Early Access Experience [NO MSQ SPOILERS]

[KthAura]

I'd like to write about my Early Access experience. My main is on Leviathan, Primal DC. Sorry for my English.

1st day
After getting back from work and getting some things around the house done, I managed to get on despite being peak time hours. It wasn't really easy due to having to keep an eye on the queue so I don't lose my place because of a 2002, but I got through and played for a satisfying amount of time. I didn't get disconnected at all, it was quite stable once you got in the game! Friday was by far the best experience I had, and it's a bit sad when looking towards the second day.

2nd day
I managed to get on an alt of mine on Aether to see if I could fantasia him into a Viera, but unfortunately the character data didn't load so I went in to queue on my main. From there onwards was the most frustrating experience so far.

I waited for around 4hrs to get in, quickly trying to get back my spot every time I got a 2002. I managed to keep my spot until around 600. Then, the unimaginable happened- I was dropped to 1 in the queue and after a bit, I got a new error: 3001. The world got full, and it was like that for over 2hrs. I never felt so defeated.

I tried again after waiting some time and it was around 4hrs until it kicked me again- I gave up for the day.

3rd day
Queue was bad as bad as usual- so I decided to give myself a break and play some other games with my friends who also haven't managed to get on.

A friend and I tried to see if we could get on our Crystal DC alts in the evening- shockingly enough the queue was not bad! So we waited as we played games. However, we noticed the line was moving a bit too quickly- I had a bad feeling about it.

Once they got to the 100 place in queue, they got down to 1. Seemed relatively normal until they got a 2002 and prevented them from getting on the DC. Sure enough, the same thing happened to me except with a 4004.

Around 10pm, I got curious and tried getting on main. I was surprised that it was stable and after 2hrs, I actually got in! It was very nice to be logged in again. Yet- I had work tomorrow, so I only had 1hr to play before going to bed.

I played around with Sage, did the solo duty where it taught you the basics. Very fun class! Once I was done, I took a SS or two doing the LB3 in exploration mode and then went to bed.

--

Today (by the time I'm writing this) is the 4th and final day for EA, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to play or not.

I can safely say that the state of the queues are far from acceptable. I won't point fingers, but I never really expected for things to be THIS bad. From the little I played, EW is an absolute blast! I really can't wait to play more of it. The errors will never be forgotten, but I do hope they find a way to make things more stable-

Feel free to share your own experience! Oh, and please be nice.

I hope everyone gets to play soon! See you on the moon!

[NefarioCall]

People might hate me for this but ... I logged in at 8am all three days, waited in a short queue and then played for 12 hours and went to bed.
Just logged in this morning, and am 444th in line to start.

The bottom line is pretty much that the people who are able to log in early an play all day are the ones who get to play... and if you get D/C'ed at all, your day is done.

[Soraki-Muppe]

I managed to get through the msq during the weekend, a few things that made that possible and a major reason why I had to.
1: Took friday of work.
2: Woke up and logged in before almost all of the playerbase.
3: Had made sure I had no plans that took me away from the pc for longer then 5min.
And the reason why I had to is that during the days I work I do not have time to sit in a 2h que, just dont. I knew that if I had not finished the msq during the weekend I would not be able to until the comming sunday at the earliest since I have plans on on saturday that will push my login into the nightmare zone.
Playing outside the peak hours is not an option on regular days, since I am either asleep, on my way to/from work or working.

[Amarande]

So far I haven't been able to see anything new other than the lowest level experience, because Gilgamesh has been clearly hopeless and therefore I've only been logging onto my baby Conjurer (still about to enter Copperbell in MSQ) on Gaia datacenter, which is the only one I can log onto without hair loss. (Even my other JP alt, on Mana datacenter, yielded a 4004 ...). Have mostly been collecting the DoH and DoL classes for the moment, as work has left me pretty tired.

Did they remove the discount teleport for Gold Saucer? It seems to be the same rate as Thanalan at large now instead of the half price it always was previously.

Also the ground seems a lot shinier in the Saucer than it used to. Graphics revamp?

[Atma]

Mine is comparable. I think I was able to get in and play for perhaps a cumulative 5 hours over the course of the entire weekend. I expected things to be bad given it was the weekend, but I did not anticipate this. Nutshell version is if you're not logging in the morning, you're not playing. I don't mind waiting in queues, but the 2002 errors (which have been quite well established by many on the internet to to be "not connection related" - and validated myself via continual pings showing that I didn't suffer dropped packets to 3 other sites) must be fixed. Getting dropped from queue and reset is simply unacceptable.

A more aggressive policy is clearly needed for dealing with people exploiting mechanisms to avoid being booted for going AFK. Like seriously, it is not a secret people are exploiting tools (or literal physical devices) to avoid being booted for AFK.

[Naoki34]

If you connect outside of congestion hours, it is possible to connect, but it is reserved for a particular audience.

Logging in on Saturday during the congestion hours worked well as a 2 hour queue, but on Sunday it was impossible.

I did the test at midnight GMT+1, it connects in 2 seconds.

But not everyone is on sick leave or just off work.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...a8505e75541ab1
■ Peak hours of congestion

Though the congestion status may vary for each logical data centre, I’d like to share information regarding the peak hours of congestion we’ve currently observed as of December 5.

North American Data Centre: 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (PST) / 20:00 to 6:00 (GMT)
European Data Centre: 3:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (PST) / 11:00 to 23:00 (GMT)
Japan Data Centre: 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. (PST) / 9:00 to 15:00 (GMT)

[NegativeS]

The first few days I was at a relative's house who had garbage, inconsistent internet, and was bombarded with 2002 while in the queue. I was still able to get on if I was patient, but it took several hours.

Now that I'm home, I have no problems waiting in the queue, but unfortunately work calls and I can't play 24/7 like I'd want. Mostly I get on before work (~7 AM EST, so next-to-no queue) and do a dungeon to level SGE a tiny bit, then do the same when I get home. It ain't much, but it's honest work.

[Sotaris]

1st day; black screen of death. Apparently a semi known DX11 bug. Re-installed the game before saw a workaround online. 4-5 hours later with download and queues I was online.
2nd day: no queues, logged on in the morning
3rd day: Same as 2nd.
4th day: Same as 2nd & 3rd due being home on sick leave. Logged out for dinner and socialize with family, 7pm 5000 queue, probably take 2 hours. No biggie.
Offical Launchday: Probably as today, maybe a little less queues since a lot of people already cleared MSQ and will logout for 2 weeks.