Regarding the Expansion of FFXIV's Operations | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
Regarding the Expansion of FFXIV's Operations
na.finalfantasyxiv.com
Hello everyone, and Happy New Year! This is Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida. I thank you for sticking with us through 2021, and ask for your continued support in 2022!
Since officially launching on December 7 last year, Endwalker has experienced extremely high levels of congestion, causing our players a great deal of frustration. The task of rebalancing jobs also remains, and we will continue working on this and other adjustments.
While certain Worlds continue to experience congestion during peak times, our plan to fundamentally address the problem is beginning to take shape, and I'd like to share the roadmap with you.
Before I proceed, just a warning that this announcement covers a wide range of subjects, and is quite long. Though I explain things in order, feel free to skip to the sections that interest you, when you find a moment.
Opening of Oceanian Data Center
The Oceanian Data Center, which we've been planning for some time, will be opening approximately two weeks earlier than scheduled. This may be a little sudden, but we'll be bringing it online on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 (JST).
Additionally, taking into account the current number of players in Oceania, the original plan was to initially add three Worlds and later introduce two more. In light of the recent influx of players, however, we've decided to add five new Worlds from the start. With this, there should be more than enough room for everyone in Oceania to transfer over. Those in Oceania who have struggled with network latency issues should also have a better play experience.
This will be explained in detail separately, but these being new Worlds, we'll be offering incentives to transfer to them, such as waiving the transfer fee. We hope you take advantage of these bonuses.
Expansion of North American Data Centers
Currently, the North American Data Center houses three logical data centers and 24 Worlds (an 8:8:8 configuration). In order to cope with a drastic increase in player population, we are planning a two-phase major server expansion. Due to the global shortage of semiconductors, it has taken considerable time to procure server equipment, but the schedule calls for the first phase to be implemented around August 2022, with the second phase to follow in the spring or summer of 2023.
In the first phase of the expansion, scheduled for August 2022, one new logical data center will be established and four new Worlds will be added under it. In the second phase of the expansion, we plan to add four more new Worlds under the newly established logical DC, resulting in a four-logical-DC configuration of 8:8:8:8. While we had originally hoped to add all eight new Worlds at once in August 2022, the aforementioned semiconductor shortage has dictated that we introduce the upgrade in two stages. Again, we ask for your understanding and patience in this matter.
In addition to the above, we are also considering a yet-larger-scale upgrade at the time of the next major expansion (Patch 7.0). We will be sure to update you with further details regarding this as our plans take shape.
There is simply too much in there to include it all, as they also discuss the Cross-Data Center travel and Home World Transfer service.
Edit: Summary from Reddit:
OCE Data Center launching on January 25th, with 5 worlds.
Home World Transfer service resuming from January 26th.
Data Center Travel planned for 6.1x, can travel to other DCs in your region but not cross-region.
JP will get 1 new Data Center in July 2022, with the 32 current worlds being shuffled around to have 8 per DC instead of the current 10:11:11.
NA will get 1 new Data Center in August 2022 with 4 new worlds, and another 4 new worlds added to it in Spring/Summer 2023. Also have plans for larger upgrades in 7.0.
EU will get 2 new worlds for both current Data Centers in July 2022, and then a new Data Center with 8 new worlds in Summer 2023. Also making preparations in case of needing a fourth Data Center.
Digital sales of FFXIV will resume on January 25th.
