The new addon of Final Fantasy XIV, Shadowbringers has launched today. However, pre-order customers have been able to enjoy the new content since Friday. And almost without any problems.
This is how Early Access went: Early Access for the new addon Shadowbringers began on June 28 and lasted throughout the weekend. During this time, there were only sporadic server issues, which were quickly resolved.
Players in the login queues still number in the thousands. However, this was to be expected with a major addon like Shadowbringers.
The developers anticipated a large influx and prepared accordingly. The community describes it as one of the cleanest and smoothest launches they have ever experienced.
These measures were taken by Square Enix: A week before Early Access, Square Enix added two completely new servers to the European data centers. This was intended to alleviate the existing servers and to distribute the player population more evenly.
But other measures were also taken:
- Maximum number of players per world has been increased
- Fixed queues for logging into servers and joining instances were introduced
- Players were automatically logged out if they were absent for more than 30 minutes
- The new World Visit System allowed players to travel to servers that were less stressed than their own and continue playing there
- New areas were split into multiple instances to relieve them
Director Yoshida emphasized during a live stream that the development team is closely monitoring the status of the servers to prevent potential issues or respond quickly.
“I am proud of Square Enix”
This is how players reacted: On Reddit, players celebrated the smooth Early Access and launch of Shadowbringers. In a large thread, many thanked for the hassle-free gaming experience.
They have learned so much from Stormblood. I love this company so much.
Deathfromthatside on Reddit
Especially praised was the foresight of the team and their quick reactions to the small problems that still arose. For example, it took no more than 15 minutes to repair the instance servers on the Aether data center, according to one of the players in the thread.
Other players jokingly said that Director Yoshida and his team must be making many enemies in the gaming industry: First they managed to successfully reboot an MMORPG, and now they are releasing a massive expansion without major issues or serious bugs.
Oh, how they [the FFXIV team] must be hated by the rest of the industry right now.
rd77g on Reddit
User HavocTom wrote: “The fact that I was able to log in and start playing within 3 minutes after Early Access began is shocking. There was very little lag […] I am really proud of Square Enix.”
This is what players were expecting: At the launch of the last expansion, Stormblood, there were significant problems with the instance servers that entered the collective memory of fans as “Raubahn Ex”. These problems caused players to be unable to progress in the story for days.
Therefore, many feared that there could be a repeat of “Raubahn Ex” with Shadowbringers. However, they were very positively surprised. The queue system for instantiated content served its purpose and prevented a similar incident from occurring again.
These problems did occur nevertheless: The data centers Chaos and Primal experienced some crashes during Early Access. According to Square Enix, this was due to a DDoS attack on the servers.
Players were kicked from the game and had to wait in long queues to continue playing. There were also sporadic issues on various servers that were quickly resolved.
This is what comes next: For July, Final Fantasy XIV has already prepared a roadmap with new content that players can look forward to:
- On July 16, the next raid called “Eden” will come and continue the story of Shadowbringers.
- On July 30, the epic mode of the raid will be released, where players can fight new powerful bosses and farm gear.
- In autumn, the next major content patch 5.1 will be released, bringing the 24-man raid “YoRHa Apocalypse”, which is based on Nier Automata.
Things will continue at the same pace as before.
