Whether for its community perks through Free Companies or for role playing purposes, housing in Final Fantasy XIV is serious business. With only so many plots available on each game server which outstrips demand, the development team at Square Enix implemented a lottery system to make things fairer and to limit the grey market for in-game land present in some of the more popular worlds. The first lottery commenced upon the release of Patch 6.1 a few weeks ago, and it didn’t go so well. As noted in previous posts, many Free Companies and players alike encountered errors with the lottery of their desired plots – some going through seamlessly and others having no successful participant at all.
Those who were in tight lotteries for who would claim prime real estate on peak servers only have a couple of days remaining, with Final Fantasy XIV Director and Producer, Naoki “YoshiP” Yoshida confirming that an update will be rolled out on Monday 16 May 2022 to rectify the issue AND allow the winners to claim their property. The second round of lotteries will commence on 26 May 2022 at 8.00am (PDT), with winners of the first round having until 7.59am (PDT) to claim their land before it is claimed back by the game.
There are a number of specifics which YoshiP outlined, which you can read in full by clicking HERE or scrolling down.
This is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV.
I thank you for your continued patience as we work to resolve the ongoing issues with the housing lottery system introduced in patch 6.1.
These issues have been extensive and persistent, and I truly apologize for the time it has taken to resolve them. However, I am pleased to report that we have completed preparations to implement our fixes and restore lottery data.
- Reproducing the Issue
- Fixing Identified Errors
- Verifying Fixes
- Restoring Lottery Data
We have completed the above steps to identify and correct the reported issues and are now ready to conduct maintenance on the public servers.
Maintenance to Restore Data
As I mentioned in our previous update, we will be conducting maintenance to restore lottery results data on Monday, May 16. This maintenance will fix identified errors and properly relay lottery results for affected plots to the appropriate servers. As a result:
- Winning lottery numbers will be displayed correctly, and land purchases may be finalized accordingly.
- Temporary suspensions imposed on plot purchases and relocations will be lifted.
If you have a winning lottery number, please be sure to finalize your land purchase by Thursday, May 26 at 7:59 a.m. (PDT). The next lottery cycle will begin promptly on Thursday, May 26 at 8:00 a.m. (PDT), at which point you will lose the ability to claim land you won during this lottery. We will announce this deadline again as it grows closer, so please do not forget to claim your land.
Next Lottery Cycle
Once we have confirmed that data restoration was successful and everything is operating as intended, the housing lottery will resume.
- The next lottery cycle will begin on Thursday, May 26 at 8:00 a.m. (PDT).
- It will have a typical 5-day entry period and 4-day results period.
As this is very important, allow me to reiterate: you must finalize all land purchases for this current lottery before the next lottery cycle begins.
For winning participants who already received a gil refund due to the “Winning Lottery Number of 0” error
Once lottery data has been restored, some participants may discover that they had, in fact, won the lottery, despite already receiving a refund due to the lottery number error. Even if your deposit was refunded due to this system error, your ability to finalize the purchase of a won plot will remain unaffected.
In patch 6.2 we plan to implement an NPC by which you may voluntarily return the deposit you were accidentally refunded.
As these housing lottery issues have been significant and caused great stress and frustration in many players, we have no intention of performing a data rollback to forcibly rescind any refunded gil. We will make an announcement regarding the voluntary return of housing deposits once the NPC in question is ready to be implemented.
In closing, I would like to thank you all once again for your patience and understanding this past month, and extend my deepest apologies for the trouble and inconvenience these issues have caused. We will do everything in our power to safely restore your data, fix any remaining issues, and bring you all a fair and functional housing lottery system. Thank you for your continued support.
Question is… how many people will voluntarily hand back potentially tens of million of gil?
Final Fantasy XIV is a monthly subscription online game with a free trial covering its base game and first expansion pack (Heavensward). The game can be purchased and played on the PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
