The developers of Final Fantasy XIV expect high server load, wait times, error codes, and restrictions at the launch of the expansion Dawntrail. To ensure that all Eorzea heroes start their trip to Tural with the right expectations, there is now a very extensive blog post from Square Enix.
Update from June 26, 2024: Today at 11 AM, the servers of Final Fantasy XIV will go offline to prepare for the launch of the upcoming expansion. If all goes well, the worlds are expected to be back live 48 hours later.
Update from June 20, 2024: The developers have now announced on the official Lodestone of Final Fantasy XIV how long the maintenance for the upcoming expansion Dawntrail is expected to last:
- Maintenance of all worlds: From June 26, 2024, at 11 AM to June 28, 2024, at 11 AM
- Update availability – PS5/PS4/Xbox: From June 26, 2024, at 1 PM
- Update availability – Windows/Mac/Steam: From June 27, 2024, at 5 PM
- Companion App maintenance: From June 26, 2024, at 9 AM to June 28, 2024, at 12 PM
- Mogry Station maintenance: From June 26, 2024, at 9 AM to June 28, 2024, at 12 PM
What warnings do the developers of Final Fantasy XIV give? Square Enix expects an “increased number of simultaneous logins” for the early access on June 28, 2024, as well as for the actual release on July 2, 2024. If the number of logging Eorzea heroes is too high, there will be queues, restrictions, and error messages.
- If a world reaches the maximum number of players who can log in, a queue for that world will be created. Those who leave the queue and log in again will be placed at the end of the queue.
- To reduce overload, players who are inactive for 30 minutes will be automatically logged out.
- During the launch phase, it will not be possible to travel to the European data centers Chaos or Light.
- No new characters can be created on a heavily loaded world.
- When selecting a character in the character selection menu, “Error 2002” may be displayed. This error occurs when the login server is experiencing a high volume of players or when the number of characters in the login queue for a logical data center exceeds the maximum capacity.
- “Error 90002/90006” are general network errors caused by connection interruptions. If you see these errors, please check the status of your network environment.
- When moving to another area, error messages may inform you that this is not possible due to overload.
- There may be delays in certain instanced content, such as content required to progress in quests.
Tural beckons, among other things, in the new launch trailer for Final Fantasy XIV – Dawntrail:
Withstand the storm, this is how it’s supposed to work
What measures is Square Enix planning for the launch? Since the player numbers of FFXIV have significantly increased since the problematic launch of Endwalker (you may remember, there was even a sales stop), the team led by director and producer Naoki Yoshida has been preparing measures for weeks to make the launch phase as frustration-free as possible.
On June 11, 2024, the new data center Shadow went live for the European region. There you will find the four new worlds Innocence, Pixie, Titania, and Tycoon, which are supposed to temporarily provide refuge for your characters.
The new worlds will only be available during the launch of Dawntrail and can only be accessed via data center travel. If your server is plagued by long queues, you can use the service to temporarily switch to one of the new worlds.
The two new jobs of Final Fantasy XIV – Dawntrail in the video:
So this is how world transfer works:
- Open the character selection menu.
- Select the character you want to log in with and open the sub-menu.
- Select “World Transfer” or “Travel to another data center” to log in.
Even though there are restrictions when using the world travel, you can continue your quests in the main scenario, find groups through the group search, and participate in combat content with the content search.
What other measures have been taken? Since the release of Endwalker, the developers have increased the maximum capacity of all worlds by about 50 percent. Additionally, there is now the option to divide heavily frequented areas of the game world into multiple instances to allow more players access to these locations.
If there are queues when logging in, characters of full version owners will be prioritized when logging in. Characters of the free trial version can only log in once the queue has been cleared.
Also, be aware that you should not be inactive for too long at launch. After 30 minutes, inactive characters will be automatically logged out to make room for people in the queue. Additionally, further measures are being taken to minimize server crashes and provide players in queues with additional information.
If there are delays when logging in for content, your number in the queue will be displayed. How do you evaluate all these measures? Colleague Sophia Weiß has already played the expansion: I played the new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV and fell in love with the new class like from Sword Art Online
