Data Centers/World Locations Info from the LIVE Letter

[Atoli]

Pros:

- still regional servers
- no community segregation

Cons:

- way stronger segregation than just labeling according to where the data centers are because that way people would even be separated by language
- no one would know where the server they chose actually is so Eu players would be on a JP server and NAs on a EU based server....and the whole reason for this would be ignored - to reduce latency issues.

Fixed that for you

[Soukyuu]

You missed the point completely. The channels are servers located in us EU JP respectively, just like they plan to do it. The difference is that you can freely change between regions with one character.

[Rogue]

You missed the point completely. The channels are servers located in us EU JP respectively, just like they plan to do it. The difference is that you can freely change between regions with one character.

this wont happen for the same technical reasons you cant go transfering worlds on the fly. which is essentially what your suggesting.

[Atoli]

That's simply not possible.
Because that would mean transfering all of you character data from one server on one end of the world to a server on the other end of the world every time you open that drop down menu.

Data Centers house servers/shards/"worlds" (they're all the same thing). One "world" can only exist in one data center at any given time.
There is no possible way that you can, say, connect to Balmung (a Japanese server, in a Japanese data center) whilst only communicating with a NA or EU data center, as if there were a real-time, updating "copy" of Balmung on it. It doesn't (can't) work like that.
If you want the benefits of using a regional server, then you'll have to either re-roll anew or transfer one of your existing characters to the new "Honey Boo Boo" server (the names of the new shards, obviously, have not been finalized yet).

In short: you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Square does not know how to bypass the laws of physics.

This explains it quite nicely.

[Soukyuu]

this wont happen for the same technical reasons you cant go transfering worlds on the fly. which is essentially what your suggesting.

I don't see a problem. Latency is not crucial for a character database update. Just have a central character database per server and make all the channel servers access it. Whether a read/write operation takes 100 or 400 ms, doesn't matter to you as a player

Edit: they even have this already with Uldah, and it even reduced the lag

Edit2:

That's simply not possible.
Because that would mean transfering all of you character data from one server on one end of the world to a server on the other end of the world every time you open that drop down menu.

Wrong. Servers are no monolithic constructs, there are different components, for example

- a login server
- a character database server
- an area cluster consisting of multiple servers (Uldah, for example)

All those servers communicate with each other and they don't have to be all places at one physical location. Which is why a character database server can be "global" while login and areas can be regional without issues imho.

[Shaelou]

My linkshell has both EU and NA players, and so we have scheduled 'event' times during almost all of the day for me (I'm an NA player). If the servers go regional as they suggest, we would force the people in our linkshell to choose staying with us over going where they have less lag, but also the recruitment to keep up for EU players would be very hard to do because of likely lack of EU members on an NA server. I would prefer if they could manage to slightly reduce the current lag, and keep the 'global' servers.

[Huginn]

Could we have a player's poll about making regional servers?
I ask because often the most vocal about a particular topic are often the minority.

[Jynx]

I would prefer if they could manage to slightly reduce the current lag, and keep the 'global' servers.

They allready are reducing the current lag. People just forget why that lag is happening and blame it on the latency.

[Alhanelem]

Which is why a character database server can be "global" while login and areas can be regional without issues imho.

there is no benefit to what you describe. You also dont seem to understand that moving individual server cluster components apart from each other increases server response time and we're back at square one.

Just the lobby server (holds everyone's data) being "global' has no benefit whatsoever. Therefore your whole idea has no benefit whatsoever. Somebody loses no matter where the area servers are located. If the servers are global, everybody outside of japan loses. If the servers are regional, fewer people lose.

[Jynx]

If the servers are global, everybody outside of japan loses. If the servers are regional, fewer people lose.

...what? So everyone who played XI outside of Japan lost?