March 28, 2008, Square Haven has ceased updates indefinitely. What you see below is an archived version.

News / 2002 / May / 17

Final Fantasy XI launches, PlayOnline crashes, Square associates resort to uncontrollable sobbing

  • Published at 00:00:00 PT
  • Reported by Matt Berti
  • Read 21,499 times
  • Karma:  40 
  • Share: link to this page e-mail this page Digg it! Facebook
Square made gaming history with one of the most notoriously botched launches of all time.
  Along with the recent launch of Final Fantasy XI came a multitude of issues leading to the eventual annihilation of the PlayOnline servers. Reports suggest that the problems stemmed not from overuse but from under-preparation. WebMoney, the party responsible for PlayOnline transactions, simply wasn't prepared for the multitude of gamers registering for play. Perhaps someone forgot to tell them that this is FINAL FREAKIN FANTASY XI.

  Square issued the following statement, translated by Andy Church for GameForms:

2002/5/17 15:15 -- PlayOnline: About the recent problems with connecting to and using PlayOnline

Although over 24 hours have passed since PlayOnline and FFXI service commenced at noon on May 16, the PlayOnline service is still experiencing problems which hinder use of the service. Following is a report of the current status of the service and plans for recovery.

* Causes

1. Delays in authorization processing
2. Failure of a backbone connection device for the server network

We have determined that the above two causes are primarily responsible for the troubles which are currently occurring.

* Recovery plans

While we have diverted all resources into solving these problems, it is unfortunately impossible to completely resolve them today. As a result, after consideration of what further actions to take, we have decided to temporarily suspend PlayOnline service, and set tomorrow (May 18) at 9:00am as our goal for completing resolution of the problems and resuming service.

We recognize that this action betrays the hopes of Final Fantasy players who have waited patiently for the release of Final Fantasy XI, and it was an extremely difficult decision for us as well, but we have made this decision in order to resolve these problems as quickly as possible.

We are making modifications to relieve the delays in authorization, but we expect a large number of concentrated accesses when the service is restarted, which may result in timeouts or other temporary difficulties. We ask that if you encounter such a problem, please do not continually retry the connection, but log out from PlayOnline and wait 30 minutes or more before reconnecting.

We will continue to post information on this page as soon as any more information is known with regards to trouble resolution or service resumption. We ask for your understanding, and promise to improve our service so that problems such as these do not occur again.


  The Madman's Cafe reports that Square slipped yet again by printing useless registration codes on numerous copies of Final Fantasy XI, diminishing any hope for the user to even register for the service.

  In response to the array of issues, Square has established a toll-free hotline that users can call for help regarding the service. One user reports that after an extensive wait, he got through only to be connected to a sobbing Square associate on the other side.


Submit a trackback link

Forums / News / Final Fantasy XI launches, PlayOnline crashes, Square associates resort to uncontrollable sobbing

pixel
If anything, this story shows just how fantastic and reliable "WebMoney" is. I hope to be a customer in the next few weeks.
pixel
I thought it was WebMonkey.com :P
staff
pixel
Webmonkey? Those witty bastards could never be resposible for such a crime against humanity.

In all honesty however, I don't give a shit about the whole situation. It amuses me, which isn't saying much because I'm easily am... Ooooooohh. A piece of string!!!
pixel
Haha...
pixel
They crashed!? Haha! I have to find that funny.

Any number on the amount of registering players?
pixel
Bad memories of Tribes 2...
pixel
What!! the heck is happening on PLAYONLINE
Post a Comment
Please log in to participate in the discussion.
Topic #462 Invisible to nobody Closed to nobody

Copyright © 1998-2024 Square Haven. This material may not be published or rewritten without crediting Square Haven as the author. Terms of Use

Login here
or cancel
Forgot your password?