Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida described a major server expansion of the European data centers in the announcement, Regarding the Expansion of FFXIV’s Operations. This expansion is planned to be carried out in two phases, the first of which will be covered in this post.
Implementation of the first phase is scheduled to take place during maintenance for Patch 6.18 on Tuesday, July 5. Four Worlds will be added in total, with two Worlds being added to each data center as listed below.
* Maintenance for Patch 6.18 is expected to last 24 hours due to the Japanese/European data center expansions and the implementation of the Data Center Travel system.
You may earn a variety of bonuses by creating a new character on a newly established World, or by transferring an existing character to a newly established World.
Please note that access to the Home World Transfer Service will be suspended temporarily prior to maintenance for Patch 6.18. We will restore access after verifying that the Japanese/European data center expansions and the Data Center Travel system are stable. For the latest updates regarding the availability of Home World transfers, please visit the Lodestone.
Bonuses awarded to new characters on first login
Bonuses for characters created on New Worlds that attain level 30 in any class
*1 Limited to once per service account.
*2 Limited to once per service account when creating a new character on either a New or Preferred World.
*3 Transfers from a New World to a different New World are not eligible for this bonus.
*4 For private estates, DO NOT relinquish the land but remove all furnishings and your estate hall and then apply for a Home World Transfer.
For apartments, DO NOT vacate the apartment but remove all your furnishings and then apply for a Home World Transfer.
Please note that if you have relinquished the deed to your plot or the rights to your property, you will not be eligible to receive gil compensation.
Read on for details regarding World Population Balancing Incentives.
New Worlds will maintain their designation until the active player populations of the Worlds in question have grown to a specified number. Please note that once a World has been removed from the “New World” category, the bonuses listed above will no longer be applied. In the case of newly created characters, these bonuses will continue for 90 days (including the day of creation) regardless of any change in World status.
The purchase of housing will be unavailable on the newly established Worlds at the launch of Patch 6.18. Before we can resume the sale of plots, we must first verify that the Japanese/European data center expansions and the Data Center Travel system are stable, then re-enable the Home World Transfer service. For the latest updates regarding the availability of housing on the new Worlds, please visit the Lodestone.
All land purchases on the newly established Worlds will be carried out under the housing lottery system.
The various residential areas on these Worlds will be inaccessible until the purchase of housing has been made available. Please use the World Visit system to complete the following side quests on another World while the housing area restriction is in place.
In Patch 6.18, a new logical data center, Meteor, will be added to the Japanese data center, and certain existing Worlds will be redistributed within it.
This announcement will review the schedule for maintenance and the period during which eligible players may use the Home World Transfer Service free of charge. Additionally, effects of World redistribution on certain in-game features will be explained below.
Patch 6.18 will also introduce the Data Center Travel system, which allows players to temporarily visit other logical data centers within their physical data center.
For more information, please refer to our announcements on World Regrouping and Data Center Travel.
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
* Maintenance for Patch 6.18 is expected to last 24 hours due to the Japanese/European data center expansions and the implementation of the Data Center Travel system.
Access to the Home World Transfer Service will be suspended temporarily prior to maintenance for Patch 6.18. We will restore access after verifying that the Japanese/European data center expansions and the Data Center Travel system are stable. At that time, eligible players may use the Home World Transfer Service free of charge for approximately two weeks. For the latest updates regarding Home World Transfer availability, please visit the Lodestone.
During the time period described above, all characters in Japanese data centers are eligible to transfer Home Worlds free of charge.
Furthermore, the following bonuses will be awarded at the time of transfer:
* Please apply for a Home World Transfer after removing your furnishings, but DO NOT relinquish your land or vacate your apartment. If you have relinquished the deed to your plot/rights to your property, you will not be eligible for the bonuses listed above.
* Please note that any gil exceeding the maximum of 999,999,999 will be lost.
* Players may not transfer to a Congested World.
* When transferring to a Preferred World, applicable bonuses will stack (excluding duplicates).
* Characters that have transferred Home Worlds may not transfer again for 3 days. Additionally, characters that have transferred to a Preferred World will be restricted from using the Home World Transfer Service for 90 days.
In addition to these effects, please note there may be instances where World names have been saved locally (such as in the Contact List) and are no longer correctly displayed.