Final Fantasy XIV: Crumbles to a stop, but goes out with a bang

Much hype had been generated following the announcement of the final battle in Camp Brittlebark verses the Empire. When the event started, a system message instructed us to head north-west of the camp, which everyone thought at the time meant Castrum, the imperial stronghold. So a grand march of chocobos began, which was an incredible sight to behold, but upon arrival at the stronghold, we discovered nothing but a collection of random mobs, guarding doors set to timers that eventually led nowhere.

Confused, many questioned where abouts the real battle was, as clearly we were in the wrong place. Then came what would probably be the greatest moment of the so called event: "Urgent, monsters are approaching Ul'hah!" Yes, you read that correctly, I have not made a spelling mistake this time. That was the first of what was to become a series of grammatical, and spelling mistakes made by the announcers throughout the night. Spelling mistake aside, the announcement made many think that Ul'dah was the place to go, and teleporting back there, found a series of fights no different to what had taken place over the past week.

In the end, the battle turned out to be only a handful of imperial troops randomly spawning just south of the lake, eventually leading up to a boss fight with a lv100 Juggernaught. There was also waves of magitek armours attacking the campsite itself, but nothing really to deserve dragging many players out of bed, and forcing them to go without sleep.

This was made worse by the repeated disconnects and login issues the majority of players were receiving. Many spent more time trying to log in than actually fighting. Those who actually managed to log in were treated to a forced disconnect, without any major event script leading up to it, when the servers were shut down without notice.

In the end, spending those last two hours in the game were wasted for most players, but it was not all bad. Once the servers were brought down, we were treated to a CGI video cutscene that blew everyone away. There is no doubt that Square outdid themselves with that video, and many believe it made up for the disaster that was the event. Only downside was that you didn't need to take part in the event to see the cutscene.

Now, the cutscene. Amazing doesn't do it justice. Behold Square's salvation from the disaster of the night: