Final Fantasy 14 once again grows its server capacity for its still-growing population. FFXIV recently announced two new sets of servers for North America and Europe, which are now live and available to utilize.
While the North American “worlds” are relatively standard, the European ones are part of a new experimental “probationary” series of servers meant to alleviate congestion for the region’s players.
These new worlds went live after this past offline maintenance this Tuesday, July 11th, which ended around 1:30 a.m. PDT. It seems to be in anticipation for the upcoming release of Dawntrail, especially as the team announces that its player base continues to hit peak population, and given the sorts of hellish congestion players faced last time.
Should you make the jump to another server before Dawntrail—or in one case, can you? Here’s what you need to know to make that decision.
Probationary European FFXIV Data Center & Servers
The new European Data Center, Shadow, is considered a “probationary” Data Center. This means that players will be able to travel to it in order to do content; however, they’ll be restricted from creating characters. The worlds listed are Innocence, Pixie, Titania, and Tycoon
“Probationary Worlds will be restricted from new character creation and the Home World Transfer Service but will otherwise function as regular Worlds where players will be able to enjoy their usual activities, such as undertaking quests and duties, or matchmaking via the Duty Finder,” the Lodestone post explains. “We hope these Worlds will serve as helpful alternatives when your usual data center is congested.”
In other words, at the moment, you can transfer your character over there if need be. This is possible through the Data Center Travel, which is managed through the Character Select screen. You cannot make a character there, though.
In short, it’s a great option if you’re just trying to get through the story and there’s a huge queue of a million and a half hours to get into your home server. Europe’s a relatively small server for its playerbase, and so this seems like the FFXIV team trying to get a step ahead.
However, the Probationary Worlds do not grant you the new world bonuses, given they’re only for DC Travelers and not for actual character-making (and you will be blocked by the game for trying). The FFXIV team will provide updates if any of this changes, including possible new character creation on these worlds.
New North American FFXIV Worlds/Servers on Dynamis
Unlike the “probationary” Data Center, FFXIV's new North American “worlds” are actually standard servers—the same as other previous servers. The update to servers include four new Worlds for the already-existing Dynamis data center: Cuchulainn, Golem, Kraken, and Rafflesia. (Try saying those five times fast.)
Like on any other new world, players who make their players on these servers will receive the standard new-world bonuses: an EXP bonus, in-game “Chocobo Feathers” for premium items, and, for subscribed players, 1 million gil—plus 15 free days of play if you haven’t redeemed these bonuses previously.
Of course, it’s a new world, and Data Center Travel is in play, so a common complaint has become that players don’t stay on the DC in order to play due to low population, then hop to other DCs—bringing down the player population for these duties, in an ironic cycle. However, resources are abundant, especially in housing and the like.
On the other hand, this does mean that if you’re just looking to do content beyond packed Dawntrail queues once its highly-anticipated Early Access kicks in June 28, you can just hop over to Dynamis. When there’s a will, there’s a way.
