NA DC Relocation Info 5/15/17-5/17/17

[Kage]

Update April 24 2017

NA Data Center Relocation

In order to better provide our players an ever-improving game experience, we will be relocating the North American data center to a new data center equipped with more modern facilities. To accompany the relocation, we will be performing maintenance on all Worlds for an extended period of time.

 

All data under the Aether and Primal data center will be automatically moved to the new North American data center. There will be no changes to the display of the data center or World listing, or character and World information. Additionally, users will not need to take any special steps for this relocation. Rest assured, the FINAL FANTASY XIV development and operations teams will take the utmost care in transferring the data.

 

Purpose for the North American Data Center Relocation

 

Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida has made a post on the official forum explaining the reason behind the move, as well as the effects of the data center relocation.

(http://sqex.to/u9n)

 

Maintenance Accompanying the Relocation

 

To accompany the data center relocation, we will need to transfer all of the existing data. For this reason, we will be performing maintenance on all Worlds for an extended period of time.

 

The maintenance schedule for each data center is as following:

 

Aether / Primal Data Center Worlds

From Monday, May 15, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 48 hours

Elemental / Gaia / Mana / Chaos Data Center Worlds

From Tuesday, May 16, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 24 hours

 

Subscription Period Extension

 

Due to the maintenance accompanying the relocation, players will be unable to play for an extended period of time. As compensation, we will extend the subscription period by one day for all players who have an active subscription during the maintenance. The subscription extension for eligible accounts will be done in sequential order after the maintenance has concluded.

 

Service accounts with an active subscription

Service accounts that are active for the 7 days of free play via the Callback Campaign

* Subscriptions will be extended even if your subscription happens to end at the time of the extension. However, please note that this does not add retainer service subscription.

 

Important Information Regarding North American Data Center Relocation

 

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/321165-Important-Information-Regarding-North-American-Data-Center-Relocation?p=4085765&viewfull=1#post4085765

 

Greetings FINAL FANTASY XIV players. As many of you already know, we made a special announcement during the Q&A session held at PAX East regarding the relocation of our North American data center.

 

I understand that this news came as quite a surprise for many, and so I would like to take this opportunity to explain some of the reasons behind this decision, as well as how it will affect users.

 

Current Facilities

During development for A Realm Reborn, we strongly felt that the establishment of a North American data center was necessary to achieve the type of game experience we wished to provide. Though faced with a tight development and preparation schedule, we were able to realize our goal in time for ARR’s launch.

 

However, the endeavor hasn’t been without its challenges. The FINAL FANTASY XIV NA data center was Square Enix’s first attempt at establishing game servers outside of Japan, and as such, we have spent much time quietly tackling related problems since the center’s inception four years ago.

 

Some of these problems have included voltage overload and a lack of physical space for additional servers, ultimately leading to an inability to efficiently optimize servers or expand the scale of data center itself.

 

As a result, players have been repeatedly inconvenienced with server crashes and protracted server maintenance periods.

 

Reasons behind the Relocation

Thanks largely in part to support from our loyal fan base, FINAL FANTASY XIV has continued to exhibit steady growth, allowing for even larger company investment into the project. As has been previously announced, with the release of our upcoming expansion Stormblood, we are planning major updates and upgrades to our server system to allow not only for increased server efficiency, but also:

Increased inventory capacity

Worldless (cross-world) party matching and friend management

Additional content & increased field size for new areas

All which we hope will contribute to increased playability.

 

To achieve these goals and, in turn, be in a position to better provide our user base an ever-improving game experience via future updates, we came to the conclusion that it would be in the project’s best interest to heavily invest in a move to a new data center equipped with more modern facilities.

 

One section of the new data center.

 

Servers in the new data center.

While we are aware that many of you are curious as to the actual physical location of the new data center, please understand that for security reasons specific to the operation of an online game, we are unable to divulge that information to the public. What we can tell you is that the servers will remain on North American soil, in an area that features an advanced Internet infrastructure.

 

Changes to Ping* Times

In preparation for the move, we have conducted countless preliminary simulations and on-site verifications regarding ping times. However, due to the physical distance between the old and new data centers, players accessing the NA servers will most likely experience a change in their current ping times. While those who play FINAL FANTASY XIV closer to the new data center will see their ping time fall, those who are now further away from the servers may see those times increase.

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV was designed to be played in an environment featuring ping times of 200 – 220 milliseconds or less. Even if players experience an increase in ping times due to the data center relocation, as long as their times remain below 200 ms, then they may rest easy, for there should be no discernable difference in gameplay.

 

We expect that the players most likely to experience a significant increase in ping times will be those in Europe playing on an NA data center World. We will be working hard to minimize the anticipated increases, but there is the chance that based on their location, some players may be more severely affected by this relocation than others.

 

Data Center Relocation Schedule

The current plan is to conduct the relocation sometime in mid-May of 2017. Once a date has been solidified, we will make an official announcement on the Lodestone and via other channels.

 

In conjunction with the relocation, we expect a maximum downtime of 48 hours for those players using the NA servers. The EU and JP data centers will also experience downtime of up to 24 hours to allow for maintenance required to connect existing servers with the new NA data center. To compensate for play time lost, we are looking into extending all active account subscriptions by one day.

 

In Conclusion

It is rare for an online game, especially one that is currently operating with stability, to relocate data centers, even if the intention is to increase optimization and expandability while improving overall game experience. We did our best to explore options that would allow us to achieve these goals without having to move, but ultimately came to the conclusion that to ensure the continued growth of FINAL FANTASY XIV, relocation was the right choice.

 

In the coming months, there may be extended periods of maintenance. We humbly ask for your patience and thank you for your cooperation and understanding as we continue our work at providing our community with the best gaming environment possible.

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director, Naoki Yoshida

 

 

*”Ping” is the amount of time it takes data to make a round-trip journey from your PC/PS4 to the game servers and back.

 

 

So:

EU players may experience increased ping when playing on NA data centers after this move.

For 24 hours, all players (JP+NA+EU) will experience a down time.

For additional 24 hours, NA players will experience a down time.

To compensate, we may get an extension for 1 day.

They couldn't do anything for the servers before because they didn't have room LOL

[Maril]

I love how to give us more inventory slots they literally have to give themselves a larger physical inventory

 

.. I am however also having some flashback moments to Titan HM in the early days before they "fixed" the lag to what the EU lag is at now which is already kinda on the line.. (: Oh boy.

[Kage]

We can't say for sure what the increased ping will be but if they're giving a warning it may be bad.

 

It may just be to cover their asses when people inevitably complain that it is higher.

[Lan Darklyn]

Thanks for posting this Kage!

[Nirri]

That the ping might be higher due to the increase in physical distance from its current position was pretty much well... That's something that's inevitable and in the end, for NA their primary concern is and will be the NA community parts because you know -NA servers-.

 

That said with according to Yoshida, saying the game is designed to play with a latency of maximum 200ping. As long most people somehow stick below that number, things shouldn't be as bad.

[Dravus]

I love how to give us more inventory slots they literally have to give themselves a larger physical inventory

 

.. I am however also having some flashback moments to Titan HM in the early days before they "fixed" the lag to what the EU lag is at now which is already kinda on the line.. (: Oh boy.

 

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how badly European players are affected by the move and if there are any reliable methods to mitigate any changes. I'm living in Scotland at the moment and before that I lived in England - I have never had any major issues with lag and I've been able to tackle content easily enough without any awkward delays. 

 

It would be a real shame if that changed. I'm settled on Balmung due to friendships I forged before European servers became a thing. There's also the incentive of role-play, naturally, as well as being one of the lucky few to own a house. There's limits on transferring gil across servers, too, so it's far from an easy decision to simply up and leave even if things become pretty dire.

 

I'm here for the game as a whole, though, so if I find myself in a position where I'm being hit by avoidable abilities due to lag or it ends up taking a long time to load into the likes of Idyllshire then I'll likely consider biting the bullet and leaving for a different server. Hopefully, though, I won't notice much of a difference at all and things will continue as they are now.

[Nebbs]

More capacity for more housing would be nice.

 

As for EU ping, I generally had < 120ms from the UK, so it should be fine.

[Virella]

Ping increase? For the love of, please, please don't make it worse. This is okay, this is playable, the odd 103 ping or so we have right now as Europeans. But I really hope the game doesn't become unplayable. I don't want to teleport all over the place if I'm going to level in SB. I'm fine not doing raids if need be. I just don't want a lag teleport spree when I'm levelling, that's all.

 

Else I will have to probably move one of my characters off back to EU to do content ;_;

 

I'm getting flashbacks of doing PvP in GW1 and getting US/Asia instances. What is interrupt, what is fakecasting, oh wait my shield didn't swap while I'm sure I swapped when I got spiked. /cries

[Valence]

Designed to work fine under 200ms ping? Try playing Titan hard or ex and see how you like the puddles with above 150ms already. Or any countdown you have to smash several times for it to register.

 

Seriously, the things you read...

[ExAtomos]

Due to the way it's worded, I can't help but think they are moving west. I wish they'd at least say the region, though. Leaving it in the dark like this when we already know where the servers are now just adds unnecessary worry.

 

I saw some commenters wishing for Primal and Aether to be merged. lol.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Even if they are moving West, it's ultimately dependent on the connection to that new datacenter. If the connections to their current one have been getting choked because the ISPs involved have shitty routing or can't handle the number of connections, we could see a global increase for everyone.

 

It's pretty early to tell what it's going to be like since SE doesn't offer any sort of pre-move testing.

[Flynn Bladebreaker]

If the ping ever does become worse for us EU peeps (though I've never had any lag problems here in the UK), I hope they'll at least acknowledge it and offer some discounts on transfers.

 

Of course I don't want to move away from the most popular RP server, but I still play the game first and RP second. With that said, I think we need somewhere on the site that's easy to find and says RP server = Balmung. EU server = whatever there is. At the moment they're hard to find unless you know who to ask. Just something to consider.

 

Yes, click on linkshells/FC tabs and it gives you Balmung/Gilgamesh/Other. A little vague IMO

[Unnamed Mercenary]

If the ping ever does become worse for us EU peeps (though I've never had any lag problems here in the UK), I hope they'll at least acknowledge it and offer some discounts on transfers.

 

Of course I don't want to move away from the most popular RP server, but I still play the game first and RP second. With that said, I think we need somewhere on the site that's easy to find and says RP server = Balmung. EU server = whatever there is. At the moment they're hard to find unless you know who to ask. Just something to consider.

 

Yes, click on linkshells/FC tabs and it gives you Balmung/Gilgamesh/Other. A little vague IMO

 

This is something I'd love to do. But the topic gets brought up often with little else. Adding tabs and tags is easy enough, but building out a "community" on another server to a point that new players want to choose it over Balmung has been a stuggle of every other server mentioned on the RPC. (Even Gilgamesh. But Jenova and Siren have caught my eye and Mateus has a few in the Halls.)

 

For such a thing to take off, there'd need to be a lot of build-up, encouragement and coordination. ...which people usually just don't want to do when Balmung is there and already primed. But that's off-topic for this thread.

 

It's important to note that RPC doesn't control where RPers go. And it's been the stance of past and present staff to remain as neutral as possible in that subject. (Especially after the Balmung vs gilgamesh threads of old).

[Virella]

If only there was an EU RP server :

[Kage]

The maintenance schedule for each data center is as following:

 

Aether / Primal Data Center Worlds

From Monday, May 15, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 48 hours

 

Elemental / Gaia / Mana / Chaos Data Center Worlds

From Tuesday, May 16, 2017 12:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 17, 2017 12:00 a.m. (PDT) * 24 hours

[Kellach Woods]

We can't say for sure what the increased ping will be but if they're giving a warning it may be bad.

 

It may just be to cover their asses when people inevitably complain that it is higher.

 

It's also to give a warning to people who've been relying on literally "the server is like 20 minutes from my place" ping.

 

(I'll be sad when that's gone ;.

[Kage]

Reminder that this is HAPPENING!!! in less than a week. Make sure your gardens aren't going to be affected!!

[Aldotsk]

Hopes of adding way more wards than before due to this transfer.

[Kage]

That's not happening at all lol

[Aldotsk]

That's not happening at all lol

Figures. When has this game given hopes for players to earn what they want?

 

Amount of inventory space and Armory Chest space they are giving is pretty small for a "huge" data transfer to another place.

 

I am just taking a grain of salt from this news.

[Kage]

That's not happening at all lol

Figures. When has this game given hopes for players to earn what they want?

 

Amount of inventory space and Armory Chest space they are giving is pretty small for a "huge" data transfer to another place.

 

I am just taking a grain of salt from this news.

Did you actually read the forum post quote I put in the OP? There's a few good, major reasons for this relocation and upgrade.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

That's not happening at all lol

Figures. When has this game given hopes for players to earn what they want?

 

Amount of inventory space and Armory Chest space they are giving is pretty small for a "huge" data transfer to another place.

 

I am just taking a grain of salt from this news.

 

They specifically said in a live letter that the inventory increases we're getting will be scaled based on 4.0 launch performance and stability. It's not a whole lot now, but they plan on increasing it as long as the server strain isn't too bad.

 

But among other things, moving data centers is a HUGE undertaking. I'm not sure how many people actually understand the scope of this. It's not as simple as a drag and drop of some files. Or just physically moving some servers. The way I see it, they have the ability to expand, which is critical for a game like this.

 

Some people might remember that when 2.0 launched, they had to do a ton of server architecture adjustments. And then they had to do the same in 3.0. And during all of that, they were also buying additional servers to run this game. Part of the reason their moving is that their current datacenter was full. So full they couldn't let the machines max out because of electrical strain.

 

To the regular player, they might not even notice what under the hood changes have taken place. But that's also pretty important itself.

[Aldotsk]

That's not happening at all lol

Figures. When has this game given hopes for players to earn what they want?

 

Amount of inventory space and Armory Chest space they are giving is pretty small for a "huge" data transfer to another place.

 

I am just taking a grain of salt from this news.

 

They specifically said in a live letter that the inventory increases we're getting will be scaled based on 4.0 launch performance and stability. It's not a whole lot now, but they plan on increasing it as long as the server strain isn't too bad.

 

But among other things, moving data centers is a HUGE undertaking. I'm not sure how many people actually understand the scope of this. It's not as simple as a drag and drop of some files. Or just physically moving some servers. The way I see it, they have the ability to expand, which is critical for a game like this.

 

Some people might remember that when 2.0 launched, they had to do a ton of server architecture adjustments. And then they had to do the same in 3.0. And during all of that, they were also buying additional servers to run this game. Part of the reason their moving is that their current datacenter was full. So full they couldn't let the machines max out because of electrical strain.

 

To the regular player, they might not even notice what under the hood changes have taken place. But that's also pretty important itself.

 

I get the fact stability is important, such as how HW launch ended up having multiple channels to allow people to get through Central Coerthas Highlands. 

 

It's just kind of a questionable matter to me for other matters. Since those limitations has caused enough trouble for myself since I am actually running out of space and such.

 

They did mention via live letter that they are adding couple of spaces first, which I am happy to hear. But I did hope that they'd give a bit more than that for first phase.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I get the fact stability is important, such as how HW launch ended up having multiple channels to allow people to get through Central Coerthas Highlands. 

 

It's just kind of a questionable matter to me for other matters. Since those limitations has caused enough trouble for myself since I am actually running out of space and such.

 

They did mention via live letter that they are adding couple of spaces first, which I am happy to hear. But I did hope that they'd give a bit more than that for first phase.

 

But they explained why they can't just do that. While I don't think their current method of handling item data is particularly smart (loading all items in on any zone), it does explain why increasing that could potentially scale poorly.

 

While negligible on a single character, the data used has to scale to every character currently logged in. So while 10 more items on 1 character's nothing, for 10 characters, it becomes 100, and for 100 characters, it becomes 1000. And so on. Any particular zone would need to be able to handle all the characters trying to use an item at the same time (although pretty unlikely) which could cause some pretty severe packet congestion and affect gameplay.

 

...it'd be a fun thought experiment to give everyone at the Grindstone some fireworks and have them light them all at the same time to see how it'd affect the server.

[Kage]

Q28: There was an announcement regarding inventory slot expansion, but we would like to know which inventory (inventory/Armoury chest) is being increased and by how much!

 

A28: We received comments that the Armoury chest and inventory could not be expanded due to PS3 limitations, but the two are separate issues. When players move areas or go into instances, all item data is being moved along with the character, so if we were to add additional item slots without much thought, the amount of data being transferred could become ridiculous, network usage would skyrocket, and servers could go down.

 

With this in mind, in Patch 4.0 we will implement the first inventory expansion, take a look at the state of the servers, then prepare for additional expansions.

 

The Armoury chest will receive 10 extra slots for each category of equipment, while the item inventory will be increased by 40 slots.

 

* During the stream we showed off images of the updated UI.

 

I am also discussing with our server programmer Kasuga whether we can utilize other methods to efficiently increase inventory space.