Patch Troubles Plague FFXIV

Final Fantasy XIV North American Servers Suffer Major Outage; Power Outage Suspected

Final Fantasy XIV experienced a significant server outage impacting all four North American data centers on January 5th, shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Initial reports and player accounts on social media suggest the disruption stemmed from a local power outage in Sacramento, possibly due to a blown transformer. Service was restored within an hour.

This incident differs from the numerous distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that plagued the game throughout 2024. DDoS attacks, which flood servers with false information, caused high latency and disconnections. While Square Enix employed mitigation strategies, completely preventing DDoS attacks remains a challenge. Players sometimes use VPNs to mitigate connection issues arising from these attacks.

This recent outage, however, appears to be a localized power issue. Reddit users reported hearing a loud explosion or popping sound in Sacramento, consistent with a blown transformer, around the time of the server failure. The affected region aligns with the location of Final Fantasy XIV's North American data centers.

Final Fantasy XIV's North American Servers Recover

The Europe, Japan, and Oceania data centers remained unaffected, further supporting the theory of a localized problem. At the time of this writing, servers are gradually returning to service, beginning with Aether, Crystal, and Primal Data Centers. The Dynamis Data Center, the newest addition, remains offline.

The ongoing server challenges present a hurdle for Final Fantasy XIV, especially considering ambitious plans for 2025, including the launch of a mobile version. The long-term impact of these recurring issues remains to be seen.