Final Fantasy XI’s largest server, Asura, has become so overpopulated that Square Enix had to step in with emergency measures. The developer announced that it’s closing the FFXI World to all new players and suspending the ability for users to create new characters on it.
‘FFXI’ Asura Server Closed to New Players Amid Player Population Crisis
Since the launch of FFXI in 2002, Asura has been one of the most popular servers in the online MMORPG. This year, however, the Final Fantasy online world has faced a handful of problems due to overpopulation. From long log-in queue times to issues with the game’s messaging systems, users have become increasingly frustrated.
Square Enix addressed the issues in a surprise update, revealing they are closing down the servers to new players.
In a July 22 blog post, Director Yoji Fujito explained that features on Asura were not working due to congestion. “I’d like to take a moment to explain what we will be doing to help combat periods of congestion that we’ve seen on Asura recently. It has been discovered that the concentration of player populations on certain Worlds has led to a series of unexpected issues that have managed to affect the quality of that experience somewhat. This includes things like system messages not displaying properly in Vana’Bout, for example.”
Fujito then detailed the measures they are taking to fix Asura, including closing down player registration on the FFXI server. “The ability to use the World Transfer Service to transfer characters to Asura will be suspended. The Vana’diel Adventurer Recruitment Program will be suspended for Asura. The ability to create new characters on Asura will also be suspended. (*1): This restriction will not apply to accounts which already have an existing character on Asura.”
Other ‘Final Fantasy Online’ Servers Might Also Block New Players
According to the update from Square Enix, other Final Fantasy Online Worlds are also facing similar levels of congestion as Asura. Interestingly, they hinted at taking new measures that would help “equalize” populations across all the game’s worlds. It’s unclear what those measures would be. Perhaps we could see a player limit enforced on all FFXI servers to encourage more users to spread out?
Yoji Fujito also didn’t rule out the possibility of opening Asura up to new players in the future. So if you missed your chance to make a character, there could still be hope! “We plan to continue monitoring the number of logged-in users as well as various other factors and will seek to resume the above-mentioned services and functionality when appropriate.”
Thankfully, it seems like users who already have active accounts on Asura won’t be fully impacted by the changes. While this isn’t the best of news, it at least shows that the popularity of FFXI is still going strong. Which is quite impressive given that it’s an MMORPG from 2002. It’s also just nice to see online services like this still being supported years after the game’s release, instead of being shut down.
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