Skae

Especially since Omega is not only open for transfers, but is also a Preferred world for now - meaning that among other things you can transfer for free from Congested worlds (*cough*Balmung*cough*) to Omega at the moment. https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/option_service/world_transfer_service/population_balancing/

We do not have the massive amount of people playing at the start of SB either - on any server. The first few weeks there were probably twice as many active players as there normally is - and that did indeed cause a lot of problems.

This is the case with pretty much all RP communities everywhere. People primarily RP with their circle of friends.

Zodiark is a nice enough server, but there is indeed not much in the way of RP there. The main EU-based RP server is Omega, but I am afraid it is "temporarily" closed for transfers with no word on when it will open again. You can create new characters there though, so feel free to create an alt to see how it is.

Why do you want your character to know White Magic? If you just want her to be able to heal people then normal conjury would work just fine, and not be any problem at all lorewise.

Oh no! I already made a character and I'd prefer a transfer Is there no option for me in that case? Thank you so much for your help! I believe Louisoix might also be an EU RP server? But I'm not entirely sure, so don't quote me on that. Also, I don't rightly know if Omega is closed to transfers or not, so you might be able to move 'em on over. Hopefully someone from the EU Crew will be by to give some more information, though. While there likely are a few roleplayers around on Louisioix (as well as on most other servers) it is not an RP server as such. Omega is indeed "temporarily" closed for transfers, with no word on when it might open again - to the frustration of quite a few. Basically, if you want an RP server there are really only three options at the moment: Balmung, Mateus, and Omega. Balmung is locked down tight until further notice so if you are not already there you can't get in. Omega is closed for transfers, but creation of new characters is possible. It is mainly oriented towards European players. Mateus is open for transfers as well as new characters. I believe it is mainly oriented towards American players.

Aside from Balmung (which is locked down hard) the unofficial RP servers are Mateus (for NA timezones) and Omega (for EU timezones) Either of those servers are probably your best bet. There are also some small RP communities on other servers, but I know next to nothing about them.

I have never seen any actual hate for any of the races, but some of them are indeed treated less seriously than others. In particular lalafell is far too often treated as a joke race - even by people who ought to know better. (If I had a gil for every "lalafell = popoto" comparison I have heard I could probably buy a large house by now.) This does not mean you shouldn't play a lalafell - but be prepared that you will occasionally find it more difficult to be taken seriously than you would if playing some other race.

But it then goes on to say: Which I'm having trouble understanding. The relevant part would be "for new characters created after the bonus period has begun". That part about pre-existing characters just means that it doesn't matter if you already have a character on the world or not - new characters can still get the bonuses.

I doubt it. The bonuses are specifically said to be for new characters created during the bonus period. The 1 million gil is only for new characters on new worlds, not on preferred worlds.

After seeing several posts over on the official forums on the theme "Where did my buff go?" it seems clear that the XP bonus for new characters on new/preferred worlds disappears as soon as the world becomes a standard world. Which reminds me ... I really should level my lowbie character on Omega a bit more while I still have the XP buff...

It seems the incentives have helped and people have moved around quite a bit, so SE has changed which worlds are considered Preferred/Congested. Of particular interest to people around here would likely be that Mateus is no longer a preferred world. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/337708-Regarding-Changes-in-Congested-Preferred-Worlds

I think it was quite clear that the incentives would only apply for as long as the world was considered a "New world". It was not made clear when/why it would cease having that designation - but that it would happen eventually was obvious.

Quite possibly. It has been quite obvious that Square-Enix is trying to even out the load over the servers, so that they are all well-populated without being overcrowded. Chaos datacentre was the only center who got new servers, because the existing servers there were all well-populated and of about the same size. The first new server (Omega) filled out quicker than everyone had expected. This combined with high loads on other EU servers made them add another new server to Chaos (Louisoix) as well as declaring a couple of servers there congested. In other centers there were a mix of large and small servers - hence the designation of congested and preferred servers to make people move away from the large servers and to the small ones. It will be very interesting to see the next census, but I suspect we will see much less difference between the large and small servers.

It's not congested yet, they've only temporary closed transfers. You can still make new characters. Are you 100% sure about this? I tried to roll a fresh character over simply for it just being a new server and the name was faded out and said creation has been halted? Granted, that was like 3-4 days ago now. During peak hours Omega has often had character creation blocked - just like many other busy servers. Outside peak hours I think it is normally open though.

It has not been labeled a congested server - yet. Transfers to it have been temporarily disabled, but creation of new characters should still be possible. http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/72b256b3e08e343c1511f88a1e355929598ee32d

There are already two NA data centers - Aether and Primal.

Not all worlds are full yet. SE likely wants the new/preferred worlds that exist to fill out before they add even more new servers.

I think you can learn most jobs just fine without a soulstone - it will just take a lot more time. They are mostly just there to explain how we can learn things in a few weeks that really should take several years to learn properly. Whoever first invented the job would not have had a soulstone, and for entirely new jobs (like MCH) there won't be any old soulstones to learn from.

Traditionally THE unofficial RP server has been Balmung, but for now it - and several other servers - are completely closed for new characters due to being very overpopulated. Because of this people are trying to create alternatives. As you have gathered there is indeed an initiative going on trying to make Omega into the main EU RP server. Since the Omega server is, quite literally, less than a week old and many people have been busy leveling new characters or playing the new expansion with old characters no RP hubs have crystallized yet. You will likely be able to find some RP in each of the three starting cities. If you follow the main story then around level 15 you will get a quest that takes you to all three of them, and after that you can travel freely around the world. Shouldn't take more than at most a couple of days play to reach that point. Guilds are called Free Companies in this game. How one finds and joins them is about the same as in other games - i.e. it varies from FC to FC. Some will advertise widely, some won't. Some will require a detailed application, others will invite you on sight. Linkshells are basically private chat channels, but much like FCs one has to be invited into them. Lore... Well, there is a lot of it, so a quick summary would still be very long. Much of the lore will be revealed as you play through the game. There are many posts on this forum about various aspects of the lore as well, so you can try reading through that. Otherwise you will have to be a bit more specific about what you want to know.

World transfers are working now.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/37c89838f13e514d27ff9ddbb9d8a0a50457be46 "Because we anticipate heavy server load due to the start of early access and the implementation of Patch 4.0, the World Transfer Service is scheduled to be available again on Jun. 16, 2017 at around 12:00 (GMT) / Jun 16, 2017 at around 13:00 (BST)."

No real surprises in that list. The preferred/designated and congested servers are pretty much what was expected. Nice to have it made official though.

If so it is very unofficial. Among the EU servers Lich does appear to have the biggest RP community at the moment, but otherwise I do not think it has been chosen by anybody as the EU RP server. On the contrary I have seen several people state they are only playing on Lich temporarily until the unofficial EU RP server has been chosen. Personally I am hoping for one of the (upcoming) new servers which will have several benefits over any existing server: A sudden influx of RPers won't disrupt any existing community - since there won't be an existing community. Free transfers greatly lower the barriers to moving to a new server Plenty of room for growth over time Which one of the new servers will get chosen I don't really care about, but the decision should be made as soon as possible after the names of the new servers become known, to minimize any confusion.

First of all the bad news. As you have found out Balmung (as well as some other heavily populated servers) is completely locked for character creation as well as transfers to it until further notice. We do not know how long Balmung will stay locked like this - could be just a month or two (until the initial expansion-rush has died down), or it could be much much longer. There are discussions going on here about deciding on some alternate RP server, but no final decision has been made yet. If you are interested in ERP then Balmung would have been the right place to be.... Just walk in to the Quicksand in Ul'dah and start checking people's search info. If it takes you more than a minute or two to find someone who mentions E/M/RP you are doing something wrong.