So just curious but how come there's no ff14 private servers?

[NekoMataMata]

Yes. I really just asked that.

For context, I recently learned that private servers for other games exist, and this was my first question. I'm not interested in the technical whys and why nots. I'm more interested in why someone would or wouldn't want to create one.

There may or may not be enough interest in any era of this game to create a server for that but what about a server made purely for RP? You seem to see threads about venues and/or roleplayers here every other day. You see the shouts in-game. Whether it's in-game lore accurate RP or NSFWish venues it's probably the activity that happens most in-game.

Don't you think people would go crazy for a server that costs much less than the game itself but with all the games natural customization options for characters and houses, along with mods, along with said mods being native to the server. Could probably even add a NSFW toggle so you can make sure that the lore roleplayers can run around with their garlean eye mods or whatever without having to deal with the nsfw venue people. It could probably even cater to the casuals that just want to do things like design homes and have more customization options for them. Imagine having a home with a greater item limit and customization like being able to scale up the size of furnishings or naturally move them around where ever you want without having to abuse glitches.

Do you think this could ever happen?

[ICountFrom0]

If such a thing can be made, it has been made.
That you have never found one tells you two pieces of data.
1. How rabid the legal team is.
2. How hidden they have to be to survive.

If you want to pay 40% of what you make, for the rest of your life, forever, to a major company, you can try it.

[VirusOnline]

the game is incredibly social, why go on a private server if the point is to idle dance in limso and be seen by everyone
same thing for houses

[NekoMataMata]

the game is incredibly social, why go on a private server if the point is to idle dance in limso and be seen by everyone
same thing for houses

I'm not saying the game isn't social. I'm saying that you could at least in theory create a social only version of the game as a private server with features better than the current game itself.

[Reimmi]

It's probly just that you can't dump the ff14 files like you could with wow for example
Though i don't know the technical side of things. Personally kinda sad that noones even tried, i'd like to just see how classes played back in heavensward at least

[Jeeqbit]

For context, I recently learned that private servers for other games exist

The reason is because other games did something major to make their players want to go back to a previous version of the game. A good example of that is classic WoW, which WoW ceased to resemble so people wanted it back that much.

In FFXIV, we can continue to do old content with the minimum item level and silence echo settings and still experience it regularly in roulettes. We can sync down to the rotation we had at a previous expansion. Of course, there have been changes to some classes at lower levels and less important actions have been pruned or merged from the lower levels over time, but the essence is mostly still there.

For example, at level 50 a PLD has always spammed the Rage of Halone combo and still does now. A DRG has always rotated between two combos at that level and used Dragonfire Dive and Jump at that level and still does.

The changes to the game have, generally, just been positive ones. Almost every change I've seen in patches have been things that people have thought should happen for years (we call it Quality of Life).

When cross-class skills were removed, it was because people were saying it was annoying leveling other jobs they don't care about to get important skills. When Parry was replaced with Tenacity, it was because Parry wasn't even worth it and although people may not choose Tenacity now, it at least does what it's supposed to (mitigates tank busters) which Parry often didn't. When Featherfoot was removed, nobody noticed (because it was useless and increased evasion on a DPS when DPS don't tank things much). These are the sort of changes we have got for most of the game's life - changes which people had been asking for or that just made sense. So there hasn't been a reason to want to go back.

For all the people who talk up Heavensward, it was full of jank, useless stats, useless items, useless abilities, grindy systems, unintuitive mechanics that turned people away and the game is a lot more polished and fine-tuned now.

[dspguy]

The reason is because other games did something major to make their players want to go back to a previous version of the game.

Spot on.

FFXI has a few private servers. At the time, they were limited to the first expansion (which for NA players was the original release). Over time, they worked through the level 75-capped expansions. I think they stopped there. It was what some players would have called the golden era of FFXI. One benefit is they bumped up experience gain, added ways to solo effectively (in relation to a game made in the early 2000s), added some teleports and removed the countless hours of grinding for gil.

However, I think they suffered from too small a population. For a game that required you to have 6 people to run certain boss battles, it could be difficult to get people together to do anything.

[WCW524]

The reason is because other games did something major to make their players want to go back to a previous version of the game. A good example of that is classic WoW, which WoW ceased to resemble so people wanted it back that much.

In FFXIV, we can continue to do old content with the minimum item level and silence echo settings and still experience it regularly in roulettes. We can sync down to the rotation we had at a previous expansion. Of course, there have been changes to some classes at lower levels and less important actions have been pruned or merged from the lower levels over time, but the essence is mostly still there.

For example, at level 50 a PLD has always spammed the Rage of Halone combo and still does now. A DRG has always rotated between two combos at that level and used Dragonfire Dive and Jump at that level and still does.

The changes to the game have, generally, just been positive ones. Almost every change I've seen in patches have been things that people have thought should happen for years (we call it Quality of Life).

When cross-class skills were removed, it was because people were saying it was annoying leveling other jobs they don't care about to get important skills. When Parry was replaced with Tenacity, it was because Parry wasn't even worth it and although people may not choose Tenacity now, it at least does what it's supposed to (mitigates tank busters) which Parry often didn't. When Featherfoot was removed, nobody noticed (because it was useless and increased evasion on a DPS when DPS don't tank things much). These are the sort of changes we have got for most of the game's life - changes which people had been asking for or that just made sense. So there hasn't been a reason to want to go back.

For all the people who talk up Heavensward, it was full of jank, useless stats, useless items, useless abilities, grindy systems, unintuitive mechanics that turned people away and the game is a lot more polished and fine-tuned now.

This is easily one of the most dismissive and out of touch posts I have ever read on this website.
QoL may be leagues better today, but the FFXIV I fell in love with hasn't existed since late Stormblood.
I'd hop on an ARR server in a heartbeat. I would literally rather wait for the PLD to get their Hallowed Ground back after a wipe than play whatever FFXIV is today.
I'd prefer they skipped ARR and just started from Heavensward though.

[Boblawblah]

This is easily one of the most dismissive and out of touch posts I have ever read on this website.
QoL may be leagues better today, but the FFXIV I fell in love with hasn't existed since late Stormblood.
I'd hop on an ARR server in a heartbeat. I would literally rather wait for the PLD to get their Hallowed Ground back after a wipe than play whatever FFXIV is today.
I'd prefer they skipped ARR and just started from Heavensward though.

[MintnHoney]

IIRC, there was once something said about private servers being impossible to create due to how FFXIV's servers are structured, rather than anything related to a "lack of interest" in returning to past versions due to "jank" or wanting "social interaction."