Final Fantasy XIV players will be receiving seven days of free game time to make up for the issues main have faced due to the Endwalker Early Access launch. Since the launch of Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker’s early access launch players have been hitting login caps and very long queue times to get into the content, with the number of people attempting to log in at the same time hitting hardware limits, especially during peak hours.
In regard to the free game time, Naoki Yoshida wrote in a statement: “Considering that we are asking players to wait in queues for extremely long periods of time and the ongoing situation making it difficult to play normally, we have decided that during the official release of Endwalker on December 7, we will be granting 7 days of free game time to all players who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription. This also includes players who are currently playing on the 30-day free play period included when registering the full version of the game and those with multiple accounts. Furthermore, we may give additional free game time depending on further developments on the congestion situation. The timing at which the free game time will be provided, as well as any additional extensions, will be announced at a later time. We truly appreciate your cooperation and patience regarding the congestion situation.”
The errors people have faced are also commented upon. Error 2002 is occurring when there are more than 17,000 people in the log in queue, or when a network connection is unstable. While this mainly cannot be resolved user side players are encouraged to use a wired connection over a Wi-Fi one. Errors 4004, 5003, and 5006 all occur when a server request times out and it is seen more during peak congestion hours. The peak congestion errors observed by the developers are:
North American Data Centre: 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (PST) / 20:00 to 6:00 (GMT)
European Data Centre: 3:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (PST) / 11:00 to 23:00 (GMT)
Japan Data Centre: 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. (PST) / 9:00 to 15:00 (GMT)
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker will fully launch tomorrow, December 7th, on PC, PS5, and PS4.
Source: FF XIV Official Site