Y'raya

I'm basically just regretting ever posting this now. It didn't come off the way I wanted it to, which was as a plea to those who might be considering helping start up the second server or on the fence, as opposed to whining or attacking. I wasn't saying I didn't want to put in effort, I meant to say that help from those who are already here would be good. I didn't mean to upset those with firm roots, or who might fear a mass exodus, as I've been in both those situations before (having watched Shadow Council, Steamwheedle Cartel, Earthen Ring, and Sisters of Elune all go down). And some of these responses already feel like they've lashed back at me to the point that I dread seeing alerts up in the corner of my screen. I'm just going to keep working on starting up somewhere, helping foster a new community, enjoying roleplaying, and exploring other places in the forums.

I gotta agree that a lot of negative attention seems to have been drawn to the character, and it might be time to let the character go. BUT! Never think you can't come back to that character some day. When I started on WoW 12 years ago, I was ATROCIOUS. My characters were all kinds of bad. I mean. Really bad. Next level sue bad. But, over time, I grew as a roleplayer and developed characters further and began to find the things that not only made me feel confident and happy with my writing, but seemed to blend well with others too. Remember, people don't develop overnight. You might have epiphanies, but it takes time to actually act on them. Let your character be the same. And then, down the road, if you want to unretire the character and ease them back in after you feel more confident you have a handle on it, go for it. Not every character has to die. People travel, right? Also, no one can kill a character as fast as a director can kill Sean Bean. That's just not possible. That man is practically dead before he's even cast.

I apologize if this post came off as bashing, as that wasn't my intent at all. I was merely expressing a frustration, as has been mentioned by others, that joining the RP community feels like something you had to pay to do, and that for so long I had been unable to get into the community I wanted to be a part of. Roleplaying is most of why I play these kinds of game, and having the fee to face when I was younger and didn't have the money, and now later seeing the server locked out, is very frustrating. I'm sure for more people than just myself. And yes, I understand the people who worked hard to build balmung and establish themselves aren't going to flee at the first sign of people roleplaying elsewhere, or maybe ever... but having other people come to help a new community could help give it the boost it needs. Again, I'm sorry if this came off as attacking you, or as offensive. It was not my intent. I just wanted to express my frustration. I won't post on the subject again.

EU WoW servers want a word with you. We only had one roleplay server left in the end. Just because it worked on WoW US doesn't mean it will on FFXIV. To be fair, what FFXIV currently has in it's one locked and previously impossible to get onto without paying money server also is not working. There isn't really a middle option in this race. Yeah but a second server isn't magically going to establish itself either. I think it's happening though. It's not and will never be as big as Balmung, but it's slowly growing and if it ends up as a free transfer point I think it will be established. Better? Nah, but good for tthose that just want something smaller where everyone know each other. And that's the thing. A lot of people want this, because we CANT join you. It's put me off getting involved in this game multiple times already, and I'm not alone in that. I want to RP here. But it's impossible to get in with Balmung. A second option is necessary, and yes, it does need help from people on Balmung. Desperately. The outsiders can't do this alone... but there's no forseeable future where we get to join you all at this point. They're just going to keep locking the server, if and when they do unlock it, because people keep transferring on.

I would like to clarify/ make a minor correction to this: Balmung was open for character creation since ARR launched. I created a character just fine onto Balmung Nov 30 2013 and did it for friends during peak hours as well. Yes, it did in fact get worse to when you had to be up at 4-5am Pacific to create some characters months later into 2014 but the need for paid transfers was not around yet. That was around end of year 2014 Holidays. THAT is when we started to see the need for paid transfers. It alleviated 3 months later until Heavensward June 2015 hit. After that I have never seen character creation open except for <5 minutes after maintenance. This can be seen in the thread I started in July 2015. The above is accurate. However, I stand by my point. For a lot of people, rolling at 4-5am or paying to come over? Not something that should be expected of them. Same goes for getting online right after maintenance. I gotta make money to pay for this in the first place. Which requires me to sleep at those hours, or work at them.

EU WoW servers want a word with you. We only had one roleplay server left in the end. Just because it worked on WoW US doesn't mean it will on FFXIV. To be fair, what FFXIV currently has in it's one locked and previously impossible to get onto without paying money server also is not working. There isn't really a middle option in this race.

Having read it all now, the problem is twofold. One, any attempt to set up a new server needs people, and the vast bulk of roleplayers that could help are on Balmung. Having them risk $18 to move to a new server, sacrifice any investments they'd made in Balmung already like FCs, Housing, etc., just to potentially have to pay another $18 to move back or end up locked out like the rest of us is unreasonable. It's just as unreasonable however to ask everyone to wait to maybe spend money on an opportunity that may never come just because "one server is better than two". Two servers can get by just fine. MG and WrA on Wacraft have done well over the years, with no signs of slowing. Both are great communities, and roleplayers move between them often. It's not a problem. It's just healthy expansion, especially considering that both servers have occasionally teetered towards full or queues to get online at peak points through their history. It's not a question of if a second server needs to happen, it's a matter of how and when. It needs to happen, and should happen. Getting it to happen is the tough thing.

(1) You raise an excellent question. I'm not certain. But it is likely that SE will follow its prior pattern of conduct and lift the restriction in 1-2 months. However, you're correct to postulate that SE may take months to lift the restriction. That is precisely why Balmung RPers should be screaming bloody murder at SE right now. If the server is still locked in 6 months, we should scream louder. If twelve months, then (maybe) we should consider other alternatives. (2) There are RP communities on a variety of small servers (Maetus and Farie come to mind). New RPers should join those communities until Balmung opens up. They should select whichever community suits their tastes and preferences best. The new RPer should transfer to Balmung as soon as the restriction is lifted, ideally with his or her friends. Before I even get further into this thread... in response to #1 here. 6 months? 12 months? Balmung has been locked down hard almost since ARR launched. You HAD to pay to get in, for most of that. It isn't a matter of how long this absolute lockdown lasts... you've been on lockdown so long that potential roleplayers have been pushed away for years already. That's a problem. Centralizing won't fix it. It'll just get the server locked again because no one will leave to alleviate the incoming players.

Firstly, thank all of you who take the time to read this. I know it's coming from a new user here, and among lots of debate and discussion on the matter. I just felt like I wanted to put my thoughts out there, in a clear and concise manner, and somewhere that isn't buried in twenty-some pages of back and forth. When I refer to the Balmung Problem, I don't mean necessarily that the server or it's community is a problem. Certainly the server is crowded, full beyond any hope of making a character, and has been since launch. For me that has been the biggest discouragement to get into this game since I initially purchased A Realm Reborn all those years ago. The community had found it's default roleplaying home before the game was even out, and from day one I couldn't get a character on the server. So I went back to Warcraft, where I didn't have that problem. Two years later, I tried again, running into the same wall. Still I couldn't get a character on the home of the bulk of roleplayers. Being someone who has roleplayed for years at this point, and someone who had attempted to help start a server back up from the ground in Warcraft, I was again discouraged. Having a thriving, large community had always been so important. From Shadow Council, to Steamwheedle Cartel, Sisters of Elune, Moon Guard, and Wyrmrest Accord. all of the roleplaying servers Warcraft offered had one thing in common. Their community was large. Stable. They'd dug their heels in and built something. Even as some of these servers died the groups moved to new servers, usually with free transfers offered, in bulk. Granted, Warcraft doesn't have housing. There's nothing so invested in a server, if a community is given the opportunity to move as a whole. Even in other games moving a character across servers is far less dangerous, despite housing, as that housing is typically a player instance that can move with you. FFXIV poses a bit of an obstacle this way. It also poses an obstacle to new roleplayers, old roleplayers who are just new here, or wanted to be new here at some point and gave up. Even in the discussions about moving there are large amounts of established people on Balmung who have been very forthcoming in stating "We aren't going anywhere.", leaving this other section of the community, small as they are, to squabble about where to go. Scattered and cut off, with no large group to provide gravity, there is no real consensus about what the next step is in attempting a new server. Warcraft at least, despite all the dead servers, has two things going for it. Moon Guard, the old standard, having stood the test of time even despite it's poor reputation, labelled only for a single inn. On the other end, Wyrmrest Accord, home to the masses of other servers that fell apart, communities that crumbled over time, and now standing as the other pillar of the RP community among a large number of servers that are RP in name only. Balmung is the Moon Guard of this game. I mean that as a compliment, naturally. You are the old guard. You have stood the test of time. You are so full it's ridiculous. The community you provide, then, is incredibly attractive and simultaneously entirely inaccessible. From the polls I've seen elsewhere debating what server might be able to stand as the Wyrmrest of this game, there's no one server with more than just over a hundred votes. The rest pale in comparison. Compared to thousands upon thousands of you, heels dug in, standing firm that this is where your friends and relationships are. This is where you've invested your time. That's great, it really is. It just sucks for those on the fringes, looking in, unable to build something new for one very simple reason. They don't have you to support them. The problem with Balmung is how successful you've been, despite the unending barrier to entry. Even when transfers open they are discouraged, because it just locks the realm down again. Making a character there is impossible. Now the burden of building a second community is left on the few, trying to have any hope of achieving a sliver of what you already have, and had before the realm was reborn in the first place thanks to this very site. This is not an easy thing. It will not be an easy thing. People don't want to spend money to move, for one. And those on the smaller servers, and in the smaller communities, risk wasting that money by making the jump only to watch a small community flounder and fail, rather than joining (or dreaming of joining) a community that is already strong. Yes, clearly, there needs to be incentive to leave Balmung for one thing. Incentive that is hard to provide, even with free transfers. Those who have houses won't accept reimbursement as an aid, thanks to the questionable house flipping that occurs for outrageous amounts of money, a problem that has no easy solution. Still, if no one makes that sacrifice, if no free companies or other groups take that plunge, this will not get better. It will not improve. No second community will spring up. Because Balmung already has everything we want, and the people there know it. /endrant

After years and years of RP of various types, I feel like there's a few different ways to look at everything discussed here. For me the first thing would be why people aren't or are up front. Many people aren't "up front" because of the stigma against ERP. They're not being sneaky, or secret, they just don't want to get called out and shamed. And it's not necessarily that they're afraid to express these things in their real life, or go unfulfilled. Sex is a part of life. So why not a part of their character to? And if it's fun, it's fun! I mean, sure, it's a bummer to meet someone who only wants to tussle, but there's plenty of serious RPers out there who do it too. Secondly, the method writers. Yeah, I said Method Writers. I'm making that a thing. Deal. There's a lot of people, myself included, who approach writing from a character out perspective, rather than story-first. Probably a lot of these writers started with RP too. We want to understand the character, live in the character, and really embrace that. Make the character feel like a full, fleshed out person. People have many sides to them, aspects of their personality, drives, desires, moods... and again. Sex. People have sex. That's a thing that they do. Sometimes, I hear, with the intent of making more people. But not always. I think treating ERPers as some separate part of the community is and always has been weird, and I say always has after 12 years of World of Warcraft and 5 different RP servers all having the same amount of RP and ERP. Y'know, except for that one... which really isn't any worse than the others, it just has that one glaring sore on the face of a certain forest. But ignoring that one little building, that server is no different than all those others. People ERP because it's fun. People RP because it's fun. And people do both of those things for so many other reasons, too. The only odd thing I find after more than a decade? We keep making a big deal out of it.

YAY PEOPLE! I'm glad there's RP on Jenova to be had! Been super bummed all these years that Balmung has been like... entirely inaccessible forever. Even at 3am. Been reading up on all the lockdown and new-RP-realm discussions lately though, and always liked playing, just always felt discouraged because the big RP community was behind a wall that no one could climb.

Hi there! Long time attempted-roleplayer, back to the game. Playing on Jenova right now, because apparently getting onto Balmung remains impossible after all these years, and transfers aren't being allowed. Hopefully someday soon though, I'll find some way to join you all! Really looking for a fresh start after 12 years of WoW RP.