How is Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker doing 1.5 months after release?
Final Fantasy XIV’s new addon, Endwalker, started Early Access on December 3, 2021 and was immediately overrun, even halting sales of the game. How is the MMORPG doing 1.5 months after the release of the addon?
How did the launch go? Even before Endwalker Early Access launched, FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida warned players in a blog post that there would be long queues to log in. So it happened.
The servers went online at the announced time, but huge queues formed immediately. On some servers the length exceeded 8,000 players. In addition, errors 2002 and 5006 kept popping up, throwing players out of the queue and having to queue again.
However, the servers themselves remained relatively stable with the exception of a few crashes on Phoenix and Tonberry. It often only took many hours until the players could finally log in.
What has happened since the release?
Here’s how the FFXIV team reacted to the overcrowding: In order to accommodate the large number of games, the developers took a number of measures before and after Early Access. They should guarantee the stability of the servers and shorten the queues as much as possible.
These included:
- An auto-logout system that kicks inactive players out of the game.
- Instanced areas to distribute the load of the players.
- Snakes only for subscription owners. Free trial players had to wait for the queues to clear.
After several weeks after the release there was still no improvement in the waiting time when logging in, Director Yoshida announced that further measures would be taken:
- The sale of FFXIV will be completely stopped
- The free trial version has been discontinued
- FFXIV marketing has been discontinued where contractually possible
- Players received a total of 3 weeks of free game time as compensation
Developer servers have also been added to stabilize the login and the cause of the annoying error 2002 has been eliminated.
Here’s how to proceed: In the meantime, the queues have mostly leveled off at the level before the addon. Even at peak evenings or weekends, the queues rarely exceed a few hundred players and move quickly as well.
So the big rush for the addon is over, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be server problems again. That’s why the FFXIV team is now planning far ahead and preparing several new data centers in the long term so that Endwalker’s situation does not repeat itself.
It was also announced that the team is working on adding new servers to spread the player load. The first 5 servers of the Oceania data center will go live as early as January 25th. Switching to these servers will be free for all players and associated with various bonuses such as temporary EXP boosts.
However, players from other regions will have to wait a while. New data centers will only be added in Europe, the USA and Japan in the summer of 2022.
A year later, in the summer of 2023, a second expansion is planned. Probably in preparation for the addon 7.0. Earlier installation of new servers was not possible due to the global shortage of semiconductors.
FFXIV digital sales will also resume on January 25th. However, the test version remains deactivated for the time being. Director Yoshida wants to first monitor the situation and later decide if and when that should happen. The instantiation of the areas and the auto-logout will probably remain for the time being.
Endwalker gets top scores on Metacritic
What the critics say: Despite the server issues and queues, Endwalker has been very well received by both players and critics. on Metacritic the addon received a rating of 92 points from the critics and a whopping 9.5 points user score.
This made Endwalker the highest rated game of 2021 by users, beating titles like It Takes Two (9.2 points) and Monster Hunter Rise (9.0 points).
It’s also the top rated FFXIV addon on Metacritic, beating Shadowbringers which was the previous title holder.
Above all, the high-quality story, which concludes the Hydaelyn Zodiac saga with a lot of emotions, and the overall polished gaming experience were praised. There were hardly any notable bugs or other issues that usually spoil the game experience for players with new launches.
Accordingly, many fans were willing to forgive the FFXIV team for the server problems, and there was no shitstorm.
Final Fantasy XIV: While you’re crying in Endwalker, I grinned at myself
First part of the Pandaemonium Raid is here
This content has already been published: Since the release of Endwalker, there have already been two smaller content updates that went online on December 21st and January 4th. Among other things, they brought the first part of Pandaemonium, an 8-man raid in normal and epic modes.
Epic mode again featured a short race for the World First Kill, accompanied by a charity stream. Organized by members of the community under the leadership des Podcasters Frosty Mogborn, the stream raised a total of $27,420 for the Extra Life 4 Kids organization.
The favorites from the US team “Thoughts per Second” secured first place in the race Free Society “Radiance” on the Gilgamesh server, who have already won multiple world firsts. They killed the last boss of the raid about 14 hours after the patch was released.
Almost two hours apart, Aether Group 3 Raiders landed in 2nd place, followed by Entropy in 3rd place. Director Yoshida congratulated the winners in a tweet.
More info in February
Here’s how to proceed: In an interview with Radio Mogstation, director Yoshida revealed that fans can expect a bigger developer stream in February. It will provide information about the big patch 6.1 and beyond. According to Yoshida, the information should even go as far as the next addon, 7.0, which doesn’t have an official name yet, but is already in the works.
The contents of patch 6.1 confirmed so far are as follows:
- 24-Mann-Raid Eorzeas Mythen.
- Big changes in PvP like a new mode.
- The housing area of Ishgard called the Empyrium.
- Traveling between the data centers of a region will be possible (e.g. between Chaos and Light in Europe).
In the February stream, fans will find out how the story of FFXIV continues. Endwalker was the grand conclusion to the Hydaelyn zodiark story arc. Now a fresh story should begin, in which the players are no longer “warriors of the light”, but normal adventurers.
More information is also expected about the new PvP system and the new content island paradise, which sounds like a kind of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing within FFXIV.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker gives you your own island like in Animal Crossing
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