For the first time since Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched, back in January 2022, Square Enix rolled out a new data center region for Final Fantasy XIV Online known as ‘Materia’, covering the OCE region including South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. This was due to the rising popularity of the game’s fan base in this region – but with its players finding themselves serviced by Japanese or North American servers – and distant European servers if you followed the default suggested servers.
More than two years have passed since the Materia Data Center opened its doors, and it still enjoys an active close-knit community. But while it has its loyal defenders, being isolated from the other, much more popular data centers, population numbers does pose challenges. However a small testing period starting 25 March 2024 will see Materia shine under the spotlight, as it will serve as the hub for the inaugural ‘Cross-Region Data Center Travel’ testing.
Released several years ago, players gained the ability to travel within worlds across their chosen data center. However, despite interest and the seemingly technological possibility of enabling cross-data center travel, this was never implemented due to issues like “market economy” and “social norms”, such as:
Our system is capable of facilitating cross-region travel, but we are still evaluating this functionality in light of the often substantial differences in market economy and social norms between data centers. We will continue to take community feedback into account as we consider whether this functionality should be enabled.
While it has meant that friends may play separate from others, it was arguably a more profound issue for those in the Oceanic region, with players suddenly given the option of either playing with less lag and a more regionally-aligned player base, or giving that up and staying with their friends. Being part of the close-knit community of Australian players across Kujata and Tonberry, we experienced a sort of schism, where half-to-two-thirds travelling to Materia, while the remainder of us staying on our original servers. Friendships were cut short, Free Companies disappeared overnight, and the community bond and events ceasing.
It seems like they are loosening their requirements and at least trialing the possibility of more permanently implementing Cross-Region Data Center Travel, at least under the guise of allowing players to enjoy a “limited form of cross-region travel”, under the guise of allowing players to deal with expected substantial login queues upon the release of Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail by transferring to a less-populated physical data center. If it means the OCE community can once again unite, all the better in my books.
This trial will start from 25 March 2024 and run until the launch of Version 7.0, and will come with the following specifics:
- It will be possible to temporarily travel from the Japanese, North American and European data center worlds to the Oceanian data center. Should the trial conclude, it will still be possible for players who travelled to Materia, to transfer their character back to their home world.
- Players on the Oceanian data center will remain locked to the Oceanian data center.
- Limitations such as friend lists, blacklists, and cross-world linkshells will be in effect. Additionally, you cannot join Community Finder recruitments for cross-world linkshells on other physical data centers.
For more information, click HERE.
