Summary
The release ofFinal Fantasy 14Patch 7.2, Seekers of Eternity, was marred by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the game’s servers that started shortly after the game came back online following maintenance. The DDoS attackonFinal Fantasy 14targeted North American and European data centers and remained unresolved at the time of writing.
Final Fantasy 14’s Seekers of Eternity update is the next chapter of theDawntrailexpansion and is highlighted by a breadth of content spread out over several weeks. The March 25 patch required a 10 GB download on the PC client and included new main story quests along with the next tier of the Arcadion raid series.Final Fantasy 14Patch 7.2 also included some significant Job updates, which saw the Black Mage and the Pictomancer receive the most attention of the lot. Other combat Jobs, such as the Paladin, Machinist, Dancer, and Warrior, received slight adjustments to their area-of-effect (AoE) spells and abilities.
Shortly afterFinal Fantasy 14concluded an all-day maintenance period, some of the game’s servers were targeted by a DDoS attack. According toa Lodestone post by Square Enix, the DDoS attack started just before 7:00 AM Eastern, nearly three hours after Patch 7.2. Players on the North American and European data centers, such as Aether and Chaos, experienced lag and disconnections at infrequent intervals.A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt a serverfrom normal service by flooding it with fake packets of information and traffic, which can cause the server to be overloaded and experience issues. Similar to a highway full of cars moving slowly due to a heavy amount of traffic, a DDoS attack can render parts of online games unplayable until they cede.Final Fantasy 14players may experience intermittent issues while Square Enix addresses the matter.
Final Fantasy 14 Servers Assailed By DDoS Attacks
There is no known way to completely eradicate a DDoS attack, though server technicians can mitigate the damage.Final Fantasy 14’s recent server woes are not the only ones within the MMORPG space of late. Throughout March,World of Warcraft’s Classic Hardcore servers experienced a DDoS attack. The service issues prompted Blizzard toroll back some Classic Hardcore charactersthat died as a result of the DDoS.
At the time of writing, Square Enix has not posted further updates about the DDoS attacks. ThoughFinal Fantasy 14’s servers previously endured an outagein January, it remains to be seen what steps the developers will take to alleviate the situation.
Final Fantasy 14
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