Square Enix Responds To Long 'Final Fantasy XIV' Login Queues

Final Fantasy XIV received an increase in players last week after the release of its latest expansion, Stormblood. This rise in the number of players means some of the game’s servers, a.k.a. Worlds, reached their cap of active players, which left others waiting in long queues in order to log in. Square Enix announced today that it’s implementing a new system to alleviate the long queues and give everyone a chance to play.

By default, Final Fantasy XIV will kick you out of the server if you’re idle for more than 30 minutes. However, it seems that some players found a method of circumventing that system, which means those still waiting in the login queue will have to wait even longer to play. Instead of kicking a small group of idle players after 30 minutes, Square Enix’s new, and temporary, plan is to log all players out of the game across all servers once a day. During this time, no one will be able to log on for 10 minutes. When the time limit is over, players can log in again. Some will be able to play the game; others might have to wait in the queues. Players will receive an in-game notification one hour before the mass logout happens.

The issue of so-called “Congested Worlds” isn’t a significant problem for Final Fantasy XIV's North American or European data centers, with each region listing only two worlds as Congested. However, the game is a major hit in Japan, and it shows. The Japanese data center alone has a total of six Congested servers. Square Enix's temporary solution allows everyone to have a fair chance to log in and play, but there will still be many players, especially on Congested servers, waiting in line to get back into the world of Eorzea.

In addition to the new method, Square Enix also started an incentive program during Stormblood’s early access periodto get players to either create a new character or transfer their existing character to a different world. Rewards include a waived fee in character transfers (the usual fee is $18), a boost in experience points all the way up to level 60, and even free play time.