Final Fantasy 14 Players & Developers Struggle Against Endwalker Queue Times

Overall reception of the online role-playing game Final Fantasy 14 has been positive, with many players stating that the story and gameplay exceed expectation. As for the rest of us, we’re still waiting to log in! Ever since the start of the new expansion’s early access on December 5, there have been innumerable complaints of players being unable to merely log into the game, stuck in queues that can go upwards of 10,000 players.

In response, director and producer Naoki Yoshida has released several official statements as to the compensation that players will receive and their plans to how they will resolve the ongoing issues. With Final Fantasy 14 being a paid subscription service, Yoshida understands that players being made to wait in queues are a waste of the time that they have paid for. As such, on December 7 players who own the game, regardless if they owned Endwalker or not, received 7 days of free game time and may receive additional game time depending on how the situation develops. Yoshida then goes into much deeper detail as to the reasons behind common errors players are receiving and the rationale behind some of their resolutions. The major root cause to all this is the recent unprecedented rise of players joining the game and Square Enix had not prepared the necessary infrastructure to receive them.

This meteoric rise, combined with the current semi-conductor shortage and COVID-19 restrictions has meant that no new servers can be purchased and constructed, forcing the company to push the current servers to their limits. As a more immediate solution, the development team is in the midst of implementing several fixes and optimisations to ease server load and streamline the login experiences. In this statement, Yoshida states that servers initially used for the development of the game will now be deployed as emergency servers to handle player loads on more populated worlds. He further clarifies how the login system works and that the source code is being addressed to reliably log in players.

Yet, despite the team’s efforts, the queue times still remain arduous. Players are advised to log in at off-peak hours depending on their server region to secure their space in the server. Already, there have been several unconfirmed reports of players logging into the game at non-peak hours and setting up keyboard macros to circumvent the anti-inactivity system which logs inactive players out of the game.

The community as whole seems to be handling the inconvenience in good spirits, due in part to the developer’s swift and transparent response to the ongoing dilemma, and due to the overall quality of the parts of the game they can play. The team has assured their fans that more updates on the situation and fixes are coming soon; one can only hope that these issues do not spell the end for the game’s upward momentum.

What do you think of situation? Do you pity us Final Fantasy players? Are you one of the unfortunate people who have experienced the wait? Perhaps you are thinking of postponing your own foray into the game until the issues are fixed? Go wild with your thoughts in the comment box!