Pools Closed (Asura Is Full!)

65535 is a limit of memory size for a certain data structure. Thats something related to programming.

The problem here is database. It has reached a limit, all they need to do is to add more memory on it. Problem solved.

Unless they actually want to change their policies regarding playerbase, but that would be unrelated to the memory problem.

They could also just purge all the banned accounts, which probably take up like 75% of the server by now.

I don't think that the cap is that simple. 65535 would only be 4000 accounts with 15 mules. While normies don't always make all 16 accounts, that feels incredibly low.

They should indeed, but their logic is the banned name is taboo *spooky* As if a person banned would never come back because their name was unavailable (giggle)

I suspect the reason is fairly straightforward. When a player adds a name to a blacklist, that blacklist is tied to that name specifically. They probably implemented a policy to never delete old names because they didn't want new people creating those names and missing out on possible experiences as a result. It's not really relevant in this day and age, but at the onset of the game in the early days it would have been solid reasoning.

But yeah, when I moved to Asura I had to change my character name because there was already a Melphina here. The auction house records indicate that my name hadn't bene used since 2006, so the old Melphina is long gone. They never delete old records from the list for any reason, so it's unlikely they're going to start now.

It might be less specifically for blacklist reasons, and more for the general reason of "if someone screwed up enough to get banned, their reputation might be in the gutter, so someone just happening to pick the same name might get unfairly treated".

I'm guessing the limit isn't 65535, but rather significantly higher, to the point that it was reasonable to think that hitting the limit was impossible, and indeed, it wasn't nearly popular enough to hit the limit.

However, now the situation has changed in unexpected ways that all pile reasons into each other.

1: We're 20 years later, so idle accounts have been building up, and I doubt the makers of FFXI expected it to last this long.

2: People have been migrating to a single server en masse due to population issues, consolidating the issue into one server.

3: People are multiboxing and using mules to massive degrees; I bet SE expected few people to make more than 1 or 2 mules.

4: RMT sweatshops are willing to recreate entire alliances of characters on a weekly basis after bans.

It's even possible that they assumed there was a chance of encountering the problem, but if they did they'd have the programming expertise to fix it without much problem. Too bad for them the problem hit when they had maybe 1 programmer who came on board 15 years after the original programming was done.

Yeah, it's the same overall reasoning, you just took my example one step further. Player reputation is tied to a name, and they didn't want one person sullying theirs and then leaving, only for another to later recreate it and encounter unpleasant experiences as a result. It would have been more relevant in ffxi's early days, but it still isn't something they're ever likely to change.

Edit: And I agree the limit isn't just 65k ish. I hadn't really given the number much thought, but that's definitely low. They once stated that they had like 17 million or something characters across all servers if I recall, and that was many years back, so whatever the actual limit is it's significantly higher. But the root cause is still the same. There is an upper limit to the to how many characters each server can house, and Asura's list is full.

They could pull a FF14 I guess and wait for a return home campaign, which reactivates all these characters and then say FFXI has 17 million "active players"!

i wouldn't be too concerned about this. i'm convinced SE will come up with a fix one way or another, probably sooner than later. asura is one of the main incentives for ppl to buy server transactions over and over, to migrate for the higher population but primarily for the price differences, they lose money if they don't take care of it.

it's like a section of their pay2win ingame shop stops working, it has high priority.

Accurate. This affects money. I would be surprised it wasn't already fixed, if I didn't know who the people responsible for fixing it were.

They never stated they were active, just that they existed. And I remembered wrong. It wasn't 17 million, it was 1.7. I found the old article..... and wow it's older than I thought it was.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/3045/detail.html

Still, if there were 1.7 million characters created 12 years ago, you can kind of get a general idea of what we'd have today. The initial population boom died down around that time, but bots, multi boxers, and a declining trickle of newer players over the years would have pushed that figure upwards. That article was posted when there were still 32 servers active though, which averages the figure out to 53 thousand characters per server at the time. So the upper limit may well be a low 6 digit figure.

I wonder how many of that 2M are real players vs ... the taboo word.

The post is from 2009, so probably almost all of them were real players?

Pretty sure this is just some arbitrary limit they set in the early days that they never expected to hit. I doubt it has serious programming implications, and fully expect they'll address it within the next month or so. As much as I hate the asura mega-server and would like the idea of spreading people out, it's too much of a negative to the game to have asura unavailable for players who have made a habit of transferring. SE wants that sweet 18 dollars.

Let me tell you how the magic is made.

They did a return home campaign right before this announcement, the return home campaign made all the characters ever created since launch "active".

FF14 does the exact same thing today, the number of real active *subscribers* is around 400-600k depending on expansion release dates but if they announce active player numbers right in the middle of the "free login campaign" they get to inflate those "active player" numbers with every character made since launch. They just don't bother to tell you that nobody is playing almost all of them them at all and they are only active cause they flipped a switch.

It's easy to gaslight about player numbers or even use "players" when you really mean characters, mainly cause the fans want to believe.

Why don't they just make up the numbers entirely? I mean... it's not like there is an oversight committee that regulates claims about fictional elves, munchkins, catgirls.

Nevermind. SquareEnix is publicly traded... and just lost 7.5% of their value today. Fancy.

Market Summary
> Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd
OTCMKTS: SQNXF
50.56 USD −4.10 (7.50%) today

Big oof.

World transfer still works from other servers to Asura.

SE just opened up a whole new revenue stream by not fixing the issue.

wow they are taking a big hit to their share price last week or two, wtf caused that.

7.5% lost just cause asura is down? sheesh...

Oct. 1, 2021 02:27 [PDT] From: FINAL FANTASY XI

Regarding New Character Creation on Asura World (Oct. 1)



We have confirmed that new characters cannot currently be created on the Asura World due to congestion.

We are investigating a solution. Meanwhile, if you are unable to create a new character, please try again after waiting some time, or try on a different World.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news26543.shtml

Oh, I didn't even catch that part. I saw the article and skimmed right past the date.


That's sad if its true. People already had doubts about the authenticity or legitimacy of the STF numbers they published, lets just exacerbate it.

But I guess it's good marketing to drive a spike and claim it.

I called my company out for something like this. We had an attrition issue, so some guy creates this big, elaborate overkill training program and launches it the same month we created a huge sign-in/stay on bonus then reports out the large spike in retention and says "see, my program is a huge success, numbers do not lie".

I hear Lakshmi is nice this time of year, lets all go there and *** about politics for hours in yell.

SMH my head. I think SquareEnix holdings are just Final Fantasy XI but only Asura. Actually, if it wasn't for the 20th anniversary coming up, I don't think it would even be a blip on their radar.

I cant ever remember them doing a "Return Home to Vanadiel" campaign back in 2009.

Me: I cant ever remember them doing a "Return Home to Vanadiel" campaign back in 2009.

That's the OTC traded US ADR, which barely trades. The Japanese listed security was down 3.03%. From July to recently it had been up 31.92%, but it's been coming back down lately.

Also this!


Good time for them to release player numbers then.

We like our quiet backwoods ***, plz stay on Asura people >.>

So what you're saying is it'd be a great place for a new shopping mall! Lakshmi is the new AH server everyone go there to pawn off your stuff.