With the launch of patch 4.5, American and European players of Final Fantasy XIV will receive new data centers and servers. However, they are not very happy about it.
What happened? At the fan festival in Las Vegas, the director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, announced that the EU and US data centers hosting the servers would be split. Additionally, the European data center will receive two completely new servers, whose names are not yet known.
This measure is intended to ensure higher stability of the servers with the growing number of players. However, this results in the redistribution of the existing servers.
Why are the players angry? Immediately after the announcement of this change, the first threads with comments on the topic appeared in the official forums and on Reddit. Many players were not thrilled by the news that their server had ended up on a different data center due to redistribution.
Many of them had formed new friendships through cross-server party searches. However, players on different data centers cannot play together, meaning many of them are now being torn apart.
The new distribution is especially a big problem for raiders and PvP players. Many raid and PvP groups consist of players who are all on different servers. The splitting of the data centers will tear many groups apart. The top comment in the thread about the American server distribution was:
Yoshi-P, The Destroyer of Statics.
Another player wrote:
I hate this so much. It’s awful. The party search will be empty and raiders, players working on content, will have to choose between their friends and their group.
The European thread is full of such comments. While many players understand the necessity of separating highly populated servers, they are not happy with the solution. However, there are also players who believe that the servers are too empty to justify such a split.
What does the new server distribution look like?
European players will receive the new data center “Light” and one new server per center:
American players will receive the new data center “Crystal”:
What are the consequences? The players will have to decide during the restructuring of the servers whether to stay on their current server or migrate to another. However, migrating is often not an option.
Many players have one or more houses, guilds, and friends on their servers that they do not want to leave. So it is often a choice between a rock and a hard place. Either you lose your belongings or you have to find a new raid group.
Are there also advantages? To accommodate the players, Yoshida promised benefits for those who decide or are forced to switch servers.
- The server transfer will be free for a certain period
- The restriction on the maximum amount of money you can take with you during the transfer will be increased to 999,999,999 Gil
- Players who lose a house during the transfer will receive the entire amount of money they paid for it back
- Another 3 million Gil will be paid as compensation for furniture
- The same goes for players who lose apartments. They will receive a total of 1 million Gil
Additionally, one can assume that the two new servers will have completely empty housing areas where new players can set up as they please. However, whether that will be a sufficient reason remains to be seen.
For more information about the Shadowbringers expansion, you can find it here:
Final Fantasy XIV: AddOn Shadowbringers fulfills fans’ wishes
