Final Fantasy XIV has gone to great lengths to allow fans to play together. With its rise in popularity, however, many servers have seen huge increases in population, so it isn’t uncommon to find players who wish to transfer to a more relaxed server. While there are temporary measures to escape congestion, such as the World Visit system, or the upcoming Data Center Travel system, the only permanent way to move a character is to utilize the Home World Transfer feature.
The Home World Transfer option is located by accessing your account via the Mog Station. Once logged in, players can navigate to the Home World Transfer Service option on the Additional Services page. It costs $18 to transfer a single character, however, and a character cannot transfer again for three days. This cost is waived when transferring to a newly created server or when going from a server listed as “congested” to a “preferred” world. Preferred worlds are servers with lower populations that have room to spare.
Following the on-screen instructions is a simple process, but there are many restrictions that could cause a character to be unable to transfer servers. Before initiating a transfer, the character in question must adhere to these guidelines:
- If the character was created on a newly opened server, they must wait 90 days before they can transfer
- The character must wait 3 days after creation to be able to transfer
- The character must wait 90 days to transfer if it has transferred from a congested world recently or was created on a prefered world
- The character cannot be transferred if it is has a pending name change, is currently logged in, or visiting another server
- The character cannot transfer to a server that currently has character creation restrictions due to high population
- The character must relinquish any owned property on the server before it can transfer. This can include free company houses, private houses, or apartments
Mostly everything will transfer with a character when using the Home World Transfer feature, but some very important things do not come with it. Owning a house in Final Fantasy is a very hard accomplishment, and many players decide not to transfer because housing does not transfer with the character when utilizing the service. Players must physically relinquish their house in order to transfer, and then hope that they can get lucky and purchase another plot on the new server.
The Home World Transfer system is extremely convenient, but it is not without its downsides. Players who don’t wish to lose their house or friends on their current server can choose to use the World Visit feature instead. This system allows a character to visit the Aetheryte in any major starting city and choose the “Visit Another World Server” option. They will be able to select any server in their data center and temporarily move to it. The option to visit other data centers will also be coming soon. The only restriction when using this option is that the player cannot access their retainers, mail, or certain social features while visiting another server. Using this option is free and easy, and allows characters to return to their own server whenever they want. It is a good way to play the game if their home server becomes congested.
