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

[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.

[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."

[Rehayem]

The point of private servers is to provide a better gaming experience for games that have suffered a lot of P2W trash and at times have become unplayable unless you throw your wallet at it, or they have been shut down (like TERA). FFXIV doesn't need it because there's really nothing in the shop that gives you any advantage in the game whatsoever. There are just cosmetics, emotes, and dyes, and all mounts have the same speed (unlike some other games). Besides, the game already provides you with 2 expansions for free until level 60 with limitations, but this is hardly the reason for a private server. I spent years playing Aion, and I was shocked to see there is actually a game that's not p2w and actually gives me the feeling that I'm valuing my time playing it.

[SaltyDaddy]

It's probly just that you can't dump the ff14 files like you could with wow for example

You can dump FF14 files as easily, as in WOW. You literally have all the assets on your computer.

WOW private servers are literally completly rewriten server emulators. Every line of code is writen by some person, as you cant stole server code from Blizzard servers. Its not how that works.

But FF14 datacenters work little different than WOW and is much newer game. Much harder to make emulator for. And simply not worth the time and effort. Also, WOW emulator started in times, where it was much simpler game, much slower, much easier to work on. So they could make the base core for working vanilla and just add more stuff from later. Nobody ever made ARR private servers, so its just not worth to start making one.

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.

Yeah, but Vanilla WOW is completly different experience to retail. ARR to current version is just inferior version of the same game. Not sure how many people would stick for more than a week lol. Or you wish to level with FATEs again? :P

[Pratini]

Pretty sure its not as easy like WoW.

But we do have a couple projects trying to emulate 1.0 with old clients.

[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.