Final Fantasy XIV Classifies All Aether Data Center Worlds as Congested (Disables Character Creation)
Final Fantasy XIV's sudden rise in popularity over the last couple of months has had some unintended consequences: long queue times to log in on the busiest servers. To address this issue, Square Enix announced that all worlds on the Aether datacenter have been labeled as 'congested', which means no new characters can be created on these servers until further notice. While popular worlds like Gilgamesh and Balmung have at times been labeled as congested in the past its rare for an entire datacenter to be closed off to be closed off to new players.
Disabling character creation on just a single world is usually not a big inconvenience to players as they can still play with friends on the same datacenter with the world visit system and cross-world play, but with the entire data center closed to new characters, new players in Final Fantasy XIV won't be able to play with their friends.
On the positive side, Square Enix is looking to implement some more permanent solutions to server congestion, but they're having difficulty sourcing equipment due to the shortage of semiconductors.
To address the congestion situation, our Infrastructure and Development teams are working closely to plan large-scale solutions such as expanding our data centers or adding new Worlds. As previously mentioned, however, there is an ongoing global shortage and increased demand for semiconductors, and quite frankly, we are still struggling to source the required equipment. Additionally, the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Japan has raised major concerns regarding our ability to travel overseas for on-site implementations. These setbacks have made it difficult for us to cut down on the time required for implementation.
No word on how long Aether worlds will remain congested, but as-is, these restrictions should slow down Final Fantasy XIV's rise in popularity, as MMOs are most enjoyable when playing with friends and while new players can still create characters on other data centers, they won't be able to play with existing friends if they're already on Aether.
Further Reading: Official Announcement
