If you were hoping for a house in Final Fantasy XIV’s new housing lottery system, well… you probably didn’t get one, but it wasn’t just bad luck this time, as the whole system seems to have suffered from a catastrophic bug. The mods of the game’s subreddit have put together a massive thread detailing all of the complaints thus far: Essentially, a huge number of houses are incorrectly showing that nobody participated in the lottery for that house and therefore it was awarded to no one, which is obviously incorrect, while others are showing a winning bid for player zero, who does not exist, even for one-bid houses. According to player reports, the bugs affect all housing plots, not just the new Ishgard homes.
The only good news here is that Square-Enix is aware of the problem, is working on sorting it out, and is halting the next lottery cycle.
“I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by the issue with the housing lottery system,” Square-Enix’s Naoki Yoshida wrote earlier this afternoon, by which I mean EDT; it was the middle of the night in Japan, of course.
“Allow me to explain the current situation and our next steps as we investigate the problem. Firstly, we understand that this is a major issue, and are prioritizing our investigation into the matter. We are working to identify the issue in the corresponding program; however, as the process is very complex and there are many patterns involved for the lottery conditions, it will require some time to pinpoint the problem. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but we ask for your patience a little while longer as focus our efforts on the investigation. As we investigate and address the issue, we will be extending the result announcement period which was previously set to end on Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 7:59 a.m. (PDT). We will not enter into the next lottery cycle until the investigation is complete and the situation is addressed. We apologize for the inconvenience this is causing to our players. We will continue to work on identifying the cause of the issue and addressing it so that the lottery system correctly determines the winner and displays the proper results.”
