Hi, welcome to FFXIV!
Balmung and Gilgamesh are legacy servers, and due to the high population of people on them already they only open various times throughout the day when there's a smaller amount of traffic logging on/off.
Sadly at the moment they're both closed most of the time, Balmung in particular, probably due to the upcoming Patch 2.5 being released next week and the expansion coming so more people have been playing.
I'm not sure about Gilgamesh, but the best time to get onto Balmung is early morning EST (4am-8am from what I understand) Wednesdays-Thursdays. Also before 20 minutes before maintenance starts as many people have logged off by then. The next one is Jan 19th (link)Â so that would be a good opportunity to try!
They are open sometimes, and so you might want to keep checking back, but from what I gather you haven't even started playing yet, so it might be worth trying a different server so you can actually start playing to see if you enjoy it!
You can have up to 8 characters, so you can always make a new character on Balmung/Gilgamesh later, or there is the option to transfer your character for £11. But as I said, it's probably worth just playing first, especially if you have a free trial period! 
I'm not sure what others have RP but I'm sure someone else will come along and be able to answer.Â
Balmung and Gilgamesh are legacy servers, and due to the high population of people on them already they only open various times throughout the day when there's a smaller amount of traffic logging on/off.
Sadly at the moment they're both closed most of the time, Balmung in particular, probably due to the upcoming Patch 2.5 being released next week and the expansion coming so more people have been playing.
I'm not sure about Gilgamesh, but the best time to get onto Balmung is early morning EST (4am-8am from what I understand) Wednesdays-Thursdays. Also before 20 minutes before maintenance starts as many people have logged off by then. The next one is Jan 19th (link)Â so that would be a good opportunity to try!
They are open sometimes, and so you might want to keep checking back, but from what I gather you haven't even started playing yet, so it might be worth trying a different server so you can actually start playing to see if you enjoy it!
You can have up to 8 characters, so you can always make a new character on Balmung/Gilgamesh later, or there is the option to transfer your character for £11. But as I said, it's probably worth just playing first, especially if you have a free trial period! I'm not sure what others have RP but I'm sure someone else will come along and be able to answer.Â
