First things first, please keep the tone civil. Disagreements are fine, disagreements via insults are not.
One point that's been glossed over is the lack of warning. A lot of the controversy is rooted in the fact that people were completely blindsided by the restrictions. And you could argue that Balmung has been character restricted for forever, but I don't think it's fair to say "you should have seen this coming" when transfers to Balmung have remained available since 2.0 released way back in 2013 and there has never been any indication of impending population control otherwise.
Regardless of whether you are for or against the restriction, it's a pretty shitty brand of band-aid damage control no matter what way you spin it, especially since it doesn't seem that Square Enix is willing or able (bets on the latter that they're making this up as they go along in the wake of the impending expansion) to announce the details of the transfers to soften the blow that is the restrictions.
Now with that said, I'll continue to be really annoying about the solution: the creation of a new server that is specifically designated as RP, and free transfers with no loss of assets.
There's no such thing as a perfect solution, no, but the crux of this issue is the lack of segregation between RPers and non-RPers. Balmung already had a fairly prevalent population due to being a Legacy server merged between Besaid and Fabul, and the growth of the RP community has only grown since then. I'm willing to wager that the RP community comprises of up to a third of Balmung's active population, if not more.
In the wake of things like megaservers and cross-realm zoning, roleplay is one of the only activities in an MMO that majorly depends on players sharing the same in-game space. Things like PVE is easy enough to facilitate with cross-server tech and the prevalence of software like Discord. Creating a new server specifically to facilitate that need for roleplayers to share the same in-game space would alleviate the biggest issue with splitting the RP community.
In addition, a new server would also facilitate the retention of important property, most notably houses.
As many others before me have stated, it takes a decent population for it to become self-sustaining and reaching that population is an uphill battle. I think it'd be great for a new server to be able to combine at least the NA RP population so that fragmentation would be limited, though I know the issue is a beast of a different nature for EU given that they have to deal with ping.
Of course it's unfeasible to expect everyone to transfer off of Balmung, but that's not really the purpose of the solution anyway. The purpose of this solution is to provide a centralised hub of roleplayers that's not population restricted, for people who want a centralised hub.
I'll paraphrase one of my older statements by saying that people who want to roleplay on the largest roleplaying community should have the option of roleplaying on the largest community. The Balmung restriction completely neuters that option without providing a feasible alternative. And yes, I'm aware that free transfers will be incentivised eventually, but part of my issue with this is that Square Enix either wasn't able or wasn't willing to produce a viable solution in simultaneous conjunction with the restriction. It's the equivalent of changing the locks to an apartment building and forgetting that you have the only key.
So hopefully a year from now we'll be able to comment on this event wistfully. If a new designated RP server is created with adequate transfer guarantees, I will be more than willing to support RPers moving there away from Balmung so that there'll be a healthy community on both sides.
EDIT: In addition, demographics exist and they matter. While I get that they overlap between, say, PVErs, PVPers, RPers, whatever, ignoring that there's an observable divide is not the best attitude either.
One point that's been glossed over is the lack of warning. A lot of the controversy is rooted in the fact that people were completely blindsided by the restrictions. And you could argue that Balmung has been character restricted for forever, but I don't think it's fair to say "you should have seen this coming" when transfers to Balmung have remained available since 2.0 released way back in 2013 and there has never been any indication of impending population control otherwise.
Regardless of whether you are for or against the restriction, it's a pretty shitty brand of band-aid damage control no matter what way you spin it, especially since it doesn't seem that Square Enix is willing or able (bets on the latter that they're making this up as they go along in the wake of the impending expansion) to announce the details of the transfers to soften the blow that is the restrictions.
Now with that said, I'll continue to be really annoying about the solution: the creation of a new server that is specifically designated as RP, and free transfers with no loss of assets.
There's no such thing as a perfect solution, no, but the crux of this issue is the lack of segregation between RPers and non-RPers. Balmung already had a fairly prevalent population due to being a Legacy server merged between Besaid and Fabul, and the growth of the RP community has only grown since then. I'm willing to wager that the RP community comprises of up to a third of Balmung's active population, if not more.
In the wake of things like megaservers and cross-realm zoning, roleplay is one of the only activities in an MMO that majorly depends on players sharing the same in-game space. Things like PVE is easy enough to facilitate with cross-server tech and the prevalence of software like Discord. Creating a new server specifically to facilitate that need for roleplayers to share the same in-game space would alleviate the biggest issue with splitting the RP community.
In addition, a new server would also facilitate the retention of important property, most notably houses.
As many others before me have stated, it takes a decent population for it to become self-sustaining and reaching that population is an uphill battle. I think it'd be great for a new server to be able to combine at least the NA RP population so that fragmentation would be limited, though I know the issue is a beast of a different nature for EU given that they have to deal with ping.
Of course it's unfeasible to expect everyone to transfer off of Balmung, but that's not really the purpose of the solution anyway. The purpose of this solution is to provide a centralised hub of roleplayers that's not population restricted, for people who want a centralised hub.
I'll paraphrase one of my older statements by saying that people who want to roleplay on the largest roleplaying community should have the option of roleplaying on the largest community. The Balmung restriction completely neuters that option without providing a feasible alternative. And yes, I'm aware that free transfers will be incentivised eventually, but part of my issue with this is that Square Enix either wasn't able or wasn't willing to produce a viable solution in simultaneous conjunction with the restriction. It's the equivalent of changing the locks to an apartment building and forgetting that you have the only key.
So hopefully a year from now we'll be able to comment on this event wistfully. If a new designated RP server is created with adequate transfer guarantees, I will be more than willing to support RPers moving there away from Balmung so that there'll be a healthy community on both sides.
EDIT: In addition, demographics exist and they matter. While I get that they overlap between, say, PVErs, PVPers, RPers, whatever, ignoring that there's an observable divide is not the best attitude either.
