the "Majority" vote doesn't really work we haven't had a official poll on the subject and the numbers varry greatly depending on what thread this discussion has taken place in. People are very divided on the subject.

[Abriael]

Also using the "Majority" vote doesn't really work we haven't had a official poll on the subject and the numbers varry greatly depending on what thread this discussion has taken place in. People are very divided on the subject.

I still need to find *one* person in game that doesn't think that the regional servers idea sucks bollocks. And that in two years. All the threads on the subject on both the English and JP forums have always had a trouncing majority in favor of the global servers.

Really don't see this division. It's only the few hardcores that think a ping over 50 somewhat makes them bad (probably because they're bad to begin with), that continue to bring it up.