Gaming
'Final Fantasy XIV' is getting new servers and will go back on sale soon
This comes after Square Enix previously halted sales due to overcrowded servers.
A month ago, Square Enix told Final Fantasy XIV players that it would stop sales of the game to prevent further server overcrowding. FFXIV game devs weren’t able to expand their servers to match their community due to the ongoing chip shortage, but now, Square Enix has a plan.
This week, the company shared its plans to add new data centers around the world and resume FFXIV game sales by January 25th (Japan Standard Time). The game’s producer and director, Naoki Yoshida, wrote at length about the issue and detailed the planned solutions.
Square Enix will be expanding upon its data centers for FFXIV in Japan, Europe and North America, with plans to also add a new data center for the Oceania region.
Oceania — The Oceanian data center will launch on January 25 (JST) along with five new Worlds for the region. For those currently playing in Oceania on other region’s servers, this means a move is imminent. All Oceania accounts will be transferred over for free to the new servers.
Unfortunately, this means that many may be separated from existing friends, but it appears that the Oceanic servers are a necessary move to help solve the game’s overpopulation issues.
Other new servers — In Japan, Square Enix will be adding a new data center, bringing the country’s total count from three to four. There will also be a new data center established in North America, along with eight new Worlds added over the next year and a half. The first four NA worlds will be added August of this year, and the next four for NA will go live mid-2023.
In Europe, Square Enix will be adding four new Worlds by July 2022, with plans to create a new data center and eight more Worlds by the summer of 2023.
Special features — As these data center upgrades and expansions go into effect, Square Enix will be resuming and adding features for FFXIV players as well. In the 6.1x patch, players can expect a Data Center Travel System feature that enables cross-World travel as long as the other World is also within the same data center.
Players won’t be able to visit other regions, however, and the FFXIV is still debating on how that would work and whether they want to add that feature.
The Home World Transfer service has been scheduled to resume on January 26 (JST), giving all players the ability to change home Worlds. That being said, players may not be able to transfer to more congested Worlds, so transfer options may be limited until devs add more Worlds.
New digital sales — For those looking to jump into the world of FFXIV for the first time, you’re in luck. Digital sales of the game are set to resume at 5pm on January 25 (JST). But if servers are still congested or become crowded again, sales may be re-suspended.
Anyone who wants a free trial will have to be patient or pay up, though. Square Enix won’t be bringing back free trials for FFXIV until the devs monitor “server stability a while longer.”
A bright future — While the FFXIV team appears to have come up with a robust solution to their server congestion problems, Yoshida shared that “Work on bolstering the servers will continue into 2023.”
The team isn’t just working on servers, though — players can also expect new content for the game, a new expansion coming in patch 7.0 and “a few announcements” coming from the FFXIV team at the end of next month.
