Final Fantasy XIV is set to add a new data center and four new servers for North American players. This also means FFXIV has to go offline for scheduled maintenance. As stated in the previous Live Letter from the Producer during the 14-hour broadcast celebration, the game will undergo maintenance prior to launching the new servers on November 1.
FFXIV maintenance is set to start on October 31 at 6:00 p.m. PT and is estimated to finish by November 1 at 3:00 a.m. PT. This means the game will be offline for nine hours. Make Halloween plans accordingly. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida had mentioned that a 24-hour maintenance period may have been necessary, but fortunately such is not the case. This also marks the implementation of Patch 6.28, though additional details on the patch have not been shared yet.
How the North American Server Expansion Works
The new data center is named Dynamis and it will house four new servers called Halicarnassus, Maduin, Marilith, and Seraph. As with any new server, there will be incentives for players to create new characters or transfer over to the new servers.
New characters get double EXP bonuses up to level 80 and 10 Silver Chocobo Feathers to exchange for leveling gear. They will also receive 1,000,000 Gil and 15 days of free subscription time — free trial players must purchase the game before hitting level 30 to receive this specific reward.
The World Transfer Service will be free of charge to move to a server on the Dynamis data center. Transferred characters will get 10 Gold Chocobo Feathers for special rewards and rare mounts and will get double EXP bonuses up to level 80. If they own property in the FFXIV housing system, they will be reimbursed — you get the full price of your housing plot back and up to 3,000,000 Gil for non-recoverable furnishing items (you get 500,000 Gil for apartments and up to 500,000 for furnishings).
The housing lottery schedule for servers on the Dynamis data center will begin on November 4 at 8:00 a.m. PT (updated from the previous slide shown above). It will then follow the normal nine-day cycle as all other servers. All housing plots will be up for grabs (since these are brand-new servers).
The new data center and servers for North America have been in the works for a while and had to be delayed from its initial summer 2022 goal. It’s finally happening, so hopefully queue times will be alleviated now and for future influxes. Yoshida said that they’re starting with just four servers but expect to expand on the Dynamis data center as we approach the next expansion and Patch 7.0 as the playerbase grows.
We’re gearing up for another major patch with FFXIV 6.3 — the next Live Letter is set for November 11, which will cover the new content. Catch up on everything we know about FFXIV Patch 6.3, which includes the next Deep Dungeon, more Job changes, and additional Island Sanctuary content.
