Suspension of character creation: how long?

[Nilheim]

As you all know it is currently impossible to create a character on several Worlds.
My girlfriend always said she would eventually start playing FFXIV, and asked me to tell her when I thought the game was fun enough to warrant buying a new computer to run it.

She played on my account, and loved it. Now she wants to get that computer so she can play the game herself, but she won't until Square Enix lets people create characters on my server. I am sure many people are in the same situation, they have friends who want to play with them but can't, so they give up on doing it... for now at least.

While you may not know how long the suspension will last, it would be nice if you could at least give us an estimate of when you believe you will open these servers again. I think you have chosen a very strange time to close these servers, just after the merge and before your two campaigns. I'm sure you are all working on finding a solution but I for one would appreciate if you kept us updated for the sake of all those potential players who do not know whether to wait or to create a character on a different server until server migrations are possible.

Thanks for reading, a lot of people are expecting an answer.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

I'm curious about this myself. Hoping there will be a busy week in May.

[Rau]

I think a World-Pass feature should be implemented.

[Gunslinger]

Agreed - with the "Welcome Back" campaign coming soon I have a few friends who want to create new characters but are unable to on my server. Seems like kind of a missed opportunity if they can't get the servers opened (for new characters at least) by then.

[Nilheim]

I think a World-Pass feature should be implemented.

I was actually thinking about this a few days ago. It would keep players who just want to play on any server from coming on the crowded ones but would allow people to play with their friends.

[Bayohne]

Greetings,

Yoshida posted a bit of background information on the current situation to let everyone know what is actually happening behind the scenes and why some of the servers had to be closed to new characters. Whenever we have additional information, we'll be sure to follow-up.

Hello! Producer/Director Yoshida here.

I’d like to update you on the current status and what’s planned for the future in regards to the current inability to create new characters on certain worlds.

First off, the core cause of character creation limitations is due to heavy lag in Ul'dah A-zone during the peak time in Japan.

There is a lot of NPC control going on in this town and also due to the current FFXIV server code, various player processes are being performed rigorously on the server. As a result, there are cases when the lag during specific peak times is more than the server can handle.

At the time of FFXIV’s launch, the number of concurrent users was around 4000/1 world, so looking at the entirety of the game, there is still some room to accommodate new characters.
However, looking at only Ul'dah A-zone, the limitation is being reached and if the population for this zone increases any more than the peak time numbers, it won’t be possible to play in Ul'dah.

We already have high-spec servers prepared for version 2.0 and we are measuring the stability, but the current server process code is still the current FFXIV version, so it reaches the maximum quicker than the version 2.0 server code (more than the capability, the thread works much more efficiently).
If characters are focused more in Ul'dah than this, since the server capability alone will not be able to handle it, we have limited the ability to create new characters.
(Regardless of how much we increase the capability for optimized version 2.0 code and threads, if the physical limitations for character lag in a single zone is hit, the result would be the same. The limitation would have more of a margin than currently, however.)

Below is how we are currently addressing this:

• Implementation of measures to decentralize the population of Ul'dah in patch 1.22.
• Expanded arrangements to further enhance server capability (Arrangements completed/need time for hardware delivery)
• Preparations for introducing a new World (make it possible to address quickly based on the conditions)

First, after the implementation of patch 1.22, we will be checking how much the flow of players changes and implement countermeasures based on our estimates. If the decentralization effects work well, we will be removing the character creation limitations.
(As stated previously, the only problem is with Ul’dah A-zone concentration.)

Finally, as I am sure you have already guessed from the above text, Ul’dah is structured on the server by splitting the area into two zones: Ul’dah A-zone and B-zone. The zone that is heavy with lag is only A and B actually has quite a large margin still open.

I am praying that with patch 1.22 there is an effect for dispersing the concentration to B-zone.
(If there are a lot of comments from players saying “if you tell us about the zone split location we will cooperate!” then I will proactively look into this)

By the way, in a separate thread I saw a discussion going on about not being able to process 200 people in a raid, but there are not only players in raids, there are monsters, gimmick controls, and other things, so there is a lot of processes running at the same time.

Currently, even for the current FFXIV servers, we have been expanding so that instances are running on multiple servers. After maintenance, the number of simultaneous raids increased and the somewhat comfortable conditions are a result of this. It has also become possible to switch the number of instances and how they are split on multiple servers based on content.

We deeply apologize for these inconveniences.

[Colino]

I'm always amused by Bayohne's ability to find the perfect thread to post his shit in.

Thumbs up Bayo, you the man/dude/morlboro

[Alerith]

TL;DR: Get the hell out of Ul'dah

[Morticous]

uldah sucks anyway.

[Delsus]

Aweseome info Bayhone/Yoshi-P, I would like to know where the Ul'dah A-zone and the Uldah B-zone split is and as long as shouts carry over there I would be happy to head to Ul'dah B-zone if needed, shouts need to carry between Ul'dah A-zone and B-zone for me to personnaly want to move there.

Also perhaps moving some NPCs to Ul'dah B-zone will work, currently everything in Ul'dah is very centralized so people have no choice but to hang there, for example there is almost no need to go to the second floor of Ul'dah because there isn't alot there, if for example the repair NPC was moved to Ul'dah B-zone it would help aleviate some stress, also some vendor NPCs could move there, to help a little bit (that one will not help too much but every little helps.)

Just a couple of suggestions to get forwarded if its viable.