Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XIV's 18 servers will be merged down to 10 next month, in an effort to "improve the player experience."
The merger will take place on March 27. In all, eight servers will be eliminated, and the remaining ten will be renamed "New World" for an unpsecified period of time.
Between March 1 and 19, players will be able to select a new home for their characters. Anyone who misses out on the transfer deadline will be automatically assigned to a server. More details are available here at the game's official site.
Final Fantasy XIV was a remarkable flop on release, panned by critics and players alike. Things were so bad, in fact, that Square Enix admitted the game had "greatly damaged" the Final Fantasy franchise, made the title free-to-play for a good six months, and announced that they'd be working to fix the MMO, even if it meant redeveloping nearly every aspect of it from scratch.
That overhaul, known as the Version 2.0 update, is expected to be released later this year.
