Final Fantasy XIV is scheduled to undergo some emergency maintenance today as developer Square Enix scrambles to fix a major problem with the new housing lottery system. In a post on the Japanese official news site for the game, reposted on Twitter, it was revealed that the game would undergo a period of downtime for housing districts to fix the issue.
The maintenance will reportedly begin at 23:30pm in local Japanese time, or 7:30am PT. This downtime will affect housing districts, rather than servers as a whole. Due to the complex nature of the fix, with the lottery results effectively reverted to an earlier version of the game, there’s no set time to the end of the maintenance.
Related: Housing Lottery issues persist in Final Fantasy XIV. Director makes a statement
First emerging on Saturday, April. 16, the new housing lottery system had a fatal flaw. Players were assigned numbers based on the order they placed a bid on the house. However, an error meant that the number 0 could win the lottery, meaning even if a single player bid on the house, it wouldn’t mean they won the house.
As a result, players were left with the devastating message that they’d lost their house—that they were the sole bidder on—to a non-existent player. The fix will essentially do two things. If you were the sole bidder and lost to 0, the lottery result will be fixed. Or if you are part of a larger bidding pool, you’ll instead be entered into the lottery.
For more Final Fantasy XIV news and information, check out Final Fantasy XIV addresses Housing Lottery issues in the latest Hotfix on Pro Game Guides.
Michael lives in the UK, but wishes he lived in Eorzea. A life-long gamer, Four years ago, he ditched a "real" job to write about video games for a living, and hasn't looked back. When not guiding players how to get the latest mounts, crafting recipes, and in-game goodies, he spends his time nurturing an unhealthy addiction to MMOs and gacha games.