As far as actual physical server locations, it is my understanding that they have always located all the servers in the same place, and the difference in location was the route over the internet that was taken to get to them. If you do a trace-route to each internet name for each server (my home server is lakesuperior.owo.com) you will see the difference in the number of hops it takes to get to each server. Optimally, the one you will have the best connection on is the one with the fewest "hops" to get there.
For example: My tracert to Lake superior (I live in Ft. Worth) and i am leaving out the first four hops that show my public address info.
5 210 ms 210 ms 212 ms so-10-1.hsa1.dallas1.level3.net [209.246.148.205
]
6 219 ms 219 ms 220 ms vlan51.csw1.dallas1.level3.net [4.68.122.30]
7 274 ms 220 ms 212 ms ae-13-69.car3.dallas1.level3.net [4.68.19.5]
8 210 ms 218 ms 8 ms level3-gw.dlstx.ip.att.net [192.205.34.137]
9 265 ms 248 ms 248 ms tbr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.123.16.206]
10 287 ms 252 ms 262 ms cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.18.197]
11 252 ms 255 ms 248 ms cr1.attga.ip.att.net [12.122.28.173]
12 258 ms 254 ms 253 ms cr2.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.1.174]
13 249 ms 248 ms 273 ms tbr1.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.16.22]
14 247 ms 290 ms 252 ms 12.122.113.13
15 248 ms 253 ms 249 ms 12.116.77.14
16 247 ms 247 ms 246 ms fert07-eqx-iad.ea.com [159.153.224.230]
17 249 ms 248 ms 247 ms 159.153.233.83
17 hops from me to LS. and note the last hop, remember that, because now we will look at a tracert from me to arirang, which is an asian shard.
5 210 ms 7 ms 7 ms so-10-1.hsa1.dallas1.level3.net [209.246.148.205
]
6 38 ms 69 ms 20 ms vlan52.csw2.dallas1.level3.net [4.68.122.62]
7 210 ms 20 ms 14 ms ae-73-73.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net [4.69.136.157]
8 88 ms 40 ms 49 ms ae-3.ebr2.losangeles1.level3.net [4.69.132.77]
9 250 ms 52 ms 40 ms ae-62-62.csw1.losangeles1.level3.net [4.69.137.1
8]
10 43 ms 52 ms 40 ms ae-63-63.ebr3.losangeles1.level3.net [4.69.137.3
3]
11 304 ms 53 ms 54 ms ae-2.ebr3.sanjose1.level3.net [4.69.132.9]
12 49 ms 49 ms 53 ms ae-73-73.csw2.sanjose1.level3.net [4.69.134.230]
13 59 ms 251 ms 48 ms ae-11-79.car1.sanjose2.level3.net [4.68.18.75]
14 259 ms 53 ms 54 ms 4.59.0.10
15 61 ms 49 ms 49 ms pacbb001.kddnet.ad.jp [124.211.34.121]
16 166 ms 151 ms 151 ms otecbb103.kddnet.ad.jp [203.181.100.221]
17 152 ms 198 ms 151 ms otejbb204.kddnet.ad.jp [59.128.4.65]
18 159 ms 159 ms 158 ms sjkrgs002.kddnet.ad.jp [203.181.99.98]
19 384 ms 157 ms 169 ms cm-sjk215.kddnet.ad.jp [59.128.6.186]
20 359 ms 160 ms 165 ms 125.29.24.42
21 417 ms 182 ms 159 ms 203.190.238.118
22 164 ms 206 ms 163 ms 1a16-vl628-ea.tyo.equinix.com [202.177.202.150]
23 165 ms 159 ms 159 ms fert01-eqx-nrt.ea.com [159.153.172.3]
24 373 ms 158 ms 170 ms 159.153.173.130
As you can see, 24 hops, and yes, arirang is laggy for me. But note the last hop on both. Same public network (first two octets or public IP are the same.) OSI is routing me from my house, to dallas, to japan, then back to California to the UO server farm.
Hope this clears up alot.