Downtime For Patches

Message logging into FFXIV from Steam

I do have to admit to chuckling over how Square Enix alerts everyone to patches and downtime in Final Fantasy XIV. In the last few days before a patch, the developers make crystal clear everyone who logs in knows a patch is about to be deployed. More importantly, everyone is notified about when the downtime will occur. No one will have an excuse. Make sure your retainers are out working and visit your house to make sure you don't lose it due to not visiting it frequently enough.

The message indicates an expected downtime of 9 hours. I should add, I've seen notices from Square Enix warning of 24 hour downtimes for larger patches. That's a long time, especially compared to EVE Online.

When I started playing EVE in 2009, downtime was a way of life. Each day, the game was offline an hour. And expansions? The joke was, train a long skill because downtime could take a couple of days. I never experienced server downtime that long due to launching an expansion, but the possibility existed.

Over the years CCP has really improved its performance around both the daily downtime and installing new content. If a patch takes longer than an hour nowadays, something bad probably happened. Which is a good thing, because both Square Enix and CCP are dropping new content onto the servers. So while I can't play FFXIV, I can still play EVE.