Data Centers? (Yes or No Poll)

[Alhanelem]

Lag hasn't been a personal issue, so there is no added benefit of even having Regional data centers for me.

I want your magical conneciton of lag-free-ness.

Latency is hardly the only benefit of regional servers.

-most everybody speaks your language
-for the most part, everyone's online when you are
-Easier to find groups, especially if you're not an elitist.

I'm not entirely sure why it's so hard for some people to grasp that this WILL split the servers by language/region..

It won't split them forcibly. It will only split them by way of people who don't care about being in a multicultural environment vs people that do. You can still play on every server, create characters on every server, you can still play with or communicate with people in other regions. Yes, the majority of people on any given server will be from that region. However there are factors that will ensure some mixing still takes place, such as people who play at unusual hours, people who live in countries not specifically serviced by the officially supported regions, and people who would prefer being among those not of their region. There is no region locking on the servers, therefore you can still immerse yourself in another region's culture if you prefer (though I think there are a lot of more effective ways to do this than to play a video game- Totally my opinion of course, not meant to be taken as a statement of fact or an assertion)

Division of communities is inevitable in any game with a multiple world structure. The only truly ideal solution would be to have a single world structure, but the game would have to be specially designed to handle that.

I still think regional servers are a rediculous move and throwing away a great thing SE had going for them,

I won't deny there are some nice things about having mixed servers. However, it is hardly a "great thing going for them," in that it's really not a selling point. I don't know anyone who specifically bought the game (or bought FFXI) specifically because people from different regions played together.

There is nothing "ridiculous" about the move. It is a logistically sensible move that has a number of benefits that, at least in SE's view, benefits more people than it hurts. Only time will tell if that's actually true or not.

considering peoples complaints are hardly even related to the network latency issues at all.

Not every complaint relating to global servers is specifically about latency. It is just one factor of several.

The current servers are not going to change immediately. If you like the way things are now, not a lot is going to change for a good time to come afterward. Most people have established friendships on their current server and thus I think a lot of current players will stay where they are.

[Exn]

I want your magical conneciton of lag-free-ness.

Latency is hardly the only benefit of regional servers.

-most everybody speaks your language
-for the most part, everyone's online when you are
-Easier to find groups, especially if you're not an elitist.

Lag-free would be nice.. yet hardly what I claimed. The minimal lag I've experienced has hardly prevented me from completing any content I've attempted.. which is why I'm using the term minimal. It also hasn't been a bother for ME in cities.. I may wait 2/3 seconds or so for people to load in packed areas but never really considered that annoying or anything. It USED to be horrible about a year or so ago.. but has definitely improved alot for me since launch.

The three points you made. Well the first one is a personal preference of yours. I've already said I personally prefer to see and talk with people from different cultures in different languages.. The second one doesn't even really makes sense when your talking about comparing to GLOBAL servers. By definition there is greater population density across all timezones represented and therefore more opportunity for a higher average population at any given time of the day. While regional servers foster "primetimes" where the population will swell and die at particular times of the day. Ideally, as long as your life schedule falls somewhat akin to the typical NA timezones represented, you should generally find a high healthy pop, however for those people with 'wierd' schedules.. you'll have to choose between playing on what feels like a dead server, or choosing another region that fits your schedule but may provide a language barrier due to the fact that 90%+ of the people don't speak your language (as opposed to global servers which would ideally have a more equal ratio of popular languages represented). And the third, easier to find groups yeah, most likely. If you play during primetime. Global servers do at times create more reasons to exclude others from grouping, simply because it's a more diverse server, but that shouldn't be used as the excuse... for I'd hope obvious reasons..