(01-26-2016, 12:55 PM)Kayfaei Wrote:(04-23-2015, 06:34 AM)Rurel Dunewall Wrote: I used a site to set up email alerts for when Balmung opened up. From what I can gather it's pretty frequent. 1pm GMT Mon-Fri without fail, looking at my inbox.Do you still happen to have this website?
I have to agree that it's pretty silly to disallow creating new characters on the server whenever you like if you already have one there, but with how often it's opening it hasn't caused me any issues. And simply saving the appearance for a character does speed the process up ten fold.
We learned that the most of the websites that reported open servers reported based on the Lodestone, which is only updated every 4 hours for status. Given that Balmung typically closes new accounts within about 5 minutes (barring an active server crash in progress), by the time you get an alert, the server is usually already closed and has been for quite a while.
Some people do have success staying up late (or early depending on timezones) and effectively click-spamming the launcher/server during the maintenance period so that in the event maintenance ends early/ends on time, they are one of the first people to login. It's certainly not the best of methods, but does work.
Given that Balmung is probably one of the most densly populated servers (active logins vs total characters/accounts), creation tends to close almost immediately once people begin logging in.While we haven't hit physical limits on the server in a while (ie, the zone becomes locked because too many people are in it already), it is something that usually happens around patches.
If you're the type of person who would be making multiple characters, I'd suggest a server transfer, where you can transfers as many characters as your account allows for one transfer fee. (Assuming you have a standard account, that means 8 characters from one server to Balmung for a single $18 transfer fee. The original server does need ot be the same for this to apply, iirc.)