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This is an interesting topic... so here's my two cents, which are worth zero cents.
1. I agree with the others. $18 was and continues to be a paltry sum. You can't go to the movies and get a popcorn and drink for $18, and the RP on Balmung has been far more valuable. It's also not hard to earn, if one's budget is tight. Mow exactly one lawn. Dogsit for somebody one time. Wash a couple neighbor's cars. Sell something you don't need anymore on Ebay rather than throwing it away. Clean an old lady's house. I could make a compelling argument that it requires more effort to avoid earning $18 than it does to earn it.
2. The argument of not having to pay more money just to be able to do a thing is pretty moot in a world where every video game that isn't awful (and some that are) have DLC and the players of those games seem all too cheerful to pay more money to be able to do a thing when it's labeled as DLC. The established RP community on Balmung was essentially DLC. Want in, there you go. Take a hard look at your Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, etc, library before you disagree with the concept.
3. The analogy of apartments is absurd. That literally never happens in any real world community, as described. I'm not even going to go into detail picking that apart, and I enjoy picking things apart; that is how ludicrous it is.
4. Yes, people in a community can absolutely extend their support toward another community without actually doing anything to tangibly support that community. All those people who change their Facebook picture every time there's a disaster of some kind? All the people who hear about someone's illness and reply "keeping you in our thoughts"? That's a real world application of the same thing. Is it silly? Yep. Is it just as silly here? Sure, but, at the end of the day, this is a game, and no one is actually harmed by a lack of tangible support. Take that protest energy to Facebook and start telling people there to get off their butts and actually donate to causes instead of superimposing flags over their faces. That might actually change somebody's life.
5. No, nobody on Balmung owes anything to anyone anywhere else. We're here to play a game and we're playing the game. A long time ago, before Balmung became a behemoth, there wasn't a roleplay community there either. Some people put in a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of patience, and they built it. To anyone who believes tangible effort by Balmung players is owed to build up another server, I ask: Where were you when Balmung was struggling to get built up? Did you contribute to that? If so, alright, maybe you're owed a little something in return. Why not. But if you weren't there, way back then - and I wasn't either - then why do you believe you're due help now when you didn't help back then? Were you even playing FF14 back then, or were you playing a different game entirely and didn't care about the effort people in a game you weren't playing were putting into building a roleplay community? Yet now when others are giving the same to you in return, you complain? Can you see how that's unfair, and how that makes you look?
6. This is my strongest point, and I really, really hope you will listen to this one. Given that Balmung is locked and we have no reason to believe it's temporary, you do not need the support of Balmung players to create a strong and healthy new community. At all. Merely by the servers being locked, newcomers to the game can't go to Balmung. They do not have a choice. All they can do is look at the other servers, and if your server happens to be flailing arms and proclaiming them welcome, and it's a friendly atmosphere and helpful to newcomers, can you guess where they will go? Will they sit, not playing the game, and pine away hoping Balmung will one day open up - or will they go to your server, make friends there, settle in, and then even if Balmung does open again, they'll be rooted and have no motivation to leave? See, it's that very rooting which makes Balmung players unwilling to leave Balmung. Others have said as much, too. That will happen with your server, too, if you maintain a positive environment and you're welcoming to newcomers. Further, the longer that Balmung remains closed, the more likely it is that all of their own accord - with no convincing needed on your part - Balmung players will migrate, because they'll have new friends who want to play and can't join them on Balmung, or maybe, if nothing else, the grass looks greener on the other side. But what you're doing right now, this isn't helping the grass to look greener. Please see that. Please stop the negative feelings, and be positive. If the public face you show is negative, then instead of newcomers going to your server when the hit the Balmung wall, they'll bounce off it and right back to WoW or wherever else they came from. Nobody wants drama, and if they feel like what they see even before making a character looks dramatic, they won't even give you a try.
1. I agree with the others. $18 was and continues to be a paltry sum. You can't go to the movies and get a popcorn and drink for $18, and the RP on Balmung has been far more valuable. It's also not hard to earn, if one's budget is tight. Mow exactly one lawn. Dogsit for somebody one time. Wash a couple neighbor's cars. Sell something you don't need anymore on Ebay rather than throwing it away. Clean an old lady's house. I could make a compelling argument that it requires more effort to avoid earning $18 than it does to earn it.
2. The argument of not having to pay more money just to be able to do a thing is pretty moot in a world where every video game that isn't awful (and some that are) have DLC and the players of those games seem all too cheerful to pay more money to be able to do a thing when it's labeled as DLC. The established RP community on Balmung was essentially DLC. Want in, there you go. Take a hard look at your Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, etc, library before you disagree with the concept.
3. The analogy of apartments is absurd. That literally never happens in any real world community, as described. I'm not even going to go into detail picking that apart, and I enjoy picking things apart; that is how ludicrous it is.
4. Yes, people in a community can absolutely extend their support toward another community without actually doing anything to tangibly support that community. All those people who change their Facebook picture every time there's a disaster of some kind? All the people who hear about someone's illness and reply "keeping you in our thoughts"? That's a real world application of the same thing. Is it silly? Yep. Is it just as silly here? Sure, but, at the end of the day, this is a game, and no one is actually harmed by a lack of tangible support. Take that protest energy to Facebook and start telling people there to get off their butts and actually donate to causes instead of superimposing flags over their faces. That might actually change somebody's life.
5. No, nobody on Balmung owes anything to anyone anywhere else. We're here to play a game and we're playing the game. A long time ago, before Balmung became a behemoth, there wasn't a roleplay community there either. Some people put in a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of patience, and they built it. To anyone who believes tangible effort by Balmung players is owed to build up another server, I ask: Where were you when Balmung was struggling to get built up? Did you contribute to that? If so, alright, maybe you're owed a little something in return. Why not. But if you weren't there, way back then - and I wasn't either - then why do you believe you're due help now when you didn't help back then? Were you even playing FF14 back then, or were you playing a different game entirely and didn't care about the effort people in a game you weren't playing were putting into building a roleplay community? Yet now when others are giving the same to you in return, you complain? Can you see how that's unfair, and how that makes you look?
6. This is my strongest point, and I really, really hope you will listen to this one. Given that Balmung is locked and we have no reason to believe it's temporary, you do not need the support of Balmung players to create a strong and healthy new community. At all. Merely by the servers being locked, newcomers to the game can't go to Balmung. They do not have a choice. All they can do is look at the other servers, and if your server happens to be flailing arms and proclaiming them welcome, and it's a friendly atmosphere and helpful to newcomers, can you guess where they will go? Will they sit, not playing the game, and pine away hoping Balmung will one day open up - or will they go to your server, make friends there, settle in, and then even if Balmung does open again, they'll be rooted and have no motivation to leave? See, it's that very rooting which makes Balmung players unwilling to leave Balmung. Others have said as much, too. That will happen with your server, too, if you maintain a positive environment and you're welcoming to newcomers. Further, the longer that Balmung remains closed, the more likely it is that all of their own accord - with no convincing needed on your part - Balmung players will migrate, because they'll have new friends who want to play and can't join them on Balmung, or maybe, if nothing else, the grass looks greener on the other side. But what you're doing right now, this isn't helping the grass to look greener. Please see that. Please stop the negative feelings, and be positive. If the public face you show is negative, then instead of newcomers going to your server when the hit the Balmung wall, they'll bounce off it and right back to WoW or wherever else they came from. Nobody wants drama, and if they feel like what they see even before making a character looks dramatic, they won't even give you a try.
Lydia Lightfoot ~ The Reliquarian's Guild «Relic» ~ Lavender Beds, Ward 12, #41
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?