As the initial post-launch population surge around Final Fantasy XIV’s expansion cools off, Square-Enix is winding down the temporary measures it added to avoid overpopulation. Dawntrail managed a smooth access from launch and onward, and now it’s time to start doing things like shutting down the probationary European data center of Shadow on August 27th. Travel to the data center will be impossible as of August 16th, and any characters still on the data center when it shuts down will be automatically booted back to their home realm.
This might sound like it’s a major event, but the Shadow data center was never a “real” data center for the game; it was always a probationary spot for players to travel in order to avoid launch queues, not a place where you could create new characters. Now that the surge is subsiding, it has served its purpose and can be turned off. So if you’ve been using the server cluster as a chance to vacation away from home, it’s just about time to go home.
