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***Maril*** · **09-08-2015, 03:38 PM**

We're quite happy and settled on Balmung. I've been on a small RP server before in a different game, and though it has it's charms, it also has some drawbacks that I wouldn't want to see anywhere else. We're (kinrp) not planning on moving anywhere, despite being EU people on an NA server, and I don't know of anyone save a handful that are actually contemplating moving to an EU server once the physical servers gets moved to Europa.Â
Wish you the best of luck with trying, though it's going to be an uphill battle. Honestly as I see it, Balmung and even Gilgamesh has something unique when it comes to mixing rpers from different timezones and that, which really makes the communities feel enormous, even if Gilgamesh has a smaller amount of people.Â

Griefing will always exist everywhere. I haven't experienced any on Balmung as of recent, but I think that may be related to my pastures moving more into the housing zones. About a year ago or so it was pretty bad. I've also heard of recent griefing. But in general the people on Balmung seem more tolerant these days, and I've even talked with people who came to Balmung because they knew the RP'ers were there - Not because they wanted to RP themselves, but because RP'ers can contribute to a more mature/calm/awesome community on a server overall.

Flickering Ember · **09-08-2015, 03:38 PM**

(09-08-2015, 03:30 PM)Gegenji Wrote:
(09-08-2015, 03:25 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: I think the biggest challenge would be trying to make new roleplayers aware there's RP to be had on Beacon Target #3.

I still think the first step would be collectively designating that Beacon Target #3, though. That way we can say the "Big Three" RP servers are Balmung, Gilgamesh, and... let's say, for the sake of argument, Faerie. It's not much improvement, but it'd centralize the new RPers (and possibly attract some migrants from other servers) a lot more than just having the Big Two and then some possible RP scattered across the four winds.

This is basically what I am getting at.

Kage · **09-08-2015, 03:57 PM**

Is it our place, on another server, to "decide" on another server though?

Kage bad analogy time. It feels a lot like the United States deciding where a country's refugees should go to. [Note: The US is not putting up the US in that list.]

Without most of us having alts on a variety of other servers, especially those that are in the pool of servers who are attempting to cultivate a culture of RPers... what right do we have to decide that one is better than the other?

Should this not be a conversation mainly among those on said servers? On that note, how would it be taken by that server if there was an exodus to that chosen server? What if they view it poorly?

Virella · **09-08-2015, 04:09 PM**

In truth, if there was an EU 'roleplaying' server, I would had gone there instead of Balmung. In truth, the game is so cheap to pick up now, at least ARR is, and if people do get hooked, dishing out a bit more to transfer isn't that bad in all honesty. I know some people are disappointed they can't make characters on Balmung right away, and I completely agree with that because we are probably missing out on a lot of potentional roleplayers that way. But I doubt having a third server is going to solve a thing, unless there is indeed a mass exodus towards the new one.

Starting up a new community is a hard task, and maintaining it even more so.

ZacharyVolfire · **09-08-2015, 04:12 PM**

as much as I would love to scream "BEHEMOTH IS A PERFECT CHOICE." It's jsut as full as gilgamesh if not balmung. We have 3 Heavy rp groups that would more then welcome the settlers but we have sizing issues as well. However if a max exodus is done My group and my linkshell will be happy to educate you o nthe RP free companies and evnets that are held on behemoth.

Flickering Ember · **09-08-2015, 04:31 PM**

(09-08-2015, 03:57 PM)Kage Wrote: Is it our place, on another server, to "decide" on another server though?

Kage bad analogy time. It feels a lot like the United States deciding where a country's refugees should go to. [Note: The US is not putting up the US in that list.]

Without most of us having alts on a variety of other servers, especially those that are in the pool of servers who are attempting to cultivate a culture of RPers... what right do we have to decide that one is better than the other?

Should this not be a conversation mainly among those on said servers? On that note, how would it be taken by that server if there was an exodus to that chosen server? What if they view it poorly?

Why even have Balmung and Gilgamesh then? The RPC had to decide to choose these servers for their respective RP communities. They did not foresee the possibility of these servers not being enough for the entirety of the FFXIV RP fanbase. There has to be a server that is 'decided' upon in the absence of designated RP servers.Â

The RP community is not big enough to where this becomes a matter given up to each individual server. If your aim as a RPer does not require populated, open world RP and only really look for it among one or two RP FCs and/or linkshells then there is nothing to discuss on that end. If your aim is to start up a new RP community due to Balmung and Gilgamesh being locked, I feel this is a worthwhile piece of discussion.

Am I the only poster who has been noticing a sizeable portion of FFXIV newcomers who want to RP but can't get onto Bal/Gilg?

It is also relevant to note that the RPC is the first match on 'ffxiv rp' in google. If you want to RP in FFXIV but don't know where, consider that this is the place where people with that interest are going to end up at, at some point.

Manari · **09-08-2015, 04:40 PM**

I keep seeing people responding saying "I'm happy where I am!" or "Good luck if you want to leave". I'm pretty sure that's missing the entire point of the thread. I don't think the OP is trying to get anyone to uproot and move everything some place else.

I want to get some friends into RP, and possibly play some new characters with alts I haven't made yet. All of this is very difficult on Balmung since it's so full. If we had another, less populated, server which was designated for RP, then we could point new people there and have fun with alts and new RP over there without telling new people "Either get up at 5am and hope or pay money to transfer".

Kage · **09-08-2015, 04:53 PM**

(09-08-2015, 04:31 PM)Flickering Ember Wrote:
(09-08-2015, 03:57 PM)Kage Wrote: Is it our place, on another server, to "decide" on another server though?

Kage bad analogy time. It feels a lot like the United States deciding where a country's refugees should go to. [Note: The US is not putting up the US in that list.]

Without most of us having alts on a variety of other servers, especially those that are in the pool of servers who are attempting to cultivate a culture of RPers... what right do we have to decide that one is better than the other?

Should this not be a conversation mainly among those on said servers? On that note, how would it be taken by that server if there was an exodus to that chosen server? What if they view it poorly?

Why even have Balmung and Gilgamesh then? The RPC had to decide to choose these servers for their respective RP communities. They did not foresee the possibility of these servers not being enough for the entirety of the FFXIV RP fanbase. There has to be a server that is 'decided' upon in the absence of designated RP servers.Â

The RP community is not big enough to where this becomes a matter given up to each individual server. If your aim as a RPer does not require populated, open world RP and only really look for it among one or two RP FCs and/or linkshells then there is nothing to discuss on that end. If your aim is to start up a new RP community due to Balmung and Gilgamesh being locked, I feel this is a worthwhile piece of discussion.

Am I the only poster who has been noticing a sizeable portion of FFXIV newcomers who want to RP but can't get onto Bal/Gilg?

You haven't addressed my point that you are on another server and are starting a discussion for the other people to start deciding where to go. You're in a big city that has closed its gates and are now telling 4 small towns that perhaps 3 of them should go to 1 and start growing another city. Or you're telling those 4 small towns to go and make a city.

They might even be upset that you want to choose for them where to go. Is that not the conversation that they should be having? Of everyone who has posted here I think I can only count Zachary as not having a character on Balmung or the "other" Gilgamesh that is getting full as well. How many posters in the RPC will have even had alts on the other communities?

The other factor is that the RPC is a vocal amount of roleplayers on Balmung with a small size of Gilgamesh RPers and those trying to find ways to connect on servers that aren't quite open. You're now also disregarding the amount of roleplayers that may be on other worlds that are primarily on Tumblr and other venues. As it's mentioned a few times, the RPC doesn't even represent the majority of RPers on Balmung. In fact, a lot of people actively avoid it.

Will you pay for those communities' transfers? How would you choose a server? Based on how much character creation is closed? While Balmung is the worst off, others are starting to have the point where non-prime time hours are the only times when you can get a character in. Just choose the lowest population to avoid character creation issues?

If I had any more friends that were able to or wanted to play FFXIV, I would want them to play with me and hence pay for their transfer. I know that getting into Balmung is difficult. I've given people money to transfer to Balmung because of this. I am a greedy selfish person and I want to both a) Play with my friends and b) Roleplay with my friends. In order to do so, I put my money where my mouth and desires are.

Ignacius · **09-08-2015, 05:07 PM**

Can I pipe dream?

I know it won't likely happen, but it'd be nice if Square kicked off a new server, and you could only start/transfer there if you wrote a short essay about your character. Â People would have to go far out of their way to grief there, the RPers could be transferred for free to a new server where the population would be just them. Â Trolling could get someone returned to the server they were on without it being a big fuss.

Just a dream, but we can always try to raise a petition or a stink about it. Â Seems better than designating yet another unofficial RP server where we'll have the same problems.

Melkire · **09-08-2015, 05:09 PM**

"Let's talk about organizing a tertiary RP server."

Short answer: no.

Long answer:

[Admin Hardhat]

I feel a need to both expound upon some RPC history and make some sort of pseudo-official comment on this matter.

Once upon a time, the first wave of members on this site had to decide on a server to collectively jump on, for the sake of creating a large enough community of roleplayers that they could depend upon when it came to reaching out and engaging in cooperative writing. That server turned out to be, for whatever reason, Balmung.

Some time later, a few users started tossing around the idea of a secondary or alternate or "sister" unofficial RP server. The name that happened to get tossed out, again for whatever reason, was Gilgamesh. The suggestion was taken seriously and a secondary community began to grow. What quickly became evident, however, was that there had grown a schism and a degree of bad blood between the userbases of Balmung and Gilgamesh. Accusations of "elitism," "second class citizenry," "bias," and the like got thrown around, and there was fault to be found on both sides of the line. The long and short of it is that it got ugly. Even as recently as this year, the legacy of that divide still occasionally erupts in short bursts of drama and bad feelings.

That said... after two years, we've finally reached a place where both communities are on relatively good terms, we have sister sites serving different populations, the boards here on RPC are now geared more towards inclusion of all servers rather than a focus on Balmung and Gilgamesh, and despite a staggering disparity in populations here on RPC that favors a much larger Balmung community, folks are growing more and more open to working with new roleplayers and their desires to start or get into smaller RP communities on smaller servers, rather than defaulting immediately to "oh well most RP is on Balmung so you should transfer here" (which, as it happens, only goes to fuel that bad blood between server communities).

It seems to me both unwise and self-righteous in the extreme to suggest that we need to organize a third unofficial RP server when the better course of action is to support smaller RP communities on other servers by not only encouraging their growth but providing a place for them to come together and organize themselves. There's a wonderful Jenova RP Community thread that Ember linked, for example. It cropped up a while back here on RPC, and it's more or less roleplayers using this site to reach out and connect with one another, which I see as an ideal. There's a burgeoning population there, and they're taking care of themselves. They are more than welcome to continue using this site and its boards and resources (we want them here! they're brothers and sisters with the same interests!) .

An organized effort at designating a tertiary server, in my opinion, constitutes little more than rocking-the-boat. I apologize if that seems offensive, but consider: RP communities are already growing on other servers, energy is better spent supporting those communities as they grow, splitting existing communities onto a different sever will inevitably result in grief, it is not the fault or the responsibility of any roleplay community to answer for the difficulties of getting on Balmung and/or Gilgamesh, the onus is on Square-Enix to deal with impacted servers, and the "difficulties" of getting on Bal/Gilg have more to do with creating alts than new roleplayers who can either try for the fabled few-minutes-long post-maint window or else pay for a guaranteed transfer.

Artificial stimulation of the communities on Coeurl, Faerie, Jenova, Lamia, Sargantas, etc. might seem prudent... but the best thing we can do is go, "hey, there's this site known as the RPC, they've got lots of tools and space for folks to get organized or at least get a start on doing so!"

[/Admin Hardhat]

I'll leave this discussion open, because there's some value in going over the particulars... but the moment it starts getting nasty, it's getting closed.

Manari · **09-08-2015, 05:25 PM**

Show Content

The only reason I mention all of that up there is because I don't feel like this is even CLOSE to the same situation at ALL. So I'm not sure I agree with just shooting it down because the Balmung/Gilgamesh arguments were a dark time on the RPC.

Melkire · **09-08-2015, 05:35 PM**

(09-08-2015, 05:25 PM)Manari Wrote:

Show Content

Spoiler tag because I don't want to derailAs someone who lived through the above story first hand, I just felt the need to clarify that it was the introduction of the "Legacy" status that FFXIV 1.0 players received that caused the initial rift between RPers. In the months between 1.0 servers closing and 2.0 going live with open betas, the RPC here was bursting with new activity and new RPers eager to try 2.0 RP out. Most of the new players were eager to jump on Balmung and RP with the current RPers, but then SE announced all the ways that Legacy characters were going to keep some of their gil, get a few random items, keep all their old gear, etc. And that scared new players. They didn't want to be on a server with an economy already in place, so that's when a movement for a 2nd RP server got started.

Yes, it turned into a really bitter and bloody battle due to the way each side felt about the split. Balmung didn't want the RP community fractured apart, and Gilgamesh didn't want to play on a server with so many people already level 50.

The only reason I mention all of that up there is because I don't feel like this is even CLOSE to the same situation at ALL. So I'm not sure I agree with just shooting it down because the Balmung/Gilgamesh arguments were a dark time on the RPC.

Bear in mind that I don't think a third large unoffficial RP server is a bad thing. It'd be good to have.

What would be bad is trying to force that designation on a server pop / community from the outside. There's also the trouble that designating unofficial servers has an unfortunate tendency to drain smaller servers of RP pop. It's creating a large community at the potential expense of smaller ones.

Caspar · **09-08-2015, 05:38 PM**

I'm not sure. Isn't that already happening with Balmung? I question whether a third server would really make things that much worse.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **09-08-2015, 05:40 PM**

(09-08-2015, 05:25 PM)Manari Wrote: The only reason I mention all of that up there is because I don't feel like this is even CLOSE to the same situation at ALL. Â So I'm not sure I agree with just shooting it down because the Balmung/Gilgamesh arguments were a dark time on the RPC.

I had this large post mostly written that was going to basically be what Melkire typed as an admin. But to make my point of view (as a user) known, I see it as a very similar issue. A Fragmented community will have a more difficult time sustaining itself. Even if we were to have a new server brought in on the mix, to what extent would people actively work to keep it alive when they know there's already an established community they get pay to get in on?

The trampled patches of grass on Balmung and Gilgamesh could be seen as "more stable", "more enticing" or just "more RPer friendly" that the vast wilderness and wide-open plains of some other server. If given the choice, I think people would probably keep trying to drive on a paved road or dirt road than to drive through an open field/sand dunes/forest.

Melkire · **09-08-2015, 05:42 PM**

(09-08-2015, 05:38 PM)Caspar Wrote: I'm not sure. Isn't that already happening with Balmung? I question whether a third server would really make things that much worse.

The flip side of this is that the rise of a tertiary RP server has the potential to fragment other large populations such as Balmung and Gilgamesh. I don't particularly see a problem with this happening to the former (we're large and we could take the hit to pop without losing too much roleplay presence/availability) but Gilgamesh is smaller in comparison. I wouldn't want to detract from their growth, but that's just me. I'm hoping others won't want to, either.

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