23 years after launch, Closing Fantasy 11 is suspending character creation on its hottest server because it buckles beneath the load of participant congestion
I performed Closing Fantasy 11 for the primary time in 2024 after an episode of the Irregular Mapping podcast poisoned me with brainworms hungry for an MMO that, since its launch in 2002, has been left largely untouched by the style conventions World of Warcraft would formalize within the years that adopted. It is like an interactive museum of an alternate MMO historical past, and there is apparently no scarcity of different gamers drawn in by that siren name.
Greater than twenty years after FF11’s launch, Sq. Enix has halted new character creation on its hottest server as a result of it is attracting extra gamers than it might probably deal with (by way of Vice). In a information submit on the FF11 web site, producer and director Yoji Fujito introduced “measures that might be applied to deal with congestion on the Asura World.”
“Thanks partly to gamers which can be new to the sport, in addition to these which can be returning residence to Vana’diel after being away for some time, the general participant inhabitants has been trending upward just lately,” Fujito stated. Sadly, these greater participant counts have “led to a sequence of sudden points which have managed to have an effect on the standard” of gameplay on Asura, the FF11 world with the very best participant inhabitants.
For instance, Fujito stated that system messages are “not displaying correctly” for gamers collaborating in Vana’Bout, a recurring seasonal occasion the place gamers are assigned randomized targets that contribute to a shared international completion objective. To handle these congestion points, Sq. Enix is taking the next measures beginning on Tuesday, July 29:
- The power to make use of the World Switch Service to switch characters to Asura might be suspended.
- The power to create new characters on Asura might be suspended.
- The Vana’diel Adventurer Recruitment Program might be suspended for Asura.
Fujito stated Sq. Enix is “additionally contemplating different potential measures that can assist equalize the populations throughout worlds,” as different crowded servers might current related points.
On the FF11 boards, some gamers have stated that occasion design may bear extra of the blame for congestion woes than rising participant inhabitants—at the least as they relate to Vana’Bout.
One thread criticized Sq. Enix’s choice to tie Vana’Bout targets to Ambuscade battles, which has led to clogged occasion queues. “That is completely ridiculous,” one participant wrote. “Losing a complete hour to queue and do a 60 second battle.”
One other participant echoed these complaints in a separate thread, saying it is “extraordinarily upsetting” that Sq. Enix designed Vana’Bout targets like one requiring the participant to take a certain quantity of harm in an Ambuscade.
” the place everybody’s head instantly went? Go in on Very Simple SOLO and sit there and tank hits time and again with out trusts to be sure you’re frequently taking harm and therapeutic your self,” the person wrote. “With this stated, Vana’bout [has] now grow to be a ready sport sitting in Mhaura ready extraordinarily lengthy queues… It isn’t enjoyable, in any respect.”
Whereas FF11 has been comfortably in its personal lane for the final 23 years, it might look to its extra mainstream cousins for options. WoW, for instance, has sometimes provided free server transfers for gamers keen to maneuver characters from overpopulated servers to low-density realms.
Fortunately for me, I already made my character on Asura months in the past, so I nonetheless get to hang around with the favored children. If solely I might solely keep in mind how you can navigate the early 2000s-era launcher…
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