Hello, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer & Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV.
We apologize for the ongoing congestion that has been occurring since Early Access and the official launch of Endwalker. It's been nearly two weeks since the start of Early Access and players are still experiencing substantial congestion when logging into the game. As we have new content set to release in upcoming patches, I'd like to provide you with several updates on our plans to address these issues.
■ Additional Game Time Compensation
We are aware that the long waiting times to log into the game are preventing players from playing, and for this, we sincerely apologize. In response to this, we recently granted 7 days of game time, but now we will also be granting an additional 14 days.
This will apply to all players (including those with multiple accounts) who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription as of Tuesday, December 21, at 12:00 a.m. (PST), which is the scheduled release date for Patch 6.01. Further details regarding eligibility will be announced separately.
■ Suspending Delivery of Package Versions and Temporary Suspension of Digital Version Sales
Players are currently experiencing extremely long wait times due to the dense concentration of play hours which far exceed our server capacity, especially during the peak times, and so we have decided to temporarily suspend the sale and delivery of FINAL FANTASY XIV Starter Edition and Complete Edition. Additionally, although those with an active subscription are prioritized to log in, Free Trial players are unable to log in outside of late night and early morning hours, and so we will also temporarily suspend new registrations for the Free Trial.
These temporary suspensions will be phased in over the next few days as we work with our retail partners. We will be coordinating with them as swiftly as possible, but please bear in mind that this will be a gradual process.
We will also be suspending all new advertisements. However, it will not be possible to suspend some of the advertisements due to the nature of how they were set up. We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter.
Expansion packs and Collector's Edition digital upgrades will continue to be available for existing players so that they may upgrade as needed.
To those who have been invited by their friends and family who have been considering joining, as well as our retail partners, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and ask for your understanding and cooperation in order to reduce congestion. We will continue to monitor the situation as we consider the timing around resuming sales.
