The new expansion Endwalker of Final Fantasy XIV started early access on December 3rd, 2021, but was immediately overwhelmed, leading to the suspension of the game’s sales. How is the MMORPG doing 1.5 months after the release of the expansion?
How did the launch go? Even before the early access of Endwalker began, FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida warned players in a blog post that there would be long queues when logging in. And that’s exactly what happened.
Although the servers went online at the announced time, huge queues formed immediately. On some servers, the queue length exceeded 8,000 players. Moreover, errors 2002 and 5006 kept recurring, throwing players out of the queue and forcing them to start over.
The servers themselves remained relatively stable, except for some crashes on Phoenix and Tonberry. It often took many hours for players to finally log in.
What has happened since the release?
This is how the FFXIV team reacted to the overcrowding: To cope with the high demand, the developers implemented several measures before and after early access. They were designed to ensure server stability and to shorten wait times as much as possible.
These included:
- An auto-logout system that kicks inactive players out of the game.
- Instanced areas to distribute player load.
- Queues only for subscription holders. Free trial players had to wait until the queues dissolved.
After several weeks with no improvement in wait times when logging in, Director Yoshida announced that further measures would be taken:
- Sales of FFXIV will be completely suspended
- The free trial version has been suspended
- The marketing of FFXIV was suspended as much as contractually possible
- Players received a total of 3 weeks of free game time as compensation
Developer servers were also added to stabilize login and the cause of the annoying error 2002 was addressed.
This is what happens next: So far, the queues have mostly stabilized at the level before the expansion. Even during peak hours in the evenings or on weekends, queues rarely exceed 500 players and move quickly.
The great rush for the expansion is over, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be server problems again. Therefore, the FFXIV team is now planning far ahead and preparing several new data centers for the long term to prevent a repetition of the Endwalker situation.
The first 5 servers of the Oceanian data center will go online on January 25th. The switch to these servers will be free for all players and will include various bonuses such as temporary EXP boosts.
Players from other regions will have to wait a little longer. New data centers will only be added in Europe, the USA, and Japan in summer 2022.
A year later, in summer 2023, a second expansion is planned. Presumably as a preparation for the expansion 7.0. An earlier installation of new servers was not possible due to the global semiconductor shortage.
On January 25th, the digital sales of FFXIV will also resume. However, the trial version will remain deactivated for the time being. Director Yoshida wants to first observe the situation and later decide whether and when that should happen. The instancing of the areas and the auto-logout will likely remain for the time being.
Endwalker receives top scores on Metacritic
This is what critics say: Despite the server issues and queues, Endwalker was very well received by both players and critics. On Metacritic, the expansion received a score of 92 from critics and an impressive 9.5 user score.
This made Endwalker the highest-rated user game of 2021, surpassing titles like It Takes Two (9.2 points) and Monster Hunter Rise (9.0 points).
It is also the highest-rated FFXIV expansion on Metacritic, surpassing Shadowbringers, which was the previous titleholder.
Especially praised were the high-quality story, which concludes the Hydaelyn-Zodiark saga with much emotion, and the overall polished gaming experience. There were hardly any notable bugs or other issues that usually mar the gaming experience for players during new launches.
Accordingly, many fans were willing to forgive the FFXIV team the server problems, and there was no shitstorm.
The first part of the Pandaemonium raid is here
This content has already been released: Since the release of Endwalker, there have already been two smaller content updates that went live on December 21st and January 4th. They included the first part of Pandaemonium, an 8-man raid in normal and epic modes.
In the epic mode, there was again a brief race for the world first kill, accompanied by a charity stream. Organized by community members led by podcaster Frosty Mogborn, the stream raised a total of $27,420 for “Extra Life 4 Kids”.
The favorites from the US team “Thoughts per Second” of the Free Company “Radiance” on the Gilgamesh server secured first place in the race, achieving the last boss of the raid about 14 hours after the patch’s release.
With a gap of almost two hours, “Aether Group 3” took second place, followed by “Entropy” in third. Director Yoshida congratulated the winners in a tweet.
More info in February
This is what happens next: In an interview on Radio Mogstation, Director Yoshida announced that fans can expect a larger developer stream in February. It will present information about the big patch 6.1 and beyond. According to Yoshida, the information might even extend to the next expansion 7.0 which doesn’t yet have an official name but is already in the works.
The confirmed contents of patch 6.1 are as follows:
- 24-man raid Eorzea’s Myths.
- Major changes in PvP, such as a new mode.
- The housing area of Ishgard called Empyrium.
- Travel between data centers of a region will be possible (for example, between Chaos and Light in Europe).
In the February stream, fans will learn how the story of FFXIV will continue. Endwalker was the grand conclusion of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark storyline. Now a fresh story is set to begin where players are no longer “Warriors of Light”, but regular adventurers.
Further information is also expected about the new PvP system and the new content Island Paradise, which sounds like a sort of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing within FFXIV.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker gives you your own island like in Animal Crossing
