Have I wasted my money..

[Dreadicus]

I bought FF last eve to play with friends that finally convinced me that it was worth it, and that it was 'WoW' as it used to be.. So I bought it. I've spent the last 12 hours at a character creation screen trying to join the server they are on, only to be told 'This world is no longer allowing new characters'. In fact, ALL the servers in the Aether realm seem to be telling me this.

So as a NA customer - did I just waste my money? I didn't buy this to play on servers the other side of the planet, I bought it to play with my friends - here..

[Kama Nightfire]

The servers often go into " Congested " modes that don't allow new characters to be made, this changes based on the time of day and is updated often. I'd recommend attempting a bit later in the evening when less folks are on.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

When the status changes to green and not congested on the server you're attempted to join give it a try then.

[Mansen]

You can always visit other servers within your datacenter. So just because you're not on the same server as your friends, doesn't mean you can't visit and play with them as though you're on the same server.

It is very difficult to create characters on most servers right now (at least during peak hours), and some servers have disabled it entirely to push new players onto the less congested ones.

While I hate to promote real cash microtransactions, you CAN pay to move your home server permanently in the future once Covid calms down a bit - Square Enix can't buy servers to save their life right now, try as they might.

[Medicles]

The game is overpopulated. You should either try it at around 3am or you go on to the server that the game assigns to you. The great part of the game is that it doesnt matter on which server you are, because not only can you do content server wide, you can even travel directly to another server. You just have to be in the same data world as your friends.

[Auditorino]

Imma just quote the Patch Notes from this weeks Update:

As of the Patch 5.58 Hotfix maintenance, all Worlds on the Aether Data Center have been classified as Congested. Despite expanding the maximum capacity as much as possible and closely monitoring the situation, the number of logins for each World have constantly remained at full capacity, which led to us taking this course of action.

This means players will be unable to create new characters on any World on the Aether Data Center until this classification is lifted. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause for those of you who were looking forward to embarking on adventures with friends.

Were the number of characters to increase any further, it could result in login queues taking up to several hours, which is why we needed to take this approach. In the meantime, we kindly request that you consider creating a character on a World within the Primal or Crystal Data Centers, though we’re aware that they are currently quite congested as well.

Once again, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause for our players on the North American Data Centers.

[Tykero980]

Im almost positive the char transfer thing lets you bypass char creation restrictions. Unfortunately that would cost you another 15 bucks to get onto the aether data center servers and require making a char some other data center.

[Dreadicus]

Thanks for the patch note quote - I'm new to FF and wasn't ready (or aware) to consult patch notes to understand why I can't play a game I just purchased. But I get it now, they are getting paid in full, and don't quite know how to spend it properly. Darn what a problem.

So, I'm up for doing a character transfer if it gets me to my Aether server of choice; Guess I will have to make a character elsewhere and see what it allows at this point..>

If anyone at FF is reading - lets be clear that at the worst of WoW's congestion during Vanilla when they also 'Boomed' - yes people (existing players, with existing characters) did have to wait in queues on busy servers and sometimes even up to an hour or more at peak times on a select few, if you didn't login sooner. You could still make characters on those busy servers though.. I think blocking the creation of new characters is not smart, it is a pain and deterrent to new customers while you hide your 'look we are making so much money now we can't even host new customers' issues..

Thanks for all the replies - off to make a character in Japan, and see if I can move it to NA after the fact.

[Auditorino]

They are very much aware of the issue. Here's the bottom bit of the Note that i left out:

To address the congestion situation, our Infrastructure and Development teams are working closely to plan large-scale solutions such as expanding our data centers or adding new Worlds. As previously mentioned, however, there is an ongoing global shortage and increased demand for semiconductors, and quite frankly, we are still struggling to source the required equipment. Additionally, the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Japan has raised major concerns regarding our ability to travel overseas for on-site implementations. These setbacks have made it difficult for us to cut down on the time required for implementation.

Considering the current situation, we will likely require more time in implementing our large-scale solutions. The circumstances surrounding our infrastructure are far from ideal, but I promise that we will continue to persevere in implementing any solutions we can!

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Naoki Yoshida

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director

[MOSLEY]

Go Tonberry if you're looking for a JP server with an English speaking community until you can get on Aether.

[Depor Tado]

Originally posted by Dreadicus:

Thanks for the patch note quote - I'm new to FF and wasn't ready (or aware) to consult patch notes to understand why I can't play a game I just purchased. But I get it now, they are getting paid in full, and don't quite know how to spend it properly. Darn what a problem.

So, I'm up for doing a character transfer if it gets me to my Aether server of choice; Guess I will have to make a character elsewhere and see what it allows at this point..>

If anyone at FF is reading - lets be clear that at the worst of WoW's congestion during Vanilla when they also 'Boomed' - yes people (existing players, with existing characters) did have to wait in queues on busy servers and sometimes even up to an hour or more at peak times on a select few, if you didn't login sooner. You could still make characters on those busy servers though.. I think blocking the creation of new characters is not smart, it is a pain and deterrent to new customers while you hide your 'look we are making so much money now we can't even host new customers' issues..

Thanks for all the replies - off to make a character in Japan, and see if I can move it to NA after the fact.

You can still create a character in the other 2 NA data center Primal and Crystal, Aether is the only one that is locked right now. They are also offering free character transfer from a congested world (all Aether worlds) to a preferred world (all Crystal worlds) including some incentives. So maybe you can create your character in Crystal and have your friends transfer over there if that is an option.

[Dreadicus]

Follow up on all the help - thank you everyone.

Anyone else finding this experience sorta unfortunate.. Just know you also cannot 'transfer' characters to any Aether server right now either. None of those worlds are available in the pull-down. (I've now tried this as well)

So Aether and it's dwellers are on 'lockdown' basically.. :D

I feel like I'm gonna literally see my 1st 30 days go down the drain without much use. I'm sure the game is grand if my friends think so - but I got it to play 'with' them. This server drama is a corporate company problem. Being in IT, living in the SE of the US; I'm aware of MANY datacenters along the main East coast pipeline (particuarly in Atlanta, Charleston) that are nowhere near 100% capacity, with top notch bandwidth due to their locations. If they (FF) want to do something about this - it's absolutely possible.. (Just saying)

[Midnight Sky ✨🌙✨]

Perhaps your friends would be willing to make alt characters on a world you can join and play with you there until the Ather lockdown ends.

[Sunny]

Originally posted by Dreadicus:

Being in IT, living in the SE of the US; I'm aware of MANY datacenters along the main East coast pipeline (particuarly in Atlanta, Charleston) that are nowhere near 100% capacity, with top notch bandwidth due to their locations. If they (FF) want to do something about this - it's absolutely possible.. (Just saying)

They host their own, they don't use other peoples'. There would have to change a significant amount of what/how they do things to move to hosted by someone else; it's not -- REALLY not -- financially feasible.

ETA: The devs have said multiple times that they are willing to pay above market value to purchase the equipment they need. If you genuinely know where they can get ahold of what they need without cutting off an arm and a leg, I highly recommend emailing their customer service to offer them your tips. Given that my own IT team has been trying to purchase similar equipment ourselves for a while (though at a smaller scale) -- and have been unable to do so on any sort of timetable that works with our procurement policies -- I tend to think it's not quite so simple as people like to claim that it is.