Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida shared an update regarding congestion of servers and worlds in the game. With many players leaving World of Warcraft and new players diving into the world of Hydaelyn for the first time, congestion became an issue. As a result, Square Enix is planning to expand data centers and introduce more worlds to host players. The company needs more time to implement these solutions due to the shortages, increase in demand for semiconductors and the coronavirus pandemic. With Patch 5.58 hotfix maintenance, all worlds on the Aether data center will be classified as congested for the foreseeable future. Read up on Naoki Yoshida’s full message below:
Greetings FINAL FANTASY XIV players! This is your producer & director, Naoki Yoshida.
I’d like to say a huge thank you for the support from our players around the world, including those of you who recently started your adventures in FFXIV. On the other hand, the number of simultaneous logins has continued to hit the upper limit, especially in the case of the North American and European Data Centers and Worlds, and as such I’d like to provide an update regarding the current situation and the need to designate certain Worlds as Congested.
Increased Login Caps for European Data Centers
During the Patch 5.58 Hotfix maintenance scheduled for August 24, we will be changing the operating system settings for the server configuration of the European Data Centers, and the login cap will be increased once we have confirmed stability post-maintenance. Furthermore, in late September, we are also planning to replace some of our equipment with high-performance machines to further increase the cap.
We’ve observed considerable levels of congestion on the European Data Centers over the past few weeks, especially during weekends. Though login queues have been quite long, please rest assured that they are working properly. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we ask that you continue to wait for your turn to log in should you encounter a queue.
Classifying All Aether Data Center Worlds as Congested
As of the Patch 5.58 Hotfix maintenance, all Worlds on the Aether Data Center have been classified as Congested. Despite expanding the maximum capacity as much as possible and closely monitoring the situation, the number of logins for each World have constantly remained at full capacity, which led to us taking this course of action.
This means players will be unable to create new characters on any World on the Aether Data Center until this classification is lifted. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause for those of you who were looking forward to embarking on adventures with friends.
Were the number of characters to increase any further, it could result in login queues taking up to several hours, which is why we needed to take this approach. In the meantime, we kindly request that you consider creating a character on a World within the Primal or Crystal Data Centers, though we’re aware that they are currently quite congested as well.
Once again, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause for our players on the North American Data Centers.
Addition of New Worlds and Other Large-scale Solutions for Each Data Center
To address the congestion situation, our Infrastructure and Development teams are working closely to plan large-scale solutions such as expanding our data centers or adding new Worlds. As previously mentioned, however, there is an ongoing global shortage and increased demand for semiconductors, and quite frankly, we are still struggling to source the required equipment. Additionally, the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Japan has raised major concerns regarding our ability to travel overseas for on-site implementations. These setbacks have made it difficult for us to cut down on the time required for implementation.
Considering the current situation, we will likely require more time in implementing our large-scale solutions. The circumstances surrounding our infrastructure are far from ideal, but I promise that we will continue to persevere in implementing any solutions we can!
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Naoki Yoshida
FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker releases on November 23rd for PS4, PS5 and PC. Lastly, early access begins on November 19th. Stay tuned at Final Weapon for the latest Japanese gaming news and updates!
