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Hrav · **12-17-2013, 11:47 AM**

Hello,

I'm new to the community and just purchased the game.Â Has downloaded and will be playing when I get off work this evening.Â Was curious, which realm makes more sense for a new player.Â Bal or Gilg?Â I see there are two communities.Â I would also like to know what a legacy server is compared to one that is not.Â

I came from Age of Conan, looking to find some solid RP here.Â Hope to find some.

Thanks!

Blood & Glory,
Hrav

Siha · **12-17-2013, 12:04 PM**

Welcome to the RPC, Hrav! It's always wonderful to see a new face, I might not have the most definitive answer for you but I can give my personal opinion here. The community on Balmung is really active, and despite it being a legacy server, everyone there seems pretty friendly to new players! I really had no problem getting involved there and running into random rp even, of course the RPC makes that even easier since everyone here is just great. I was only on Gilgamesh for a short time so I can't really say what their community is like and if it is active so I apologize but we have some members on there and I'm sure they'd be happy to give their opinions on that server. ^^

As a side note, if you do join Balmung, always feel free to poke me in game with RP or questions!

Hrav · **12-17-2013, 12:13 PM**

Thanks Siha,

Honestly the biggest thing for me is RP / PvE... so, I believe the main issue is going to be gil usage - as from what I've read when I posted this is the economy will be crazy for a new player with no gil.Â Not so excited about that, lol.Â If there is a small Gilg RP community, I'll go Bal, would just just prefer to be on an even playing ground.. though the game's been out a few months now, I'm sure it's kind of evened out.

Olofantur · **12-17-2013, 12:24 PM**

Hello Hrav, and welcome to the RPC,

Instead of recommending one off the bat i'd like to take a moment to address the question of the "difference" between Legacy and non-Legacy servers. On a mechanical level? Legacy denotes servers pre-existing from 1.0, these servers and characters who are created on them are unable to transfer to non-legacy servers (though non-legacy can come to legacy.) In practice this means that, if we focus on Balmung that Legacy servers have a pre-existing community, for better or worse. Most of the Economic differences, while still evident, are decreasing, particularly with the latest patch (duty roulette and many other gil makers.)

I'll be frank in saying that it really doesn't make an onze of difference as far as the accessibility of the community. I've rolled "test" alts on both servers just for the sake of better understanding the "new player" experience and have found time and time again that the crux of meeting interesting and open people is my characters ability to be open and engage with them (though the 'happy go lucky' miqo' gets more attention than the hellish pint-sized drunken brawler.)

But we can discuss that more if you like in following posts, for now i'd like to provide you with a bit of information to supplement Sihas welcome.

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/misc.php?page=welcome
This welcome post is from the whole of the RPC to new members, it covers the bulk of the resources here on the site that can be used as well as giving you a bit of information about the community itself.

If you'd like to spend some time brushing up on your RP terminology, or seeing how others might wrangle with IC explanations for certain game mechanics, Eva has written an excellent Roleplay hand book that can be found at:
http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=1770
It cover a lot of different things, and different ways to approach them.

But maybe you want to see some of the communities? I have three i'd like to recommend.

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=1902
"Intermission" is an OOC linkshell on Balmung that serves as a hub for people. Its fairly large and theres often quite a bit of chatter. A great way to get to know the people you share the server with.

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=5045
"Balmungs Finest" is for PVE content, Dungeons, Primals, and the like. getting groups can be fairly easy, or just dropping into slots other people need.

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=3116
"Coalition" is a Gilgamesh based OOC hub for players, get to know where people are, what they're up to, where they might be going and all that fun stuff.

Hope that helps introduce you to the community a bit, i'm more than willing to discuss the nuances between them more if you'd like.

Best of luck out in Eorzea, and hope you enjoy the new patch! Cactuar

EDIT: ah, I see one of the concerns was the Gil, as a note, there are a lot of people on both Balmung and Gilgamesh with a lot, and with a little. Maybe not the answer you want to hear, but the Mercenary runs hosted by big guilds, and people willing to put effort into market gaming make money regardless of server. the latest patch has introduced a few new ways of making Gil though that look promising, particularly at the higher levels.

Hrav · **12-17-2013, 12:35 PM**

Well, we'll see.Â It seems like the larger community is Balmung from what I can tell.Â Just not sure if I should hop onto a server full of seasoned vets lol.Â I suppose it doesn't matter, either way.Â Does anybody know if there are a lot of new players on Balmung? Or more on Gilg?Â I'd rather not be the only noob in a sea of vets haha

Olofantur · **12-17-2013, 12:42 PM**

(12-17-2013, 12:35 PM)Hrav Wrote: Well, we'll see.Â It seems like the larger community is Balmung from what I can tell.Â Just not sure if I should hop onto a server full of seasoned vets lol.Â I suppose it doesn't matter, either way.Â Does anybody know if there are a lot of new players on Balmung? Or more on Gilg?Â I'd rather not be the only noob in a sea of vets haha

Theres both on Both!

Plenty of new people have joined Both (you can take a look at the 'directory' sub forums to see some of them, or the previous welcome posts.) as well as there being vets who have rerolled to Gilgamesh or continued on Balmung. While there has been a trickle of transfers from Gil to Bal, they both have events and strong groups in the Coalition and Intermission.

Or perhaps you mean the PVE community. In that case its... both as well. While Balmung had a preexisting group of PVE'ers, Gilgamesh is the 'offical' Reddit server, many of they already with multiple 50s selling HM Titan runs and full AF+1 (though thats the result of AK pre-nerf farming.)

I am a bit biased admittedly, while at one time I could understand not wanting to feel "left out" of an established community, I think that with 3+ months, both servers are already firmly established. Perhaps more importantly both are very open, to new players and old players returning.

Sounds like a bunch of platitudes and half answers I know, but i'm unsure of a better way to describe them.

Hrav · **12-17-2013, 12:45 PM**

I suppose that's a fact.Â Worst part of transfering to a new game a few months after launch is trying to figure out the right place to land.Â I need to look into the difference between Coalition and Intermission... not sure what those are.

No Longer Exists · **12-17-2013, 12:50 PM**

Hravster, Black Hat here!

I've kicked around both servers for the last few months since release, only found a good RP group when I moved to Balmung from Gilgamesh. That's just my opinion. As a new(ish) player on a Legacy server, I haven't seen much negative about Balmung. I didn't make much gil cruising to 50, but I also cut a lot of corners and goofed off (Bought crafting items on market, teleported everywhere, etc) instead of hoarding moneyz. With 2.1, gil should be a lot easier to collect so I'm even less concerned than I was before, which was very little to begin with.

I'm reaching out over the course of this week to different RP companies and crews, so feel free to throw me a tell on Lukas Valenwood on Balmung at any time you see me on and don't forget to peruse the Linkshells section of the RPC for some of the active FCs and ways to communicate with peeps. A lot of involvement naturally has to come from you, getting out there and diving in. Cheers!

- Black Hat