Last month, due to the overwhelming queue times to access Final Fantasy XIV servers, digital game sales and certain services were suspended until things calmed down. Now, Square Enix is preparing to allow fresh accounts to be created in a couple of weeks.
According to a developer blog post, January 25 will be the date digital sales of Final Fantasy XIV will be resumed. The move coincides with the already-planned opening of a new Oceanian data center, bringing five new worlds into existence, hopefully alleviating congestion on other worlds. This also means the suspended Home World Transfer Service will also be brought back on January 25, letting players bring their character to these new servers, or elsewhere barring any limitations imposed on still-overpopulated worlds. The often-memed free trial for FFXIV will continue to be frozen for the time being.
Also on the docket is the Data Center Travel System, which expands players’ ability to visit other worlds to play with friends or quest/etc. Currently, a similar functionality is present in game, but only allows you to visit worlds that share a data center with your character’s home world. However, with the new Data Center Travel System, you’ll be able travel to servers housed within a different data center. There are some restrictions however, as listed on the blog post.
- Players will be able to visit Worlds in other logical data centers within the same physical data center.
- Players will not be able to visit Worlds in other regions/physical data centers.
- Though cross-region travel is technically possible, implementation is still under consideration.
- Travel is initiated not while logged into the game, but from the character selection screen.
FFXIV producer Naoki Yoshida says in the post, “there are just about no restrictions. Be it undertaking quests, forming parties, or using the Duty Finder, you’ll be able to play the game as usual.” Some communication services won’t be available when traveling to another data center, though, so arrange for another means of chatting with your Free Company or home world friends if necessary.
Other data centers around the globe also have updates planned in the coming months and years, letting even more people play at the same time. You can read all about those expansions in the developer blog post here.
Have you been playing FFXIV: Endwalker? What do you think about the latest expansion? Let us know in the comments!