Highlights
- Final Fantasy 14 is adding new probationary Worlds to the European Data Center on June 11 in preparation for the Dawntrail expansion.
- Players can use these overflow servers to avoid congestion and queues on their home servers, but they won’t be able to create new characters or transfer existing ones.
- The North American Data Center is also adding four new worlds on June 11, while cross-region travel tests are in progress.
Final Fantasy 14 is introducing probationary Worlds, a new type of server specifically designed to alleviate data center congestion. This new type of Final Fantasy 14 World is coming to the European Logical Data Center on June 11 in preparation for the release of the Dawntrail expansion.
Dawntrail is arriving in Final Fantasy 14 on July 2, with early access for players who pre-purchased the expansion starting on June 28. As with any major MMORPG release, fans can expect login queues, server congestion, and other connectivity issues once Dawntrail comes out.
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Dawntrail represents the start of something new for long-running MMO Final Fantasy 14, and that’s clear in the upcoming expansion’s overall direction.
To prepare for the expansion, Final Fantasy 14 is trying something new to help mitigate these disruptions. On June 11, its European Physical Data Center is adding Shadow, a new logical data center with four Worlds. However, these servers are probationary Worlds – a new classification that forbids players from creating new characters, or transferring their existing ones, to Worlds with this type of restriction. The only purpose for these Worlds is to be visited via the Data Center Travel System in Final Fantasy 14.
FF14: Dawntrail European Data Center Expansion
- The new Shadow Logical Data Center is arriving with four probationary worlds on Tuesday, June 11.
- Innocence
- Pixie
- Titania
- Tycoon
These new Worlds are being designed as an overflow space for players whose home servers are congested. When fans on the European Data Center try to log in, they might consider visiting the Shadow Data Center to avoid queues on their home servers in Final Fantasy 14. Eventually, these Worlds will likely transition into normal ones to allow players to move there permanently, but not until the inevitable traffic and hype surrounding Dawntrail stabilizes.
This isn’t the only server prep work Final Fantasy 14 is doing before Dawntrail. Four more Worlds are being added to the North American Dynamis Data Center in Final Fantasy 14 on June 11 as well. These new Worlds are not probationary, meaning players can immediately put down roots in these servers. It remains to be seen if Final Fantasy 14 will use more probationary Worlds outside the ones coming to its European Data Center in the future.
Unfortunately, Final Fantasy 14 fans outside the European Data Center won’t be able to visit these probationary Worlds yet. That said, Final Fantasy 14 is testing cross-region Data Center Travel until Dawntrail, allowing players from across the globe to visit Worlds on the Oceania Data Center. While there is no permanent plans to implement this system quite yet, the fact that Final Fantasy 14 is working out the kinks in doing so means it could arrive later on, even as a temporary measure.