Last night’s maintenance may not have been as well-timed as most North American players would have liked, but it did bring some increased stability to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn‘s server infrastructure, several new worlds, and a 30 minute auto-kick on AFK players.
(Update: Digital sales have resumed!)
With the new infrastructure upgrades packed in this latest patch, Square Enix is coming close to resuming digital sales after a lengthy lock to prevent congestion past what players have to experience with the game’s current population.
In a forum post by game director and producer Naoki Yoshida, he specifically addresses the digital sales issue (among other things) and assures that they will be coming as quickly as stability allows:
In the most recent phase of improvements, we have focused on expanding server capacity along with adding additional Worlds and instance servers to increase the total number of players that can access the game.
This weekend, we will be monitoring server stability, keeping a close eye on the number of simultaneous logins, instances, and use of the duty finder. If all goes well, we plan to resume digital sales for each region.
Both the potential playerbase (who have been locked out of purchase) and Square Enix themselves want to see Final Fantasy XIV‘s digital sales resume; but with character creation restrictions still cycling through some worlds and instance server stability being woefully low before yesterday’s patch, the sales lock is a necessary inconvenience.
After a long, dark journey down the Square Enix tunnel, those locked out of buying the game now see a speck of light in the distance. With any luck, anyone wanting to buy Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will be able to do so sometime next week — but the game’s launch hasn’t exactly been full of lucky moments.
