Final Fantasy XIV may be cursed. You know this if you’ve tried to play recently and met the business end of a 1017 error (indicating a full server). It hasn’t been a good week for Square Enix’s second-shot MMO. Heck, it’s been a pretty miserable three years. I keep expecting my copy of the PlayStation 3 version to turn up a black spot.
Though being full up is kind of a good problem to have, unlike the far more serious issues the game had back in September 2010. Then, it was in such bad shape Square Enix had to ask for a mulligan, haul its beleaguered pseudo-medieval realm of Eorzea back to the forge, shutter the servers last November, and promise to essentially rebuild the thing from the ground up.
Which is where we find ourselves today, a little over a week into delivery of said promise, still sporting roman numeral XIV, but with a bullish new subtitle: A Realm Reborn.
I’d caught wind of the server traffic problems, but you never think it’s going to be you, so off I went to buy a copy of the PlayStation 3 version on Wednesday. Silly me! I spent most of the afternoon and evening jousting with the game’s login routine, apparently besieged by throngs of Final Fantasy fanatics.
If only I’d read my GameStop receipt first: The store prints this pithy little message at the bottom that reads “Due to server connectivity issues there may be difficulties logging on to Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn” and a note redirecting you to visit the game’s website for more info. Fat lot of good it did me.
Then again, even Guild Wars 2 had its share of launch hiccups, and what are we supposed to give an MMO to find its feet nowadays? A day? A week? Longer? To my surprise, FFXIV started working late Wednesday night, and it’s still purring along as I’m typing this Saturday afternoon, so if you’re still upset about the bumpy takeoff, all I can do is point you to Square Enix’s formal apology, note that they’ve since added server headroom plus a seven-day credit to accounts registered before Sept. 9, shrug and move on.
In other words, the game works now, so all these stories about it not working and having a disastrous launch and yada yada are officially passé. And so far what I’ve seen of this smarter, sleeker, newfangled Eorzea I like, as in really like. And I’ll be back to say more about that soon.