Naoki Yoshida, the Producer and Director of Final Fantasy XIV, has asked players to play as normal; not restraining themselves to ease busy servers.
The blog post discussed how the European data centers increased their Login Caps by 500 characters per server (or World); for a total of 6,000 across the data center. This is via “rotating some of the high-spec machines […] into a new configuration and optimizing our equipment accordingly.”
The emergency maintenance concluded yesterday for Europe, and the developers are still monitoring if this can be increased further while remaining stable. What would usually be a purely informative post about the update included a postscript from Yoshida, also known as Yoshi-P to fans.
Yoshida discussed some of commented on the previous post regarding the implementation of automatic log-outs after 30 minutes of inactivity, and apologies from himself and the team. It seems some players had discussed about being considerate to others.
One said they would “stop dancing in Limsa for a while,” one of the game’s major cities and social spaces. Another stated “I guess we shouldn’t log in to watch our monitors while we eat…”
“I myself have played many an MMO,” Yoshida stated, “so I know how watching other players bustle past during mealtimes physically and mentally prepares you for challenging dungeons later, and how a spontaneous dance performance can brighten everyone’s day. These are ways of roleplaying, and they are part of the fun of MMORPGs.”
While acknowledging that the fans were being considerate, and that such activities were part of the game, Yoshida stated that fans “don’t need to show so much restraint that you stop having fun!”
The new automatic log-out feature was stated as enough to handle the problems of busy servers. “Please continue to enjoy FFXIV in your own way, and show our new players how alive its world is with adventurers of all sorts,” Yoshida implored.
However, the automatic log-out is causing an issue for those fishing in the game, as it requires them to stay inactive for long periods of time to catch some of the more elusive targets. As making in-puts to prevent being booted from the game (much like a fish being pulled from the water), Yoshida and the team are discussing how to address the issue, and thank the fishing players for their patience.
“Some of you may find my sentiments here to be at odds with my previous message,” Yoshida concludes, “but I sincerely wish you to continue enjoying this game without reservations. Meanwhile, we will to strive to create a better gameplay environment for all of our Warriors of Light.”
Final Fantasy XIV has recently seen a surge in interest; being all attributed to one man. The game recently broke its Steam concurrent players record with over 47,000; after World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold tried the game. His first two streams and subsequent VODs reached 2.7 million and 2.1 million views.
As the game has a free trial, and the rising popularity of the game, other streamers sought to play the game, creating a cycle. The game briefly had to contend with the Western servers being full, and had to implement a waiting list for the digital Complete Edition.
MMO Population- utilizing API tools, Reddit, and other resources to calculate player and active player numbers- proposed that Final Fantasy XIV has an estimated 2.49 million active players. This would be 30,000 more than their estimation for World of Warcraft (assuming both figures are accurate).
Officially, Final Fantasy XIV reached over 22 million registered players worldwide in April 2021. This would also include players who registered for the game’s free trial. Nonetheless, this number must surely have increased since Asmongold took his first steps into Eorzea.
Square Enix recently launched the benchmark for the Endwalker expansion. This allows players to not only test how well the game will run on their PC, but also use the game’s character creator. The latter will provide players with a small taste of the upcoming Male Viera race. The Make it Rain Campaign is also currently underway, granting more MGP from the Gold Saucer minigames.
Final Fantasy XIV is available to Windows PC, (via the SE Store, and Steam), PlayStation 4, and coming soon to PlayStation 5, and Xbox One. A free trial is available, including the base game and the first expansion with some limitations. In case you missed it, you can find our Shadowbringers expansion review here (we can’t recommend it enough!)
The next expansion; Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, launches November 23rd.
Image: Steam
