Extended Maintenance Associated with the Implementation of Patch 2.1

Hello, all you FFXIVers out there! Producer/Director Yoshida here.
Thank you for your continued support of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

I’m happy to announce that the long awaited first major update “A Realm Awoken” will be released on Dec. 17, 2013.

In addition to the update, we are planning to make major updates to the data centers. Therefore, we have will be conducting a 24 hour maintenance (maximum) starting from Dec. 16, 2013. Since the maintenance period is so long, let me take a moment to breakdown what we are planning to do.

- Dispersing the Server Load and Making the World Selection Screen More User-Friendly

Currently, we are operating with data centers (which consists of numerous servers) set up for Japan, North America/Europe.
As of now, players will need to access either one of these data centers before they obtain the World list. However, due to the large number of players that access the data centers, a lot of stress is put on the “lobby servers” which causes the error “Unable to obtain the World list” to appear frequently.

Considering the additional Worlds that we are planning to implement with the release of the game on Steam and PlayStation 4, we would like to address this matter as soon as possible. In order to decrease the frequency of the “Unable to obtain the World list” error as much as possible, we will be splitting the Worlds in to smaller groups for each data center and making each of the data centers more independent. This whole process should result in a smoother login process and also make it easier for us to quickly enhance the servers when necessary.

- Changing the Number of Instances Assigned to Content with Patch 2.1

As I mentioned previously in the Letter from the Producer LIVE events and Topics, a large number of content will be added in patch 2.1.
Party/Alliance content in FFXIV is structured in a way that several hundred instances can be running at the same time. As you may know, we have been continuously making adjustments to the maximum number of concurrent instances. However, with the large variety of content that will be added in patch 2.1, we will be drastically changing the number of instances assigned to each content (this includes assigning additional instances to the Binding Coil of Bahamut).

Other than that, we will be making various adjustments such as tweaking how the players are matched via Duty Finder and replacing server equipment in order to improve the user-friendliness of the game.

Please note that while we stated that the maintenance will take a maximum of 24 hours, we will be working around the clock so that we can release the patch 2.1 to the public as soon as possible.

Due to the vast amount of tasks that we will be performing, the maintenance period will be much longer than usual. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

Please refer to the information below for details on the maintenance period.

Maintenance Period

At the following time, we will be performing maintenance on all Worlds. Maintenance will consist of various tasks such as splitting the Worlds in to smaller groups for the Japanese and North American/European data centers and replacing server equipment. During this period, FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn will be unavailable.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

* The World transfer service will be suspended 15 minutes before maintenance begins, and will be unavailable until maintenance has ended.

[Date & Time]
From Dec. 16, 2013 0:00 a.m. to Dec. 17, 2013 0:00 a.m. (PST)
* Please note that the maintenance period is maximum amount of time it could take to conduct maintenance. We will do our best to complete the tasks as soon as possible.

[Affected Service]
- FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn