Tokyo - Rolling Blackouts through Summer

[Grit]

Original Article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=T2

Tokyo (CNN) -- The loss of two nuclear power plants means the Tokyo region will face the summer peak demand with a loss of about 20% of capacity, the plant's owner said Thursday.

Other utilities can supply only a limited amount of additional electricity to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. grid because Tokyo Electric runs power at a different frequency from the rest of the country, according to industry officials.

And with two of Tokyo Electric's nuclear power plants knocked offline since the March 11 earthquake that battered northern Japan, the company said it sees no alternative to a series of rolling blackouts across the Tokyo region.

Tokyo Electric, Japan's largest power utility, uses 50-cycle power, while most of the rest of the country uses 60-cycle electricity. Because of a lack of machinery, only a limited amount of about 1 million kilowatts can be converted and shared, according to industry officials.

Tokyo Electric said it doesn't yet know how the blackouts will be implemented but said the electric supply will be narrowed by as much as 10 million kilowatts, roughly 20%.
Short of the construction of new power plants, there is no end of the shortage in sight. Some mothballed facilities may be brought back online, but this would not compensate for the loss of the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini nuclear plants.
Some blackouts have begun in eastern and northern Japan already.

Both plants have been shut down since the earthquake and tsunami, and Daiichi has suffered several explosions and leaked radioactivity into surrounding areas.
Building conversion facilities to share power from other grids would be almost as expensive as building a new power plant, a Tokyo Electric offical said Thursday.

It's difficult to say how this will effect Square Enix and the FFXI/FFXIV servers in the long-run. Although they are doing their best to conserve electricity, random (temporary) shut-downs of the servers may be inevitable.

What are your thoughts?

[Betelgeuzah]

Well, the lack of proper lightning won't be a problem during the Summer but I bet they'll start missing their air conditioning starting June.

So expect frustrated, anguishing developer's comments during that time.

I can already see Yoshida's 13th letter: "It's 30 plus degrees outsides and my PC isn't helping a thing. You could boil an egg on my head. However, fortunately the artist team has gained inspiration to start the development on the new Hell-region."

[Onidemon]

Original Article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=T2



It's difficult to say how this will effect Square Enix and the FFXI/FFXIV servers in the long-run. Although they are doing their best to conserve electricity, random (temporary) shut-downs of the servers may be inevitable.

There is a simple solution to this.... Region dedicated servers. Have some servers in NA and Europe and leave the current servers for Asia. Yes i'm talking about splitting the players into their own region.

This will reduce lag a lot and also NA and Europe won't be affected by these blackouts. It might seem unfair for the Asian players but from a business point of view it is better to save 2 regions then penalize everyone. In it's current state FFXIV can't afford much more down time....

[Shelia]

There is a simple solution to this.... Region dedicated servers. Have some servers in NA and Europe and leave the current servers for Asia. Yes i'm talking about splitting the players into their own region.

This will reduce lag a lot and also NA and Europe won't be affected by these blackouts. It might seem unfair for the Asian players but from a business point of view it is better to save 2 regions then penalize everyone. In it's current state FFXIV can't afford much more down time....

Uhm, well, this wouldn't be a problem if FFXIV's population per server was above 1000 people. lol

As the servers currently are... if we separated into region-onry, there would be only like... probably less than a couple hundred per server... which is a total waste of a server. Besides, there's no real need for it. I don't mind playing with other people who don't speak my language.

Even if the game goes down for a little, it's not like any of us are missing much. lol

[Onidemon]

Uhm, well, this wouldn't be a problem if FFXIV's population per server was above 1000 people. lol

As the servers currently are... if we separated into region-onry, there would be only like... probably less than a couple hundred per server... which is a total waste of a server. Besides, there's no real need for it. I don't mind playing with other people who don't speak my language.

Even if the game goes down for a little, it's not like any of us are missing much. lol

Well it could be good once we get a solid player base.

[Akumu]

Uhm, well, this wouldn't be a problem if FFXIV's population per server was above 1000 people. lol

As the servers currently are... if we separated into region-onry, there would be only like... probably less than a couple hundred per server... which is a total waste of a server. Besides, there's no real need for it. I don't mind playing with other people who don't speak my language.

Even if the game goes down for a little, it's not like any of us are missing much. lol

I hope SE doesn't split up the players. Playing with such a diverse group is one reason I loved XI over other MMOs(besides enjoying the game itself). If something happens in Japan and they have to shut it down then I will just deal.

[Abriael]

There is a simple solution to this.... Region dedicated servers. Have some servers in NA and Europe and leave the current servers for Asia. Yes i'm talking about splitting the players into their own region.

No. Thank you.
One of the major point of appeal of this game is that it does NOT segregate the players by region, creating a truly international community.
Regional segregation is completely antiquated and surpassed in today's globalized internet, and developers segregating their players by region are actually doing a disservice to them.

By the way, using the consequences of a natural disaster to further your personal agenda is pretty much contemptible.

In any case. Rolling blackouts are not going to affect FFXIV in any way. Just as for the previous rolling blackouts it's extremely unlikely that the rolling blackouts will affect the Shibuya City area (where the server farm is located). It's the commercial heart of Japan, and the administrators of Tepco know very well that by shutting it down, even temporarily, they would do more damage than good, especially when they can blackout much less important areas, exactly like they did so far.

S-E shut down the servers as a volunteer act to help improve the situation in the emergency immediately after the earthquake. They have since found other ways to save the same amount of energy, so it's extremely unlikely that further rolling blackouts will affect FFXIV in any sizable way.

[Vackashken]

I am in favor of electricity

I am strongly against tsunamis and earthquakes

You're becoming lamer by the day.

Aside from that - maybe we'll get lucky and they're finally decide to put servers somewhere else as well.

One can hope.

[Len]

You're becoming lamer by the day.

Aside from that - maybe we'll get lucky and they're finally decide to put servers somewhere else as well.

One can hope.

Don't hold your breath on that one.