The early access for the eagerly anticipated Final Fantasy XIV Online expansion, Endwalker has drawn in thousands of players, but due to massive congestion in servers across all regions, they were unable to log in and were met with error messages. Fans of the successful massively multiplayer online RPG went onto social media to laugh and vent about their frustrations while waiting in the queue. Due to this ongoing situation happening prior to the expansion’s official December 7th release date, Producer and Director of Final Fantasy XIV Naoki Yoshida wrote out a notice explaining the dilemma and offering free game time as compensation.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker marks an end to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark stories that were established in previous expansions while potentially setting up the future of the game. The hype is definitely high. Final Fantasy XIV players found creative ways to pass the time while waiting in the queue, such a watching trailers or even drawing fanart if they are artistically inclined.
On the FFXIV’s official community site, Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida apologized for the recent congestion situation. He explained that each server in every region has been hitting the login cap to the point of reaching the hardware limit for the FFXIV service as a whole. This has been happening for extremely long periods of time, resulting in the long queue waits. To compensate for this ongoing situation, Yoshida and his team have decided that on Endwalker’s release date of December 7th, they will be giving seven days of free game time to active subscribers who own the full version of the game. This includes players who have registered the full version and are playing the 30-day free play period.
Square Enix preemptively told fans that login issues were to be expected prior to Endwalker’s early access. Yoshida further elaborated on each error message that players might have encountered that caused them to disconnect from the queue. One of the more common errors would be Error 2002, which is caused by one of two issues. One way this error could occur is by logging into a regional data center (Aether, Primal, and Crystal in North America), but there are more than 17,000 players in the queue. The second and more common way players would receive an Error 2002 is due to a period of internet connection instability. Since queue wait times are so long, there is a higher chance of a momentary disconnection.
Yoshida explained other errors that occur due to waiting too long in the login queue. The login management server times out after a certain period of session time. The FFXIV team is in the process of extending that time period. Yoshida also shared that the peak hours of congestion in the North American data center are from 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PT). If players managed to get past the queue but encountered inconveniences on their way to Endwalker’s first dungeon, Tower of Zot, Yoshida’s notice has an explanation for that as well.
It is refreshing to see the transparency and commitment from Naoki Yoshida and his FFXIV team. They are attentive to their community of fans and are known to diligently work on solving the game’s inconveniences. Yoshida himself even apologized for delaying Endwalker by two weeks. Seven days of free game time as an apology for overloaded servers is very welcome. What Final Fantasy XIV fans do with that time is ultimately up to them.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker releases on PC, PS4, and PS5 on December 7.
Source: Final Fantasy XIV