Square Enix recently detailed much of what is being added in Patch 6.1 — Newfound Adventure coming to Final Fantasy XIV in mid-April. Amongst the major announcements was information of what we can expect from the new data center travel feature. Data center travel will not be available from day one of Patch 6.1, but will instead come soon after in a Patch 6.18 update.
When this new feature goes live, players will gain the ability to temporarily visit servers that extend outside of their data centers, provided it is within a data center of the same region. The following list shows which data centers are compatible with each other:
- Light and ChaosAether, Primal, and CrystalMana, Elemental, and Gaia
Players can expect the same restrictions that are part of the world travel system currently in the game, but with a few additional changes as well. Features such as free company chat, cross-world linkshell chat, and PvP teams will also be restricted when using DC Travel. In Patch 6.2, Square Enix intends to add the ability to join cross-world linkshells on different data centers.
The world travel system lets you visit other servers simply by visiting a hub city Aetheryte, but visiting a different data center will actually require players to select their destination before logging in at the character select screen. They will then be returned to the title screen and cannot cancel the request while they wait for the process to finish. During times of congestion, it might take up to 30 minutes for the transfer to complete. The character will then be temporarily on the selected server until the player repeats the process to return to their own data center.
Final Fantasy XIV is always pushing the limits to help its fans play with each other. The data center travel option has been highly anticipated and will help players connect with each other on a much broader scale. Square Enix is also hard at work to add new data centers and servers in the near future as they prepare for the next 10 years of the popular MMO.
