Final Fantasy 14 producer Yoshida Naoki once again today apologized for the continued congestion on the game server. And at 4 pm on December 21st, a free 14-day playtime will be given again to players who have the full version of the international server-client and have a valid subscription.
The official decided to temporarily suspend the sales of the expansion client and the full version of the game, and stop publishing new advertisements for the game.
Specific Contents
Additional game time compensation
We know that the long waiting time to log in to the game prevents players from playing the game, and we apologize for that. To this end, we recently gave away 7 days of free game time, and now we will also give away an additional 14 days.
This will apply to all players (including players with multiple accounts) who have the full version of the game and have a valid subscription before 12:00 noon (Pacific Standard Time) on Tuesday, December 21, which is the scheduled release date of the patch. More detailed information about the 6.01. the version will be announced separately.
Temporarily stop sales of the expansion client and full version
As the game time-intensity far exceeds our server capacity, especially during peak hours, players are currently experiencing extremely long waiting times, so we decided to temporarily stop the game expansion client and full version sales. In addition, although players who have subscribed have priority to log in, players who play free trials cannot log in outside of late night and early morning, so we will temporarily stop new registrations for free trials.
As we work with retail partners, these temporary suspensions will be implemented gradually over the next few days. We will coordinate with them as soon as possible, and this will be a gradual process.
We will also suspend all new ads. Some ads that have been posted will not be affected due to platform settings. We thank you for your patience and understanding on this matter.
Expansion packs and collector’s edition digital upgrades will continue to be provided to existing players so that they can upgrade as needed.
For those relatives and friends who have already considered joining the game and our retail partners, we apologize for any inconvenience caused and ask for your understanding and cooperation to reduce congestion. We will continue to monitor the situation while considering the timing of resuming sales.
Error 2002 while waiting in the login queue
Regarding the error 2002 that occurred during the login queue, we have confirmed an error in addition to the reasons related to the unstable connection. This error was part of the login-related program created in FFXIV version 1.0, and thanks to reports and tests conducted by many of our players, we were able to determine the cause of the problem. We apologize for not being able to finalize the problem with us, and thank you all for submitting a detailed report on this matter.
Although the code to fix this bug is ready, applying this fix requires patching the game client, which will be resolved in patch 6.01, scheduled for Tuesday, December 21st. We considered releasing the patch in advance, but finally decided to include it in patch 6.01 because there is already a lot of new code in the patch pipeline, and interrupting the process of verifying them may cause other errors. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you, and ask you to wait patiently for a while.
Upcoming patch time
Due to the high level of congestion, we know that there has been a lot of discussion in the community about Pandæmonium: Asphodelos (Savage) in patch 6.05 on Tuesday, January 4, 2022. On this point, as long as there are no major problems, we plan to release patches as planned.
We know that some people are worried about the world’s No. 1 game and the progress of the first week, but the 6.05 patch will add many new elements, such as the addition of new Yarrago tombstones, new crafting recipes, and a new treasure hunt dungeon, the 6000 shakers.
Many players look forward to content other than high-end missions. In addition, considering the rewards of the above content and the balance of item levels, we can’t just keep Pandæmonium: Asphodelos (Barbarians). Rebalancing these will delay the release of the patch for a few weeks and will affect it. Patch 6.1 and higher.
We regret to say this is under severe congestion, but as mentioned earlier, unless there is a major issue, we plan to release patches as planned. We request your understanding and cooperation on this matter.
About adding new data centers and new worlds
Since 20217, in order to adapt to the substantial increase in the number of new players, we have been committed to building new data centers and adding new worlds. However, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, semiconductor production in manufacturing plants has been suspended, production has been reduced, and raw materials are shortages. We cannot make any supplements. Although we invested much more money than usual, our efforts to alleviate continued congestion were delayed due to the physical shortage of server equipment.
With the help of IT equipment suppliers from all over the world, we gradually began to receive information about delivery dates and numbers. Considering the high specification requirements of “FF14” servers, adding a single data center requires hundreds of servers. So we need more time, but we are beginning to see some progress. To this end, the server and infrastructure teams are jointly planning new features, and we hope to provide some kind of roadmap before the end of January 2022.
We are considering increasing servers in each region, especially the large-scale increase plan in North America and Europe. We will see whether we should do this in turn or a big push from the number of servers, infrastructure construction time, power supply issues, and server rack conditions. Either way, our plan is to introduce a lot of new content. We plan to do it quickly and safely, minimize the inconvenience caused to players, and actively follow up the matter and pay attention to the progress.