Message from Yoshi

[CrisGer]

There is no way any game development team is given a unlimited number of servers at game launch, the head office has to plan and approve such moves and rarely does the Head Office expect or know to expect such a huge response. It is literally unparalleled in recent game development history. That being said, I am very sure that the blockage will be eased soon. My sharing has been to encourage courtesy and respect, not to stifle concern or mask frustration. But the bottom line in the business world is that there are limits to what can be expected and planned for, and we see that in play here.

It is not the fault of the devel team or leadership and we must remember the huge effort and dedication they all showed in doing the work to achieve this literally miraculous game with a immensely detailed game world that has been, as far as i can see, without a single flaw, and game play that is remarkable for its depth and range of variety and interest, cut scenes that are some of the best i have seen for continuity with the game graphics, and overall an immense achievment considering that this is a continuation of a long title series, never an easy thing to approach.

So, I hope for peace and patience among us, and fun to come.

[ChickensEvil]

You do realize that most people "pre-ordered" it just in time for early access. (Myself being one of them and like 90% of my guild). That data would not have been in their "estimates"... Working in IT, I know how long it can take to push the paperwork, approve a purchase, order it, get it in, build it, test it, and then deploy it. In my environment these things take MONTHS, and the fact that they are trying to do that in, what? 2 weeks? is astounding. They probably did account for the sales data with some room for expansion, based on the sales data they had at the time. Considering they stood these servers up for Phase 4 for the first time, these were all likely ordered and accounted for over a month ago... Again I ask, how many of these "pre-orders" were done one or two days before it went to early access? 10%, 20%, 50%?

I swear every game I have ever played people are like "worst launch in the history of gaming eva!" Then they proceed to cite some anecdotal evidence about, for example, playing WoW (since that is the defacto example) since "day 1". Either these people have horrible memories, or are lying... There is a reason the Zeppelin engineer comments and jokes about how they haven't had a crash in years... way back in the day... people would hop on the zeppelins and end up lost in space.

In this games case, it is the duty finder system... They implemented an AT LAUNCH cross server feature, not knowing how many people would actually be playing the game, and you didn't think it would cause problems? You are fooling yourself. Sure they could have done more, given the time and money... but at the end of the day, they are working to fix it, rather quickly I might add.

Disclaimer: I am not an SE fanboi, I have only JUST switched to this game, having never played 1.0 or even FFXI... so I have no stock in the company nor a favoritism toward them.

[Enveigle]

FIX the Queue system... Make it a priority... So, Yoshi-P confirms that they are going to keep the server limits for the logins. That's fine, but please - for the love of Ifrit - let us use the queue system. I don't mind staying half an hour in queue if that's needed... But I DO mind having to mass click START > mycharname > "OK" to the message stating that "the server is full" over and over again for the same amount of time.

The lack of Que system for login not only frustrates the current players who are being patient .. but is going to cause lack of revenue from canceled orders, refunds, and many not even trying to play this game. make it a priority SE.

Sincerly, EVERYONE.

[PSxpert2011]

Do your best Yoshida and thank you for the good game, your awesome!

I had my fair share of 90K and 1017, so have we all... it's a cruel world and share the same burden. Still, thank you for hard work for w/e it's worth!

Anyone... who can't simply acknowledge the effort into this game in so little time- is just pitiful.

[dukedudeston]

I have to say, I do now take back my original statement, after seeing HOW overpopulated the servers are, and how hard they are trying to work on this issue.
Adding more capacity to the data centers around the world is a good start! And I hope that this will mean people in overpopulated worlds will get a chance to move over.

But does this also mean that there might be a higher capacity of "lobby" connections, as it seems to only let x amount of connections through despite how full worlds are, from what I can see, world 1 might have 100k members in it, and world 2, might have 200k, however world 3, might only have 10k members, but because overall the connection to the lobby is at its max, it doesn't matter if world 3 still has space for more people to login! (I don't know if this is true, it's just how it seems)

[CrisGer]

I am very glad to see the understanding and compassion growing or already present in posters here and elsewhere. Even tho it is frustrating to want to enter into the game, we all are in the same boat together and it makes the wait and the trials easier for us all and much nicer for the devls if we are kind. Remember they ..the staff who are working so hard for us..are people with feelings too. Here..is a picture of Yoshi and the entire devel staff to remind us



I always remember as I play in the FFXIV world, each bush, each tree, each rock, each element was placed by someone, and adjusted, tuned, lighting worked on, backgrounds, skies, textures, characters designed, creatures created and all scripted ....coded, by one or more of these people...millions of hours. It is literally impossible to imagine and the result..is awesome.

So here's hoping for fixes soon and sending happy and supportive thoughts to Yoshi San and the entire team..and patience for us all.

[CrisGer]

Once again Yoshi San has shown tremendous character, candor and integrity with his open communications and sincerity. I thank him so very much and we are very fortunate indeed a man of his quality has risen to lead this remarkable and wonderful project.

For New players, Naoki Yoshida is the Lead on this game project and has helped re launch this title with greatly enhanced quality and one of the most beautiful and detailed and playable world environments I have ever seen, in either a MMO or a Single player game. This is indeed a remarkable project, and it is very rare indeed for the Producer and Lead of a project to take such an open and public role in helping launch and create such a project. We are all very lucky as is the team he leads and it promises much for the future of this game. He has had extensive experience in MMOs, and worked on a number of them as Story lead, and Director, including some of the Dragon Quest series, and is an ideal person to lead this project for not only his experience but from his clearly evident strength of character and courage with all that we all face in such an unique launch.

Yesterday 05:57 PM

Further Details on Access Restrictions

This is FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn producer and director Naoki Yoshida and I would like to take the time to personally apologize once again to all those players who have been affected by the extended World login and character creation restrictions which have been in place for the past several days. I also understand that apologies will not help you get logged in, so I would like to give you an update on the situation at hand and the various measures we are currently employing to alleviate the situation.

Concurrent Connections

On the night following the announcement of our plans to temporarily limit sales of the download version, A Realm Reborn recorded upwards of 218,000 concurrent connections. This is in spite of the fact that the peak login times for separate regions around the world arrive at differing intervals. We estimate that without time zone differences, the total number of concurrent connections would number anywhere from 300,000 to 350,000.

As many of you know, this is the second launch for FINAL FANTASY XIV─something unprecedented in the MMORPG market. Considering the outcome of our first launch, our sales estimates for this one were decidedly conservative, as we believed that there would be a more gradual rise in users over the opening weeks and months.

Instead, to our pleasant surprise, we experienced tremendous support from a great number of players who were eager to get into the game from day one. To ensure that these players, once logged in, were able to play in a stable environment, we were required to implement login restrictions which kept server population near maximum capacity without exceeding those numbers.

The fact that we had to implement these restrictions is a direct result of my inaccurate sales and login estimates, and as producer, I must accept complete responsibility for this misstep. Each and every player who has been affected has my deepest apologies.

The Reasoning behind Login Restrictions

Each FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn World server has been designed to support a maximum of 5,000 concurrent connections. This is not the maximum number of characters which can be created on a World, however, but the maximum number of characters which can be logged into that World simultaneously. When more than 5,000 characters log into a World at once, there is a higher risk of server crashes and login errors. The restoration of crashed servers is usually followed by a rush of players attempting to log back in, which, in turn, puts a strain on our lobby server, and can ultimately have an adverse affect on all of the Worlds.

To prevent this from happening, we felt that the safest course of action would be to limit logins. However, we would like you to know that the restrictions are under constant surveillance. We are currently monitoring login numbers on all Worlds 24 hours a day, and actively removing/applying restrictions as soon as we detect even the smallest fluctuation in concurrent connection numbers.

Currently, peak login times for each region are occurring from approximately 9:00 p.m. to midnight. During this three-hour window, Worlds are more likely to have login restrictions implemented. These temporary restrictions are expected to continue until the time that we can execute the measures we have planned to alleviate the current situation. Those measures, including the addition of new World servers, are listed, in detail, below.

Character Creation Restrictions

As stated above, the maximum number of simultaneous connections each World server can handle is 5,000, while the number of characters which can be created on a World is several times that amount. This estimate of 5,000, however, is based on those characters being somewhat distributed over all the in-game areas (zones).

At the game’s start, however, while everyone is still at a low level, the majority of players are concentrated in the three city-states and surrounding areas. This can not only lead to a lack of enemies to slay (preventing quest progression), but also see area servers overloaded, and ultimately lead to crashes.

Fortunately, differences in total individual play time, login times, and character/class progression will eventually lead to players being more spread out within each World. Once this happens, there will be less need for both login and character creation restrictions.

As is the case with logins, our team is working around the clock, monitoring the current population of each area in each World, as well as the class level of each character, and adjusting new character creation restrictions based on their findings. Unlike login restrictions, we believe that character creation restrictions may take slightly longer to be removed, as there are still great discrepancies in the distribution of characters across Worlds, and we thank players for their patience and understanding in this issue.

Adding Worlds and Alleviating Server Load Issues

A server is essentially a high-spec PC, with each FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn World being made up of several of these machines. Creating a new World involves physically acquiring the servers, installing the necessary programs, and conducting internal functionality tests...all before opening the World to the public.

As the login data gathered from the Open Beta test (in which anyone, including those who had not purchased the game, could participate) was inconclusive, it was during the Early Access period that we had a clearer picture of the scope with which we would need to increase World capacity, and on the 25th of August began making preparations to do so significantly.

As of this post, the servers have been acquired, the essential programs installed, and we are currently in the process of conducting our internal tests. Once these tests have concluded and the Worlds go live, we believe we will be able to better accommodate a greater number of our players, making logging in less of a hassle.

In addition to increasing the number of Worlds, we are also optimizing the Duty Finder (party matching) management servers in an effort to reduce server load and ensure better stability when using this feature.

Currently, the Duty Finder servers split our data centers into two groups of 25 Worlds, and then do the party matching from players from within the same data center. We have determined that by adding new Worlds, the Duty Finder servers will not be able to process the additional data as long as there are only two pairings of groups to match from. Therefore, we have decided to create additional groups to alleviate this problem before it occurs, and by doing so, reduce the burden on the Duty Finder servers, and ultimately allow more players to access the feature.

The development and operations teams are currently concentrating 100% of their efforts into the aforementioned tasks and are on pace to have both completed by the beginning of next week and then released to the public once our final tests have concluded. Once a date and time for the implementation of the measures have been solidified, we will release another announcement on Lodestone outlining the details. We ask that you bear with us for just a few days longer while we make the final push.

Resolving AFK Character Issues

From several users on some of our more congested Worlds, we have received requests for a feature which automatically logs out characters who are AFK for an extended period of time. We are actively looking into the implementation of such a feature, but have decided to first concentrate our efforts on increasing the number of Worlds and optimizing the Duty Finder servers.

In Conclusion

The development and operations teams are working diligently to combat the login issues which many of our users are currently facing, and ask for your continued patience and understanding over the next several days as we move to solve these problems.

To thank all of you for bearing with us for so long, we will be looking into different ways to reward our loyal fans and customers, such as an extension of the free trial period. Details on the plans we have in the works will be announced shortly.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we have been overwhelmed with the positive response for A realm Reborn, which is why it doubly pains us to implement any sort of measure that may restrict people from joining us in Eorzea. We sincerely apologize for the unwanted stress these restrictions have caused, and thank you immensely for the understanding you have shown over the past week. The fixes are almost in place and we look forward to seeing all of you very, very soon.

Thank you.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida

非常にヨッシーサンありがとう and thank you very much Yoshi San (Yoshi-P)

/bow

[CrisGer]

I see by following up on threads that Square Enix may actually give us more free time to make up for the delays, keep watching the official posts.

[IsitEvil]

I just wish they gave us an Estimate of how long things are gonna take. They're pulling a Blizzard "Soon." on us it seems.

[klaud_litah]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...17#post1132817

this new was posted today....but how about people who bought the game on 27th on psn...people who never played the game....who can't even register or log in...he never talks about us