Final Fantasy XIV’s recent boom in popularity has left a lot of players on the outside looking in due to overcrowding. WithEndwalkeron the horizon and a recent shift away fromWorld of Warcraft, the game recently broke itsall-time concurrent player counton Steam while also creating a swathe of new problems for the team. In response, series directorNaokiYoshidaannounced thata series of changes are comingto help players get in the game.
Yoshida acknowledges that the long login and character creation times are due to a swell of new players coming to the game in all regions, leaving some players waiting as long as 40 minutes to play. In an effort to combat the issues in the short term, the team recently upgraded the North American data center capacities to 18,000 players.
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In the long term,FFXIVwill likely see expanded data centers and servers. According to Yoshida, the COVID-19 pandemic has inhibited the team’s ability to work physically with the data centers and caused delays in receiving the servers they requested. On a more positive note, he stated that the Oceania data center is progressing well which will certainly provide some relief to the game’s current situation. Moreover, the likelihood of additional data centers and servers in the future is encouraging for any further influxes of players.
For Yoshida and the team behindFFXIV, the surge of the game has created some unique and unexpected challenges, but it still thrills them to see the love for the game the fans have. In his statement, he acknowledged the duty he felt he had to the players, stating the following:
As producer, the responsibility for being unable to predict the current influx of new players falls to me. The days before an expansion’s launch are supposed to be ones of excitement, but instead they’ve brought many players grief, and for that I, personally, am extremely sorry.
