Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker live blog – Early Access is here, come suffer with us
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My launcher is no longer a blank void, but it’s been “Checking Final Fantasy XIV” for like 5 minutes. But I’m watching a discord stream, that’s kind of like playing the game myself.
Apparently servers are up but my launcher crashed, and now it’s not loading. It’s going well already!
People in my Free Company are saying there’s a server queue with just like 425 people, but one of them said he disconnected as soon as he got into the city.
But then again, he did tell me he logged off in Ul’Dah so, there’s that.
The poor servers.
The server status page is unavailable due to maintenance. The anxiety.
10 minutes to go!
Probably!
I don’t think there will be any delays, but I have to admit there’s part of me that’s ready for everything to go wrong. But whatever, I got my monster and now I’m just going to keep refreshing the server status page to see when my Data Center is back online.
Me and a couple of folks from my free company are going through the abilities of the new classes, and, well, it looks like I’m going to be playing Sage. I’m ready to spend a bunch of time in Bozja getting Sage up to level 80 quickly.
I like to punish myself, but wow does it sound fun.
Also, did you know that Reaper has an ability called Gibbets? And another one called Guillotine? I don’t really do DPS, but even I’m tempted.
I can confirm that the servers are still down. I know that I’m going to have to wait until at least 4am, but I keep refreshing the launcher anyways.
Ok I’m awake. Kind of. Going to get a Monster.
Another PSA: there’s now another patch to download. So, pro tip: log into the launcher, agree to the new terms of service, and start the download to the patch.
Ok, one last update. Just a PSA: you can log into the launcher and download the patch now. It’s about 4GB, so not huge, but not something you want to be downloading when you know you’re going to already be waiting for a server queue.
Though, while you can log into the launcher to download the patch, you can’t log into the actual game yet. For that we just wait for the servers to go back up.
Probably the last update until servers go up. I think I decided on leveling Astrologian to 90 first, just because I really want to try out the new card system and also really don’t want to spend hours in the Bozjan Southern Front to grind from 70-80 to level Sage.
That reminds me, there are two new classes in Endwalker: Sage and Reaper. If you’re going to level either of these from the get-go, keep in mind they both start at level 70, so you’ll have to do a bit of grinding before starting the new main story content.
And for anyone wondering the launch that happens tomorrow morning is technically early access, but you can still get access by preordering the expansion either on Steam or on Square Enix’s own website (or PSN if you play on PS5).
Then again, if you haven’t played at all, did you know Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial up to level 60 that includes the award-winning expansion Heavensward? You can get that right here.
Until the servers go up at 4am, I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll see everyone bright and early to wait in a server queue.
Ok I have made it home, eaten a sandwich and taken my meds, now it’s time to wait for the servers to go up. In the meantime, it looks like Square Enix has put out a letter about the launch of the expansion, and get ready for server queues.
In the blog post, the company says that right now there are more active players than ever before, and with a new expansion more people are going to be playing, so the servers are going to be hit harder than ever before.
The company does include a workaround in that blog post if you’re on a particularly crowded World. You can simply log onto another World on the same Data Center, by right clicking your character and selecting “visit another world server”.
There are also a number of potential issues called out in the blog post, probably just to let players know that there will probably be some issues with the launch.
I’ve seen so many MMO expansion launches and none of them have gone smoothly, so I totally expect some long queues and server crashes. And don’t worry, it’ll all be chronicled right here.
About to leave the office and head home now. Now I get to spend the ride home deciding which job I’m going to take to 90 first. Will it be White Mage? Astrologian? Or am I going to suffer through leveling Sage from 70-90 at the beginning. Only time will tell.
I’m just finishing up a couple things in the office, before I can go home, eat some food, and get some semblance of sleep in before the servers are expected to go live at 4:00 am EST. Looks like it’s going to be an early morning for me.
Let’s go.
Refresh 2021-12-03T09:08:06.773Z (Image credit: Square Enix) My launcher is no longer a blank void, but it’s been “Checking Final Fantasy XIV” for like 5 minutes. But I’m watching a discord stream, that’s kind of like playing the game myself. 2021-12-03T09:03:24.530Z This is all the FFXIV launcher is right now. Love it. …
