You may have noticed, but this week hasn’t been the best week to start playing Final Fantasy XIV. Since the release of Shadowbringers last year, Square Enix’s top-shelf MMORPG has only grown more popular, and more people than ever are giving it a whirl. The problem is that a new patch is out, and regular players have been preparing for it all week, clogging up the servers for new players. Now, the game is out of commission for maintenance. Things should smooth our more once the dust settles, but for now nobody can play!
How Long is Final Fantasy XIV Maintenance for Patch 5.3?
Maintenance has been running in Final Fantasy XIV since late last night, and it will be running until late tonight or early tomorrow morning depending on your time zone or perspective. The whole game is shut down, and we aren’t exaggerating when we mean the whole game. This includes all Worlds in Final Fantasy XIV, the online store, the Mog Station (hub for subscription services), the Companion App for smartphones, and even The Lodestone (official online game resource).
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It’s all down for maintenance, but it’s a scheduled maintenance. Everything went down overnight, at 3:00 AM PT on August 10, 2020. The maintenance period is all day and into the night, not officially lifting until 3:00 AM PT on August 11. That’s a full 24 hours of maintenance, and that’s if everything goes according to schedule. As we know from every game ever with an online component, nothing goes according to schedule. There were some issues when Shadowbringers launched, but you should still be able to get in the day maintenance lifts with some patience.
When starting a new character in Final Fantasy XIV, you have to choose a world. This is where network traffic can hamper your play time, especially if you’re trying to get on a specific server to play with friends. Servers can and will get congested, and you may have to wait a while if the server you want is full. If you don’t care where you end up, you should be able to hop on one of the less-stressed Worlds. You’ll be locked there, but you can always buy a transfer as needed later.
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Are you excited for the 5.3 patch and the conclusion to the Shadowbringers story with Reflections in Crystal? Are you trying to play Final Fantasy XIV for the first time, now that the first storyline is being streamlined? Let us know what your experience is with Final Fantasy XIV over at the Prima Games Facebook and Twitter channels!
