On December 3rd, Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion launched its early access period, allowing those who preordered the game the opportunity to play Endwalker in advance of its December 7th release date. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to work. For lots of players, the early-access experience was an exercise in patience. With game servers at max capacity and login queues containing upward of 4,000–8,000 players, if you were in early access and actually got access, you were one of the privileged few.
Square Enix warned players this would happen. Days before early access began, it published a notice detailing what the company had done to prepare for the inevitable congestion, along with tips to mitigate wait times. Still, after a…
