New gamers will have the ability to buy digital copies of Ultimate Fantasy XIV once more beginning on January twenty fifth, the sport’s director and producer Naoki Yoshida has announced in a prolonged put up. Sq. Enix suspended the sport’s bodily and digital gross sales in mid-December final yr, as a result of it was doing too nicely for what the corporate might deal with on the time. Folks have needed to wait hours to get in after they attempt to play at peak instances, as a result of the “dense focus of play hours… far exceed [the game’s] server capability.” Sadly, the developer wasn’t in a position so as to add extra servers earlier than the Endwalker enlargement was launched because of the international semiconductor scarcity.
In his put up, Yoshida defined the steps the corporate is taking to handle the sport’s excessive ranges of congestion. To begin with, Sq. Enix is bringing its Oceanian Information Heart on-line additionally on January twenty fifth and opening 5 new Worlds from the beginning so that everybody in Oceania can switch over for a greater expertise. The world switch service is presently suspended, however it’ll resume on January twenty sixth — additional, these transferring to the brand new Oceanian Worlds will likely be in a position to take action without cost.
Yoshida has additionally revealed that Sq. Enix has been engaged on increasing its Japanese, European and North American information facilities. The corporate defined that because of the international semiconductor scarcity, it took a while to obtain the wanted elements to have the ability to convey them on-line. In reality, it has to determine the brand new information facilities in phases, as a result of it is nonetheless having a tricky time securing the mandatory server tools.
For North America, the primary part of the enlargement will occur someday in August 2023, and it’ll see 4 new Worlds go browsing. The second part will likely be carried out in the summertime of 2023 and can open 4 extra Worlds. For Japan, the developer plans so as to add yet one more logical information middle to the present three as a way to decrease the variety of Worlds for every of them. The European enlargement can even occur in two phases, the primary of which is scheduled for July 2023 and can convey 4 new Worlds on-line. In the summertime of 2023, Sq. Enix will set up one new logical information middle with eight new Worlds in Europe.
“As soon as once more, I want to apologize for the delays to server enlargement attributable to the worldwide semiconductor scarcity,” Yoshida wrote. He additionally requested for gamers’ understanding in resuming gross sales of the sport, despite the fact that some could think about the choice to be untimely. Sq. Enix will monitor server stability following the resumption of gross sales and will restart free trials if all the things goes nicely. Nonetheless, in case servers “proceed to expertise excessive ranges of congestion” regardless of all of the steps it is taking, the developer could think about suspending digital gross sales as soon as once more.
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