FFXIV’s Endwalker has been a smash hit, but the servers being full is a serious problem. Players are having serious issues connecting at night – having to wait from between 2-5,000 players can take hours. More often than not, people just give up, this writer included. I only play during the day/afternoon right now. The server congestion is a serious problem though, and Naoki Yoshida has addressed it for the third time. One thing current players can look forward to is more free game time, and they are also going to fix the 2002 server errors and acquire more servers. Here’s what we know about the current FFXIV full servers problem.

It’s been about two weeks since the Endwalker Early Access, and server congestion has not in any way died down. Many players are having a hard time getting in to play after work because so many players simply will not log out. They understand that if they do, they won’t get back in. More people want to play FFXIV than can possibly do so right now. This sounds like a pretty good problem to have though, being so popular.

Naoki Yoshida addressed what they’re doing about this in a recent blog post, saying that more free game time is coming:

“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.”

Getting a total of 21 free days of game time definitely helps. The real problem though is the servers themselves. There simply aren’t enough of them or enough room on them. This was a problem that was supposed to already be corrected, but COVID-19 made that difficult. Yoshida said that they were working on adding a new Data Center and more Worlds, but COVID hurt that. They are still looking into the problem, and hope to have a Roadmap by January 2022.

Square Enix has been looking into delivery dates and figures for new servers, but they need more time. There is progress, and hopefully, before long, they will have this figured out. North America and Europe are likely to see large-scale additions but aren’t certain if it will be done in one big push, or sequentially. But what can they do for now? Unfortunately, the game sales are being halted for the time being.

“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.”

Those Free Trial suspensions will be lifted over the next few days. The sales will be delivered as quickly as they can, but it will take some time. However, players can still upgrade to Collector’s Edition (digital) and Expansions, to get them ready for Endwalker, but it’s just too busy right now. FFXIV’s servers are still full, and it’s definitely so popular that people can’t even play the game. We’re glad to see that it’s so popular, but there are other things to address – 2002 Server Errors, and the Patch Schedule.

However, one of the best things to come out of this announcement is that Square Enix knows how to fix the Error 2002 disconnect. Error 2002 is when someone is in the login queue and gets disconnected, which is often attributed to an unstable connection. However, this is a bug that the devs have figured out the reason for it. It has to do with a login program created back in 1.0, but it has been solved. It won’t be delivered until the December 21st update, Patch 6.01 though. They thought about releasing it earlier but ultimately decided against it. There’s a lot of new code in this patch, and they want to make sure that there are no new bugs caused as a result.

As long as there are no major issues that come up, the next major patch, 6.05 will drop on Tuesday, January 4th, 2022. There are worries that people won’t be able to get into the new content, like Pandæmonium: Asphodelos (Savage) and the new Treasure Hunt Dungeon – The Excitatron 6000. They understand there are concerns, with people racing towards World Firsts, but as long as there are no major issues, the update will go out as scheduled.

That said, we’re still very excited for the success and growth of FFXIV, servers being full and all. It sounds like Square Enix is on top of it, and looking for ways to fix it. It’s important for the fans to get this kind of clarity and open discussion on what’s going on, and hopefully, the fixes are on the way. For now, we just have to wait and enjoy the game when we can.