Hello, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

Once again, please allow me to apologize for the disruption caused by the problems with the housing lottery system introduced in patch 6.1.

In the early hours of this morning, we identified a processing issue, as well as a server-side program issue, and will be taking the following steps to address them:

• Restoring the lottery results data
• Fixing the identified issues
• Verifying the fixes

The Current Housing Lottery Situation

Due to the issues affecting the housing lottery system, the lottery results for each plot currently fall into either of the following categories:

1. The lottery was conducted successfully, the correct results were displayed, and plots could be purchased
2. The lottery was conducted successfully, but the winning number was not communicated to the housing server

Please read on for an explanation of what each of these categories means for players.

Winners with Access to Purchase the Plot

For plots that correspond to the first category, this means that there were no problems with the lottery itself or with the results displayed. Winners are free to finalize their purchases, so please continue enjoying the features of the housing system. Subsequent fixes and data restoration will not force you to enter a new lottery.

We encourage players who have not finalized their plot purchase to do so as soon as possible. While unfinalized claims won't prevent our efforts to restore the lottery data, the fewer plots that are in doubt, the quicker we will be able to proceed with the restoration. We will also be making this request in an upcoming news item.

Winning Lottery Number of 0

In the case of plots in the second category, the winning lottery number displayed as “0,” meaning no one who registered for the lottery was able to purchase the plot. The only recourse for participants was to receive their gil refund, and further examination of the placard at the plot’s entrance showed the message “There were no participants in this lottery.”

After investigating this issue, we discovered that, while the server responsible for conducting the lottery is functioning as intended, the results are not being properly relayed to the servers responsible for managing housing-related data.

Once this issue has been resolved, and lottery results can be relayed to the housing data servers without issue, it will be possible to confirm the lottery winners. Furthermore, players who registered for the lottery at the affected plots will not be required to register a second time. We ask for your patience as we work to recover data containing the results for these plots.

The means by which gil may be collected from those who have already received a gil refund prior to learning that they have won the lottery is under consideration. Details of this process will be announced at a later date.

The Next Lottery and Our Plan

Until the current issue is resolved and data is restored, we will be halting the lottery for all plots of land. We apologize for the disruption, and will provide further information about the schedule as soon as possible.

The process of resolving the issue and restoring lottery data is proceeding as follows:

• Reproducing the Issue and Further Investigation
  
  The root cause of the issue has been determined, and we are currently running a test to reproduce said issue on the development servers. To complete this testing and verify that we have correctly identified the cause will require at least one more business day.
  

• Fixing Identified Errors
  
  The processes causing the issue will be adjusted so as to function as intended and correctly notify the housing server. We will then verify whether or not implementing these fixes resolves the overall issue.

• Verifying Fixes
  
  After we are certain of the root cause of the issue, we must test whether the implemented fix indeed resolves it. We expect this process to take approximately three to five business days, but ask in advance for your understanding in the event that it takes longer than expected to determine with certainty that the issue is resolved.

• Restoring Lottery Data
  
  The lottery data that exists on the server responsible for processing results will be used to overwrite the housing server so that the correct data is reflected. This will be done at the same time that fixes for the issue are implemented, and will require a maintenance period for all Worlds. Maintenance times will be shared as soon as we have determined them.
  

I am deeply sorry to have disappointed the hopes of our playerbase with this major housing lottery bug. I assure you that the history of your housing lottery entries and the results has been preserved, and we will do all that we can to restore data for lottery entrants without any unnecessary rollbacks or other complications.

It will take a little more time for us to correct this issue and restore the data to how it should be, but I thank you once again for your patience and understanding.