Final Fantasy XIV Bringing Back Hatching-tide, and Planning Big North American Data Center Upgrades

mmorpg.com:

Final Fantasy XIV  will get a major upgrade to the North American data centers, with downtime to coincide with the next patch, 6.38. The game is also getting the return of the Hatching-tide seasonal event next week.

When it comes to Final Fantasy XIV, at times, there has been frustration over performance and capacity issues. This was particularly present after the release of Endwalker at the end of 2021. While there were some improvements and adjustments to allow for more players to enjoy playing together, Square Enix even took extra measures like closing some worlds to new characters or transfers, pausing sales of Endwalker itself, and even temporarily suspending new accounts and the game’s famous free trial. The team had promised to expand and upgrade data centers, but had to postpone some of these changes until supplies were more readily available and other situations were sorted out. 

Last fall, North American data center upgrades began, and there’s a new one set to take place to upgrade the hardware. This downtime will begin on Monday, April 3, at 3AM PDT through Tuesday, April 4th at 3 AM PDT. The 24-hour downtime will be required for the full process,and the maintenance will coincide with the maintenance for Patch 6.38. 

The team will be moving all of the North American data centers’ information, including game data, carefully to the new servers. This will be a lengthy downtime, but the team expects things to be business as usual for players after the servers are up and open again. 

Before all of that happens, though, it’s time once again for the Hatching-tide event. This year’s event will take place from March 27th through April 10th. All those level15+ will be able to grab the quest “Get Along and Play