Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida has apologized to players regarding login problems that have featured in the game since the early access launch of Endwalker. As compensation, paying players will receive 7 days of free play time.

In a post published on the FF14 website, Yoshida delved further into the issues that have contributed to players’ frustrations over the weekend.

“Currently, all Worlds across all regions have been hitting the login cap for extremely long periods of time, and the progression of login queues is being slowed dramatically,” explained Yoshida in the post.

“Across the FFXIV service as a whole, the number of simultaneous logins has reached the hardware limit, and as a result, logging in has required an extremely long time, especially during ‘peak hours’ when we tend to see increased player activity. For this, I am truly sorry.”

Issues began cropping up in the game following the early access release of Endwalker last week. A number of players attempting to access Endwalker have been thwarted by various errors codes including the infamous error 2002, as well as errors 4004, 5003, and 5006. In the post, Yoshida spoke further about the causes of these errors before explaining that the team is working hard to address the congestion situation.

While errors 4004, 5003, and 5006 occur due to connection timeouts as a result of waiting in the login queue for extremely long periods of time, error 2002 can be caused by two different problems. Players receiving error 2002 can either experience the issue if the login queue reaches its cap of 17,000 players or when their internet connection experiences a moment of network instability. While the post itself doesn’t offer any outright solutions to these problems, Yoshida does recommend that players use a hard-wired internet connection to improve stability where possible.

As well as explaining the issues present within the game, Yoshida was also quick to address what compensation the studio would be offering fans in light of the current situation. “Considering that we are asking players to wait in queues for extremely long periods of time and the ongoing situation making it difficult to play normally, we have decided that during the official release of Endwalker on December 7, we will be granting 7 days of free game time to all players who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription,” explains Yoshida.

“This also includes players who are currently playing on the 30-day free play period included when registering the full version of the game and those with multiple accounts. Furthermore, we may give additional free game time depending on further developments on the congestion situation. The timing at which the free game time will be provided, as well as any additional extensions, will be announced at a later time. We truly appreciate your cooperation and patience regarding the congestion situation.”

While issues with Endwalker’s early access launch are still ongoing, the problems weren’t entirely unexpected. Prior to its early access release, Square Enix warned players that there could be a number of server issues with the game due to congestion. In its explanation on the topic, the company stated that this is in part due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductors, which has meant that the studio was unable to add new worlds to the game in advance of Endwalker’s launch.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.