One of the tentpole updates to come with Final Fantasy XIV‘s Patch 6.1 is a new zone for player housing in Ishgard: The Empyreum. In the previous expansion Shadowbringers, players restored this previously-destroyed area through a series of quests built as dedicated content for crafters and gatherers. At the culmination of this quest, the Empyreum has been restored, ready to accept NPCs displaced by the Dragonsong War, and, adventurers who helped rebuild it as well.

In the past, players have struggled to obtain lots due to a first-come first-served approach that has often turned the addition of more plots into a Black Friday-esque mad dash to claim a desired location. With 6.1, a lottery system was devised to relieve some of that stress. While you weren’t guaranteed to get your desired plot, the entry process was intended to be less of a headache. Well, until today, that is.

With the commencement of the first lottery drawing for plots, players discovered that, even if they were the sole entrant in the lottery to purchase a plot, if a “0” was drawn they would automatically lose the plot to… no other entrant. Other players reported that some plots stated “There were no participants in this lottery” even with several applicants listed. Images of these results quickly spread on social media, with players upset that the error may have cost them a chance at their desired plot and confused how this critical error could have been missed.

Quickly after the first lottery’s results, the Final Fantasy XIV team confirmed the aforementioned issues with producer and director Naoki Yoshida jumping in to follow up with a quick letter to update players. In said letter, he states that the team is aware of the issue and understands that it is a major issue. Priority has been given to the investigation, but he notes that it will take time to check the complex programs involved to pinpoint the issue.

Yoshida offered an apology for inconveniencing affected players, and shared that the result announcement period of the current lottery will be prolonged until Wednesday, April 20th (7:59am Pacific). The next lottery cycle won’t begin until the investigation is complete and the situation is addressed.

[Update 4/18] Producer/director Yoshida posted an update in which the team identified a processing issue and a server-side program issue, and will be restoring the lottery results data, fixing the identified issues, and verifying the fixes. He shares that it will take a little more time to correct this issue and restore the data to “how it should be.”

[Update 4/22] In this update, Yoshida confirms that the team has been able to reproduce the issue and conduct further investigation to fix the identified errors. This includes the lottery and the an issue affecting relocation between plots, which occurred under rare conditions. Fixes are currently being verified on an internal development server, and this will take an additional three to five business days, however Yoshida cautions that they may need additional time as they are meticulously reviewing these areas for problems. Lottery data has been preserved and is planned to be restored. Fixes will not be implemented with the timing of Patch 6.11, but in a separate maintenance later.

You can check out a rundown of other Patch 6.1 content here.