During the Open Beta, it was really crowded. Servers were intentionally closed off for new characters so players would go to the servers which were newly added perhaps a day after the start of the Open Beta. Eventually ALL the NA/EU servers were closed for several hours at the last day of the Beta because of two errors so many players were receiving and prevented them from playing at all.
Six hours before the (extended) end of the Open Beta, I managed to finally make a character on Gilgamesh and had no queue or errors. I had tried for over sixteen hours to make a character there, making the attempt a couple of times an hour just in case. There was just so much going on, I wouldn't assume that Gilgamesh or Balmung are truly full upon launch. Many people suffered from the error of not being able to log in because their character was (assumingly) still online and stuck in limbo. If that were true, this would have laid a heavy load on the server. Once they fixed that error, the Open Beta was like a breeze... for most.
But you are right. Balmung and Gilgamesh are the unofficial RP servers; one Legacy (Balmung) and one normal (Gilgamesh). Balmung is the most active on the role play front because of the Legacy characters which hadn't been deleted through out the Beta stages while Gilgamesh has been the fresh start for everyone. However, during the Open Beta people have tried to establish a RP community on Gilgamesh so it won't be empty and nothing once the game officially launches; there is role play and by what I have seen there is also plenty of it.
It is up to you and your friends where to go, what you prefer. Nobody knows if the servers will be full quickly after launch, but I surely wouldn't expect it as people managed to get in/create characters on both the servers a few hours before the Open Beta ended. Queues are a different story though.
Good luck!
Six hours before the (extended) end of the Open Beta, I managed to finally make a character on Gilgamesh and had no queue or errors. I had tried for over sixteen hours to make a character there, making the attempt a couple of times an hour just in case. There was just so much going on, I wouldn't assume that Gilgamesh or Balmung are truly full upon launch. Many people suffered from the error of not being able to log in because their character was (assumingly) still online and stuck in limbo. If that were true, this would have laid a heavy load on the server. Once they fixed that error, the Open Beta was like a breeze... for most.
But you are right. Balmung and Gilgamesh are the unofficial RP servers; one Legacy (Balmung) and one normal (Gilgamesh). Balmung is the most active on the role play front because of the Legacy characters which hadn't been deleted through out the Beta stages while Gilgamesh has been the fresh start for everyone. However, during the Open Beta people have tried to establish a RP community on Gilgamesh so it won't be empty and nothing once the game officially launches; there is role play and by what I have seen there is also plenty of it.
It is up to you and your friends where to go, what you prefer. Nobody knows if the servers will be full quickly after launch, but I surely wouldn't expect it as people managed to get in/create characters on both the servers a few hours before the Open Beta ended. Queues are a different story though.
Good luck!
