Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

[Seirra_Lanzce]

So nobody gonna talk about why they do not make the regional servers the way that they should? you know.. like DCUO super servers?

[Coyohma]

So nobody gonna talk about why they do not make the regional servers the way that they should? you know.. like DCUO super servers?

There definitely are attractive alternatives to this, which is why people are so upset.

[Scratches]

There definitely are attractive alternatives to this, which is why people are so upset.

Um, wat?
The person you quoted brought up DCUO, but Sony's Magic MegaServers are regional as well. There's "one" in NA, and "one" in EU. There's no bypassing the laws of physics; crossing the pond adds significant amounts of latency, and, in a game with such a high combat tempo (mouse-click combos, anyone?), it's just an unnecessarily risky move to force people to all connect to a single, global location as it greatly degrades the play experience.
(I put one in quotes, btw, because while it just appears as one server to you, there's still just as many servers and shards working behind the scenes as there were before... their appearance has just been obfuscated to players. Pick a geographically central location to house servers for each region, and you don't even need to worry about bi-coastal servers either... making them appear even more magical.)
And players still play on different servers (what they call "phases") from other players as well; it's just, again, obfuscated from the player.

To Sony's credit, however, it does allow them to dynamically add/remove hardware to meet demand, without having to inform players that, "Uh, we have to merge or take some servers offline due to low population", or whatever. Easy PR, lol.

[Alhanelem]

There is really absolutely no way to please everyone in this situation. No regional servers, and some people will complain about the resulting lag. Regional servers, and people will complain that it divides the community. There's really no way to have your cake and eat it too, without some magical invention that removes communication lag regardless of physical distance.

[Kojihimself]

Why not do a channel system? Each server has a US, EU, and JP channel where the data center is located. You could switch through the channels at will and let players chat in LS chat regardless of channel.

[Coyohma]

If you want to continue playing with other cultures and don't mind lagging like you currently do to their superior connection to the data then so be it. But don't whine and spoil it for those of us that want the same competitive edge as the rest of the game players. Fair is Fair and I for one will be looking forward to a spiffy new connection to the game. I am so tired of lag.

People continue to overstate the significance of the server location. To say what we have now is comparable to how it will be in ARR if we connect to a server in Japan is irresponsible to anyone looking for objective perspective.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

I'll say to this, of what i am hoping for and what thought it will be but nevertheless, is great that they do have Regional Servers as to oppose of single data centre.

What we hope is for a single realm (Example Balmung) is connected between three Regional Data Centres (eg. EU+US+JPN) in a phasing/mirror realm/world.
What we get is the other way around. Yes we can connect without region lock, but that not what we want at the first place.

So I see two major group here, but the opposing party is talking about it backwards.

[Scratches]

I'll say to this, of what i am hoping for and what thought it will be but nevertheless, is great that they do have Regional Servers as to oppose of single data centre.

What we hope is for a single realm (Example Balmung) is connected between three Regional Data Centres (eg. EU+US+JPN) in a phasing/mirror realm/world.
What we get is the other way around. Yes we can connect without region lock, but that not what we want at the first place.

So I see two major group here, but the opposing party is talking about it backwards.

Except what you're "hoping for" is completely unreasonable for an action-based MMO.

Remember, Square does not know how to subvert the laws of physics...

[Zumi]

I'll say to this, of what i am hoping for and what thought it will be but nevertheless, is great that they do have Regional Servers as to oppose of single data centre.

What we hope is for a single realm (Example Balmung) is connected between three Regional Data Centres (eg. EU+US+JPN) in a phasing/mirror realm/world.
What we get is the other way around. Yes we can connect without region lock, but that not what we want at the first place.

So I see two major group here, but the opposing party is talking about it backwards.

Mirroring data to various servers is possible for something like a website however its not possible for a real time online game. What you are asking for is technically impossible to do.

[DSX]

Another VERY bad decision from SE and yoshi-p team added to the pile of bad decisions.

the server lag will improve greatly due to the new engine and new server hardware according to yoshi-p and his team and from what we can see in the live demos.

this is a mmoRPG not a FPS multiplayer where every millisecond counts towards who headshot the other. (yes I know ifrit battle and that should be fixed with the new engine and new servers + the development team actually keeping in mind about server lag when doing a mmoRPG battle)

ohhh (obviously) wait maybe yoshi-p and his teams sees it like a FPS muliplayer with adding PVP and all and for that changing a lot of things like auto-TP + full TP at start of the battle and mages not being able to cast while running..etc etc

so all in all another disappointment about this game "future".