FFXIV Suspends Housing Demolition Timers in Wake of Devastating LA Wildfires
Final Fantasy 14 has announced that adutomatic in-game housing demolition has been paused in the wake of a series of mass wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area.
“From all of us on the FFXIV development and management team, our hearts go out to those who were affected by the mountain fires that occurred around Los Angeles in North America,” the notice reads. “Due to the damages and other factors, we have decided to temporarily suspend the automatic demolition of estates.”
North American housing demolition timers have been paused as of 8:20 p.m. PST on January 9. This means that the game will preserve the “timer” for how long estates have been abandoned; once it lifts, if you had 10 days left on your timer, it will restart the time from there.
The LA wildfires are the latest disaster to strike the nation with such scale, with 180,000 residents forced to evacuate the area and the death toll currently at 10. At the time of writing, many of the major fires are being contained thanks to lower winds. LA is considered a hub for the gaming industry due to the area's history with development studios, home to developers, media publications, and industry stars such as content creators and professional competitive gamers, including Square Enix's North American headquarters.
Previously, housing demolition was temporarily held off due to Hurricane Helene in Florida and elsewhere in the Southern states, which caused at least 246 deaths and an estimated $124 billion in damages.
In fact, that incident’s demolition suspension was briefly lifted this Wednesday, January 8, at 12:00 a.m. PST. This means that demolition continued for precisely 40 hours and 20 minutes until the wildfires caused pause again. However, given that it’s just a pause of the timer that prevents eviction, chances are that very few, if any, homes were wiped in that timespan.
The staff also has yet to lift European housing suspension from floods taking place in Spain in early November.
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