Final Fantasy XIV Is Currently Unavailable in North America

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...ica/ar-AAM37UN

An interesting read.
"Final Fantasy XIV is currently unavailable from Square Enix's storefront in the North America.
If gamers attempt to buy a digital copy of the MMORPG from the publisher's official website, they will be greeted with an error message. The notice reads: "We are sorry. The amount of items requested exceeds what is currently in stock. We have removed the excess from your cart".
Below the pop-up is an addendum that explains there are currently no PC download copies of Final Fantasy XIV in stock.


Final Fantasy XIV has had such an upsurge in popularity that the game is sold out on the Square Enix storefront so you cannot buy a digital copy and you cannot create new characters on NA servers.
This is absolute insanity. https://t.co/LnZEZFsL0X pic.twitter.com/bJ0zyFCK7K
— Skill Up (@SkillUpYT) July 12, 2021


Fans have taken to the game's subreddit to try and get to the bottom of why this might be, with many attributing it to Final Fantasy XIV's recent surge in popularity. User Kaisos elaborates that "out of stock" for digital items usually means that the supplier has run out of pre-generated codes, due to a sudden influx in demand. Meanwhile,

tormenteddragon theorizes that the problem is more to do with strain being placed on the game's servers, again due to a surge in popularity.
Regardless of what caused the shortage in digital codes, for the time being, it is impossible for new players (or sprouts as they are colloquially known within the community) to join the MMORPG and create a character.
It is worth noting that this only applies to those who are hoping to buy the game through a digital download. If you have recently purchased a physical copy of Final Fantasy XIV then you will still be able to create an account.
Newsweek has reached out to Square Enix for comment on this developing situation

That's odd. If I were to guess it's the sever strain, mainly on the site itself. It doesn't handle stress well. The Endwalker physical CE debacle made that quite clear. lol Still, this could be seen as a good thing.

Time for a fourth data center, this time on the east coast (hahahaha).

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Time for a fourth data center, this time on the east coast (hahahaha).

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You joke but people have been pushing for this for awhile. Also you could solve a lot of this with Latin America and releasing the Oceanic servers ASAP. I honestly do not think Square Enix quite understands the flood gates they opened with the free trial expansion coming at the exact same moment of SEVERE weakness with their competition.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

You joke but people have been pushing for this for awhile. Also you could solve a lot of this with Latin America and releasing the Oceanic servers ASAP. I honestly do not think Square Enix quite understands the flood gates they opened with the free trial expansion coming at the exact same moment of SEVERE weakness with their competition.

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To be fair, the "competition" wasn't quite as vulnerable before as they are now. I think the current situation is blindsiding SE. Heck, it was unexpected for the players.

Shadowbringers launch was rather smooth, far as I recall. Not so sure if that'll be the case for Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

You joke but people have been pushing for this for awhile. Also you could solve a lot of this with Latin America and releasing the Oceanic servers ASAP. I honestly do not think Square Enix quite understands the flood gates they opened with the free trial expansion coming at the exact same moment of SEVERE weakness with their competition.

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They probably didn't think Blizzard was going to be as foolish as they were with Shadowlands.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

They probably didn't think Blizzard was going to be as foolish as they were with Shadowlands.

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Well to be honest Blizzard has gotten lucky with a literal joke of 2 teams with one being insanely incompetent and the other team putting out the good expansions. Belluar said it correctly WoW has worked on a Tik Tok pattern with Tik being good and Tok being bad. Well now you have 1 expansion followed by another expansion that has been released with just completely arbitrary grinds.

Want to know my theory? Releasing Classic and TBC was the worst mistake Blizzard has ever made because FF14 plays like Wrath and TBC. You have gear determination on a calendar, the grinds are voluntary for cosmetic gear, top guilds can show off their achievements. If you go from that back to current retail design it makes sense.

Yet classic was very sucessful

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

You joke but people have been pushing for this for awhile. Also you could solve a lot of this with Latin America and releasing the Oceanic servers ASAP. I honestly do not think Square Enix quite understands the flood gates they opened with the free trial expansion coming at the exact same moment of SEVERE weakness with their competition.

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In fairness, SE could never have anticipated that the release of a new WoW patch/raid, as well as the long awaited release of TBC-classic would happen to be the time when everyone would start fleeing WoW. By all logic- this being a downtime for FFXIV and a huge double release in their main competitor makes this the absolute least likely time for what is happening to be happening.

Especially with Blizz clearly planning their release to coincide with the original Ashes alpha release/ESO xpac because they love to do that to try to smother hype for other games, I love seeing this backfire on them, knowing that it'll be half a year before they can produce anything else.

It really is bizarre for there to be so much attention now, but it's a great thing- FFXIV clearly has a problem of limited resources, I think the cuts and the current state of their store/account system shows that, so maybe SE will see this surge and treat the game with the same respect that the dev team clearly does, as it's impressive what they've managed to pull off.

Hopefully they can get their store problems sorted out, it'd be great to see a massive surge get retained with EW.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Time for a fourth data center, this time on the east coast (hahahaha).

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It used to be on the east coast and i still needed a VPN to get around the absolute trash pathing.

Connecting to Montreal from Pittsburgh and bunnying mudras was embarrassing.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Yet classic was very sucessful

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It is hard to gauge just how successful it is because a single WoW sub buys access to WoW Classic, TBC Classic and retail. And Blizzard doesn't share that data anymore. They muddied the water on purpose, I believe. What IS obvious, however, is that players are fleeing retail, and by doing so fleeing WoW's classic servers by unsubbing.

I can tell you why this is happening. Popular WoW streamers are trying and talking about the game, generating hype. (Not just Asmongold, he followed other streamers not the other way around.) WoW has been eating its own tail for years, but with the latest patch and its disastrous storyline reveal (12k dislikes compared to 4.5k likes on Youtube), its devs seeming inability to listen to the playerbase, and the long content droughts, players are finally getting fed up enough to look at other MMOs. I'm sure GW2, ESO and other MMOs are also seeing an uptick in players. Tack on the free to play model now taking you through Heavensward and the Free Login campaign on top of all that and you get this.

(For the record, FFXIV is not a WoW killer, no game can do that except WoW tbh. The devs aren't concentrating on doing that, they just want to make a game that they also love to play. And people playing other, unsatisfactory MMO games, are noticing it.)

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Originally Posted by Imora

It used to be on the east coast and i still needed a VPN to get around the absolute trash pathing.

Connecting to Montreal from Pittsburgh and bunnying mudras was embarrassing.

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Yeah, this. It's funny how much people have forgotten just how bad the routes were when the servers were in Montreal.

I had better connections from Florida to the west coast than I did to there.


Level3 used to be the Meme for disconnects and lag

Even if the game cannot be bought, a new character can still be created using the free trial so the information on that website is false.

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Originally Posted by ElciaDeiLinus

In fairness, SE could never have anticipated that the release of a new WoW patch/raid, as well as the long awaited release of TBC-classic would happen to be the time when everyone would start fleeing WoW. By all logic- this being a downtime for FFXIV and a huge double release in their main competitor makes this the absolute least likely time for what is happening to be happening.

Especially with Blizz clearly planning their release to coincide with the original Ashes alpha release/ESO xpac because they love to do that to try to smother hype for other games, I love seeing this backfire on them, knowing that it'll be half a year before they can produce anything else.

It really is bizarre for there to be so much attention now, but it's a great thing- FFXIV clearly has a problem of limited resources, I think the cuts and the current state of their store/account system shows that, so maybe SE will see this surge and treat the game with the same respect that the dev team clearly does, as it's impressive what they've managed to pull off.

Hopefully they can get their store problems sorted out, it'd be great to see a massive surge get retained with EW.

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Agree with all your points. Hope SE acts quickly and give Yoshi and his team the additional resources they deserve to sustain the current momentum in popularity and improve the game massively so that the new players coming in now and in endwalker will further sustain that momentum through word of mouth with their experience in the game. :)

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

They probably didn't think Blizzard was going to be as foolish as they were with Shadowlands.

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Nobody expects their competition, especially GOOD competition, to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Nobody expects their competition, especially GOOD competition, to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

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LOL. your comment was so direct :)

I think it is time SE ended the free trial campaigns through Heavensward, at least a month or two before Endwalker. Everything needs to go back to PAID. Period. Otherwise, Early Access to EndWalker is going to be an utter disaster. Hopefully, they can create enough instances within the new areas to handle the influx of players, though it is very possible by November popular WoW streamers quit and this will all be moot.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

Otherwise, Early Access to EndWalker is going to be an utter disaster.

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Raubahn Savage, look forward to it!

Endwalker is going to be like WoD's launch, if WoW guys remember that, millions of players came back and some people were in queues for 6+ hours. If SE don't act before Endwalkers launch, it'll be a toxic shitshow against them.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Even if the game cannot be bought, a new character can still be created using the free trial so the information on that website is false.

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Actually no. All the servers for a bit (not sure if it has changed since I last looked) were closed to new character creation because so many people are on the servers. I am sure during late hours/non peak hours some may have opened back up. But yes for a time no servers where letting people create new characters.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I think it is time SE ended the free trial campaigns through Heavensward, at least a month or two before Endwalker. Everything needs to go back to PAID. Period. Otherwise, Early Access to EndWalker is going to be an utter disaster. Hopefully, they can create enough instances within the new areas to handle the influx of players, though it is very possible by November popular WoW streamers quit and this will all be moot.

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99% sure Early Access will be limited to only paid accounts, because the requirement is that you already paid for Endwalker to be able to use it.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

99% sure Early Access will be limited to only paid accounts, because the requirement is that you already paid for Endwalker to be able to use it.

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Right, but that only means you can access EW content early, meaning run around with your male bunny/EW MSQ, Zones
Server will still have to handle all the other players doing their usual things, including character creation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

FF14 plays like Wrath and TBC. You have gear determination on a calendar, the grinds are voluntary for cosmetic gear, top guilds can show off their achievements. If you go from that back to current retail design it makes sense.

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Very little of that describes Wrath or TBC, though, while grinds being "voluntary for cosmetic gear" has never been more the case than in Shadowlands.

Regardless, XIV doesn't play like Wrath or, especially, TBC. The base difficulty, the levels of freedom, value to be found in the open world, the combat flow, the toolkit design, the (dis)allowance of utility that isn't just direct throughput buffs, the way their community management situates responsibility, and altogether far more than not... are polar opposites.

It's nice and all assigning cause to a condition, but that ain't it.