Square Enix has announced that they have opened a new data center based in Europe to give European players better service. The Chaos server will be relocated to the new center and the publisher strongly recommends that European players migrate to it.
”Furthermore, all Worlds within the Chaos data center are scheduled to undergo maintenance for three to five days while the transfer takes place,” warns Square Enix, ”All character data saved on the Chaos data center will be transferred automatically. There will be no need to change settings on the launcher or in the Data Center Selection interface after logging in, nor will you be required to undergo additional procedures prior to the transfer.”
One of the benefits of Europeans playing on the Chaos service is that ”players residing in Europe should experience reduced network latency and lag when playing on any Worlds within the Chaos data center.”
As for costs, players who are unable to login to their account during maintenance will receive extra days added to their subscription timer. In addition, ”Because the Chaos data center is being relocated, certain players may find they are no longer playing on a desirable World. In order to address this issue, players will be allowed to transfer from Worlds within the Chaos data center to Worlds within the Elemental, Gaia, Mana, Aether, or Primal data centers free of charge for one week.”
This is important for North American players currently on Chaos, since they will experience lag after the server migration. Square Enix offers a FAQ for those who wish to transfer.