When FFXIV Players Can Expect New Servers

Fans of Final Fantasy XIV have been waiting for server space to increase and news of the developments team’s progress was recently posted online. Even before the announcement of Endwalker, the player population has skyrocketed in the past year. This growth is partially attributed to the decline in popularity of competing MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. Streaming services, such as Twitch, have had a spike in viewership too as more streamers have decided to try out the game. Surprisingly, FFXIV has become so popular that the publisher has had to temporarily stop selling the Starter and Complete Editions. Recently, Game Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida gave fans an update on the creation of new servers and when players can expect further updates.

Around the release of a new expansion is typically when a great surge of players log into the game and the Endwalker release on December 7, 2021, has proven to be no different. Fans that have a character on populated servers are experiencing large queue sizes, taking hours to dissipate, just to start their adventures for the day. Since then, the development team has done what they can to optimize the servers and lower wait times. The login cap has been raised, a shorter AFK timer has been implemented, and paying subscribers are prioritized over free trial users. Even with these systems in place, players in FFXIV: Endwalker are still receiving error 2002. The one solution to the number of adventurers joining the game is the addition of new servers, but this is also proving to be an issue.

Yoshida, affectionately known in the fandom as Yoshi-P, wrote in a post on The Lodestone about the problems he and the rest of the development team have been facing recently. He stated, “Since July 2021, in order to accommodate the significant increase of new players, we have been working towards building a new logical data center and adding new Worlds.” These features would be a wonderful addition to the game and help alleviate the stress on the current servers. He mentioned in a previous post that the global shortage of semiconductors, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, had hampered the team’s progress. He also mentions a “physical shortage of server equipment” has been a result of the chip scarcity. The popularity of FFXIV: Endwalker has proven the biggest problem is the limit on production from the pandemic.

How Long FFXIV Players Will Have To Wait For New Servers

Unfortunately, fans will have to wait longer before more World servers are added to the game. In the post, Yoshi-P says, “a single logical data center requires hundreds of servers.” The volume of adventurers trying to enter the game proves to be too much for FFXIV to handle. Error 2002 is necessary for everyone to continue playing by resetting the queue. No specific date was mentioned as to when the new servers might be ready, but the post did mention a possible “roadmap by the end of January 2022.”

The development team is under a lot of pressure to keep the game running amidst a global pandemic. They are doing all they can to make experiencing the new expansion as smooth as possible. Players have discussed online whether the use of session timers and not queues in FFXIV: Endwalker would keep a better flow of fans coming into the game. This change would have its own positive and negative outcomes too. Until more details are given, fans will be eagerly awaiting more news regarding new servers for Final Fantasy XIV.

Source: FFXIV Lodestone

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