Final Fantasy XIV Breaks More Records with 218,000 Concurrent Connections, Free Trial Period Will Be Extended (UPDATED)

Giuseppe Nelva August 29, 2013 2:03 PM EST

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is getting more and more popular despite the server problems and the suspension of digital sales due to excessive traffic, and Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida (that I recently interviewed at Gamescom) provided some new data for our perusal.

Just yesterday we learned that the game had broken the record for concurrent connections (users online at the same time) for an online game operated by a Japanese company with 187,000 users online at the same time, and today’s numbers are even higher.

According to Yoshida-san the traffic peak touched 218,000 users connected at the same time, showing that the popularity of the game is continuing to grow despite the problems caused by server congestion.

The development team is keeping up the good work on improving the situation, and for now is focusing on solving the problems at the root with enhancements to the server structure and the implementation of new servers instead of resorting to placebo solutions like an automatic kick for inactive players (that the team is considering for future implementation, but isn’t a priority now).

The implementation and optimization of the server is almost done, with the software installed on the machines and testing underway. The measures taken by the development team are expected to increase the capacity of both the Japanese and the North American/European datacenters significantly, smoothing out the login and performance issues. In addition to that, they will also increase visibly the performance of the content finder and of party matching.

Work is scheduled to be completed during the week end and we’ll see its effects at the beginning of next week, with further communication coming to announce exact dates.

It’s definitely worth mentionning that Yoshida-san also promised that in order to make it up to the players affected by the problems caused by server congestion, everyone will receive an extension to the free period after the issues will be solved.

Broken records, better performance and free gameplay, what’s not to love?

Update: I replaced the link to Yoshida-san’s message in Japanese with the one in English just posted on the official forums, and changed the wording of a few details to reflect the official translation.