Patch 6.1 — Newfound Adventure is the latest patch, coming to FF 14 in the coming weeks. With it, comes a bunch of new features and storylines to explore. Along with that, comes Final Fantasy XIV’s data center travel feature. This might not sound like much to non-fans, but it’s kind of a big deal. Players will be able to join new servers on their shared data centers once the update goes live, mostly by just choosing a destination server on their character selection screen.
Once players have this option, your choice of starting server will basically cease to matter at all, as you will be able to travel to other data centers when you wish. When this new feature goes live, players will gain the ability to temporarily jump between compatible worlds. Yes, that does mean there’s some restriction on what you can do with this new feature. But the ability to jump to a new server cluster opens up tons of possibility for gaming groups and friends.
How to use Final Fantasy XIV’s data center travel feature
The big limiting factor here has always been data center. Each cluster of servers has usually been able to jump between each other, but never with servers outside their cluster. That’s why Final Fantasy XIV’s data center travel feature is such a huge change. Players from all over the globe will finally be able to communicate and team up in-game like never before. It’s a pretty simple idea, as you just select the destination data center cluster on your character screen. Once you choose a server to move to, you’re placed in a queue for a move. Keep in mind that you will likely have to wait for the transfer to take place, and that could be a bit during peak server load.
There are other restrictions to be aware of, beyond wait time. So far, only a few data centers are announced to be compatible with one another. Each set of servers listed below, will be able to swap around players.
- Light and Chaos
- Aether, Primal, and Crystal
- Mana, Elemental, and Gaia
Players can expect additional controls to be put in place to prevent abuse during certain game modes. Features such as free company chat, cross-world linkshell chat, and PvP teams will also be restricted when using this feature. But some of these won’t be there for long. In Patch 6.2, Square Enix intends to add the ability to join cross-world linkshells when you’re on a different data center.
The world travel system will remain largely the same, as users can freely move around worlds on the same data center using the Aetheryte system. This is likely to be the preferred method to meet with most other players for some time. Unless of course Square Enix does something else more creative. They are known to be a bit inventive when it comes to pushing boundaries in FF 14.
