What to expect from Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 6.1 and future FF Data center changes.
When Final Fantasy XIV releases its 6.1 patch in mid-April, we’ll finally be able to visit other data centers. Japanese servers will also see some adjustments because of that.
Travel to Far Away Stars
The cross data center travel feature was originally planned to come out before Endwalker’s release. But because of the recent explosion in popularity, a global shortage of semiconductors has stalled these plans. The team at Square Enix recently added the OCE Data Center and is now looking to implement the travel feature. This will allow players in the same region to visit each other’s data centers with minimal restrictions.
Only crossworld linkshells and free company chat will be disabled. Other than that, players can freely interact with foreign market boards and participate in content. Players can also join crossworld linkshells on other data centers, but can only chat in them if they’re on the right data center. So if you join a crossworld linkshell on aether, you’ll only be able to chat in it while being on aether.
To travel to another data center, players only have to hit the option in the character selection screen. There you’ll be able to pick a target data center and world. This transfer process should only take a couple of minutes. After you’ll be relogged into the game and you can access your character on another data center, until you decide to travel back. Right now, if a player visits another world they’ll be marked as a <Wanderer>. If you’re from another data center, the game will mark you as a <Traveller>.
Changes to the Japanese Data Center
Please note that these changes are planned to be implemented sometime in July.
First of all, the Japanese servers will see a little shuffle in their structure. Currently, there are three data centers, one with 10 worlds and two with 11. With the addition of a 4th data center, named meteor this make up will change now that all data center’s contain 8 worlds. They are to be reshuffled as follows:
By then, the cross-data center travel system should already be implemented but it will negatively affect some communities. For that reason, crossworld linkshells will simply be cloned onto the new data center. So if a player is in a linkshell that used to be on mana, but is now on meteor, they’ll visit the mana data center and can just start chatting. This will also work the other way around, so it will save players at least some of the hassle.
Further Expansion
With increasing player numbers, Final Fantasy XIV plans to expand its data center’s even further. With a new data center for the North American servers, additional worlds for the European ones. And even further expansions of operations in the near future. Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida has already released a statement a few months ago here.
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