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Willa Rowe is a contributing writer at Polygon, covering games and entertainment. She is a New York-based journalist and critic whose work has been featured in Kotaku, Digital Trends, the A.V. Club, GamesRadar+, and more. She also co-hosts the Girl Mode podcast.
Warriors of Light across the world proved, once again, why the MMO's community is special
Final Fantasy 14 players had a perfect response to this week's internet crisis
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A number of major websites and services went offline earlier this week thanks to a massive PHP security vulnerability. One such service was Final Fantasy 14. That posed a major problem for plants. You see, Square Enix's MMO has a number of systems on real-world timers that continue regardless of whether a player is logged in. Those unlucky enough to be locked out of the game during the PHP issue were left fearing that their gardens would wither and die. Thankfully, the community stepped in.
Final Fantasy 14 did not shut down completely across the globe, meaning some players were still able to wander Eorzea. These players took it upon themselves to lend a helping hand. One such player made a post on Reddit (spotted by PC Gamer) that simply offered "PHP Watering Service." It was exactly what it sounded like. The player invited others to reply or DM with the location of their in-game home so they could, at no cost, water plants for those in need.
Other players had similar ideas, with more watering service posts popping up on X. Mechanically, this is all possible because of a neat feature of the MMO. There is no special requirement for watering plants, and players can water any plant in the game, even those in other players' homes. This created a communal aid network across the internet that allowed everyone's plants to stay hydrated and healthy. It's just one example of how Warriors of Light are willing to help each other out in the most unexpected ways. There is a reason why Final Fantasy 14's community has such a good reputation.
Is Final Fantasy 14 still dealing with PHP issues?
After roughly 24 hours of frantic work on the PHP issue, Square Enix has started allowing new logins. That means players should be able to get back to Eorzea and begin taking care of their plants themselves. As the PHP security vulnerability only lasted about one day, nobody's plants should have died.
While the game being back online is a good thing, it does come with one caveat. Square Enix briefly paused housing auto-demolition, which reclaims inactive housing plots if the owner fails to access the building within a certain time limit. That system exists because Final Fantasy 14's housing is not instanced, meaning there is only a finite number of plots per server. Now that the PHP issues are solved, auto-demolition will resume on Oct. 26.