@JuggernautGTX said in PSO2 in EU/ steam/ other platforms/regions ?:
one question to those who actually know about this kinda stuff...is it possible to release PSO2NG on a single server for the global audience? as in having 1 data server with different ships on it for everyone? or would that be impossible to do and completly out of reach?
Yes and no. It is possible, though technically it would not be one single server, but multiple servers constantly syncing with one another. I believe FFXIV is looking to do something similar to allow for cross data server gameplay. However, it is a very ambitious thing.
I'll use FFXIV's current set up as the example as PSO2NA uses cloud servers which I don't have as thorough of an understanding as a traditional server setup. Also note, this isn't my area of expertise. I am simply referring to an explanation a friend of mine who does these sort of things as their career.
In FFXIV there are currently data centers in North America, Europe, and Japan. These data centers are separate and currently do not, under general circumstances, transfer data or otherwise communicate with one another. For cross data center to be a thing, there would need to essentially be a cross region communication data center in each region that communicates with the nearest regional data center while syncing up with the other cross region communication data centers.
So say this was set up and someone in North America wanted to play with a friend in Japan. The regional data center in North America would be transferring data to and from the cross region communication data center which is constantly syncing data between it and the other cross region communication data center, like the cross region communication data center in Japan that is communicating with the Japanese regional data center. It's an incredibly modern networking method and a very expensive one to implement. However, it is possible to have low latency long distance communication between two distant legions.
So it would technically be possible for PSO2 to do this. I am not sure if it is a good idea for PSO2 to do it, due to the differences between the NA and JP servers. It may be possible with NGS due to how it is a new system and it can standardize the items that are brought in from PSO2. There would still be a language barrier, but that can be dealt with. I believe it was possible in PSO1, when it was on the Dreamcast, for NA and JP players to play together. There was a world select system that allowed for preset phrases to be translated across different languages. However, it would still be an astronomical amount of work and also cost an astronomical amount.
I wouldn't mind this being possible, especially if it opens the possibility of being able to server transfer to Japan... mostly for personal reasons. Before covid-19 caused everything to go into lockdown, I was actually in the process of being interviewed for a potential internship in Japan that could had lead to a full time job after my graduation. While current circumstances have basically put that on indefinite hold, I'm hoping that it may happen sometime in the future and it would be really nice to be able to be able to keep using my character in PSO2. I doubt this would ever happen, but I can dream.