Problems with Final Fantasy XIV's (FF14) house lottery system have now been fixed.
Game producer and director Naoki Yoshida confirmed that while "the problems with the lottery system are widespread and persistent," the bugs will be resolved tomorrow when the game enters maintenance phases.
However, the team actually spent a whole month to solve this problem. Back in April, Yoshida apologized to players for persistent problems with the MMORPG's new housing lottery system, which prevented players from properly drawing and getting in-game housing. He wrote on his official website that he explained that the team was working on the issue.
After tomorrow's maintenance, the game will "correctly relay the player's draw results to the appropriate servers" and notify the successful bidder of their winning bid, even if they have previously been incorrectly informed that their bid was unsuccessful.
Therefore, all players (even those who previously thought they were unsuccessful and received a refund) will need to recheck their bids after tomorrow's fix, as the winning number will be displayed correctly and the home purchase will be completed accordingly. All temporary suspensions on home purchases and relocations will also be lifted.
All players will have ten days to confirm their home purchase (if they are the winning bidders in the draw), and the next draw will begin on Thursday, May 26, 2022.
"Even if your deposit is refunded due to this system error, you finally determine that the purchase of the winning home will not be affected," Yoshida explained.
"Due to the serious problems with the previous lottery of these houses, which caused great pressure and frustration to many players, we had no intention of rolling back the data and forcibly canceling any returned gold coins. Once the relevant NPCs are ready for implementation, we will issue an announcement on the voluntary refund of the housing deposit. "
Square Enix also recently released a financial report for the past year, which shows that the company has maintained earnings vigour due to the success of Final Fantasy XIV.