New Servers?

[Belhi]

It absolutely baffles me. As much as I hate to make comparisons, if in 2017 Blizzard was having 3-4 emergency maintenances per week because of constant server crashes the public would have their head. This service is seriously awful.

You realise this is only really an issue with one datacentre, not the entire server set up. Upgrading servers and maintaining the existing servers are two different things. Infact an upgrade offers more challenges since new hardware and software to accommodate it is more prone to bugs and issues and therefore at the inception generally less stable. That's why they said they probably won't role out the server upgrades with the launch of 4.0. The player numbers will already be putting strain on the server load and they want to ensure server stability.

This is more or less what I was referring to. SE makes more than enough money to do what they need to do, but all I see are constant bandaids. Personally, I find it a bit sad that one of the major selling points for their next EXPANSION is increased inventory. That should honestly be part of a small quality of life patch with server upgrades that should have been done...a year ago? With the same subscription fees, there really isn't an excuse and watching nobody else speak out about it doesn't really raise my hopes up that it will ever match the same kinda' quality.

WoW has a vastly bigger budget because it has a vastly bigger subscription base. WoW will also go for a year an a half without a content update except for cash shop items. Lets not pretend WoW doesn't nickel and dime less than SE. I might also add that FF14's inventory space is actually pretty competitive with WoW until Legion released and only because of the Wardrobe feature, a feature they worked on for like 3 and a half years from the time they first mentioned it.

Unstable servers are unacceptable but as I said above, stable servers and upgraded servers aren't necessarily the same thing. They are apparently spending $35 million on Stormblood, almost 3 times what they did on HW, so its not like they aren't making any effort to reinvest.

Server upgrades aren't minor, particularly on a program as complex as an MMO. There are a huge amount of programing, networking and testing that needs to be done to ensure the servers handle the software correctly without bugs and that they handle the load without issues or lag. They are a very large investment of time and money and certainly not a small QoL life thing.