New to ffxiv! But main RP servers have been closed since I started...help?

[Luzia Dawn]

Hello all!

 

Before I get into my welcome information, I first off wanted to talk about my main concern about joining this community, which is ever since I became interested in joining the ffxiv RP community, the main RP servers have been closed and I have not been able to join any of them. (IE. Balmung, Gilgamesh, and even Behemoth) I was hoping someone could shed some light on WHEN they open up if they ever do, and WHERE are all the new players wanting to join like me going right now? I just don't want to start on one server and then once the mains open up again I have to pay to switch servers. Now the welcome information about me...

 

My name is Missy, in a 21 year old female Canadian gamer who casually roleplays week nights and weekends when I can.

 

I have played WOW in the past as my main mmorpg background. I have loosely played other ones a tad, but never as committed as I was to WOW. However, I feel there is an intense movement in the mmorpg community right now, and FFXIV is IT. This game has so many reasons I want to switch over, and I have fallen in love, there is no going back for me. lolz

 

So please let me know what you know in regards to the server predicament, and if you're in my situation what are you doing right now.

 

Thanks! :moogle::love:

[Thunderbolt300]

The sure-fire way to get onto Balmung is to transfer in, which runs $20 (also note that while SE says you can't do this to locked servers, you can, in fact, do so). If you choose to transfer, also note that you can move multiple characters into the server at once for the same price if they're all coming from the same server. It may be worth making alts. That being said, I had a friend recently able to create a character on Balmung almost immediately after a server maintenance reset. Either of these will work!

 

I recently had to do this myself with a few friends about 2 weeks ago now. 

 

In any case, welcome to the community! 

[Miss Gaz]

Welcome! Hope to catch you about.

[Branson Thorne]

The sure-fire way to get onto Balmung is to transfer in, which runs $20 (also note that while SE says you can't do this to locked servers, you can, in fact, do so). If you choose to transfer, also note that you can move multiple characters into the server at once for the same price if they're all coming from the same server. It may be worth making alts. That being said, I had a friend recently able to create a character on Balmung almost immediately after a server maintenance reset. Either of these will work!

 

I recently had to do this myself with a few friends about 2 weeks ago now. 

 

In any case, welcome to the community! 

 

$18.00:thumbsup:

 

And welcome to the RPC!

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Hi there!

 

I think I can answer a few of those questions, and maybe edit in a couple links after the fact, when I'm not at work.

 

1) Balmung is almost always closed, unless the server crashes or you get lucky with 2-3 minutes of maitenance ending. Gilgamesh may be a little luckier and open during early mornings in the PSTEST time range. (Think, 3AM-5AM PST, when typical server load should be at its lowest).

 

2) People are using the server transfer feature to send their characters onto these full servers. It's $18 USD for a transfer, and you can do as many characters as open slots (so 8 max) with one transfer fee, as long as characters are all coming from the same server and going to the same server. So a single character, the fee sucks. For maybe 3+ if you like alts, not too bad.

 

3) You'll be interested in the "Other Servers" section of the Linkshell Hall for known active Linkshells/Free Companies featuring RP on other servers. (There are plenty more we just don't know about).

 

4) I hear there's a budding RP Colony on Siren. I've also heard there are some on Jenova as well. Famfrit, Moogle, and Sargantas. But like most social stuff, don't move if you're happy where you are. I've been considering making some alts for the other servers just to kinda peek around and see how things are different compared to Balming.

 

--

 

Server things aside, welcome to the RPC! There's a lot of stuff all over here. If you haven't already, I'd also recommend making sure your FFXIV Official Forums account's good to go as well, as RPC links to quite a bit there, generally in their Lore board.

 

If you've got any questions about the RPC, where to find something, where a thread might best be posted, user/account options, wikis, etc, feel free to ask me or any of the other users!

 

Glad to have you here!

[PSDuckie]

I agree with the other people who have already said this: create your characters on some other server (I used Siren for this) and transfer them to Balmung.

[Luzia Dawn]

Hello and thanks for the welcomes everyone!  :love:

 

I did know that you could pay to switch servers, but if you can pay to get into over crowded servers, that actually makes me a little mad....

 

ANYWAY I will do as you suggested trying to get online early morning, but for now I will probably start playing on one of the suggested servers you said. (Siren or Jenova)

 

Post here if your a new RP to ffxiv waiting to get into one of the RP servers later on and which server your on right now. Would love more feedback. :thumbsup:

[Accendie]

Hello and thanks for the welcomes everyone!  :love:

 

I did know that you could pay to switch servers, but if you can pay to get into over crowded servers, that actually makes me a little mad....

...

 

Actually... I don't think they are 'crowded' but simply locked... and this is a good thing.

 

Have you been on a regular server and started getting spam tells for gold sellers? ads in say, shout, etc? Random friend and FC invites? If not, just wait, because you will.

 

On the locked servers? Nope. We are FREE from spam!! (Aside from the occasional person/fc) Frankly, to me that's worth $18. I can use my tells, don't have to be in /busy for some peace and quiet. I wish there was a free way to keep out the goldsellers, but alas.. there is not.

[S'imba]

I recently made an alternate universe version of S'imba on Gilgamesh cause a friend in checking out what the rp was like there...but I had to wait until early morning hours to get on there...really haven't found any rp yet...though we have mostly been rping getting our characters overall backstories set up.

[Michaux]

Hello and thanks for the welcomes everyone!  :love:

 

I did know that you could pay to switch servers, but if you can pay to get into over crowded servers, that actually makes me a little mad....

...

 

Actually... I don't think they are 'crowded' but simply locked... and this is a good thing.

 

Have you been on a regular server and started getting spam tells for gold sellers? ads in say, shout, etc? Random friend and FC invites? If not, just wait, because you will.

 

On the locked servers? Nope. We are FREE from spam!! (Aside from the occasional person/fc) Frankly, to me that's worth $18. I can use my tells, don't have to be in /busy for some peace and quiet. I wish there was a free way to keep out the goldsellers, but alas.. there is not.

THIS^^^

 

I started on Jenova and was getting tells from goldsellers approximately every five minutes (I actually timed it once because I was so irritated). The random friend/FC invites were a pain too. I have only gotten one tell from a goldseller since I transferred to Balmung, and that happened right after the server went down recently. So trust me, it's a good thing that Balmung is always locked.

[Branson Thorne]

Hello and thanks for the welcomes everyone!  :love:

 

I did know that you could pay to switch servers, but if you can pay to get into over crowded servers, that actually makes me a little mad....

...

 

Actually... I don't think they are 'crowded' but simply locked... and this is a good thing.

 

Have you been on a regular server and started getting spam tells for gold sellers? ads in say, shout, etc? Random friend and FC invites? If not, just wait, because you will.

 

On the locked servers? Nope. We are FREE from spam!! (Aside from the occasional person/fc) Frankly, to me that's worth $18. I can use my tells, don't have to be in /busy for some peace and quiet. I wish there was a free way to keep out the goldsellers, but alas.. there is not.

THIS^^^

 

I started on Jenova and was getting tells from goldsellers approximately every five minutes (I actually timed it once because I was so irritated). The random friend/FC invites were a pain too. I have only gotten one tell from a goldseller since I transferred to Balmung, and that happened right after the server went down recently. So trust me, it's a good thing that Balmung is always locked.

 

It seems that Jenova in particular is pretty bad. It used to be the server I'd roll alts before transferring them over, but the amount of goldsellers over there, it's not worth it.

 

I, for one, will be happy if it is never unlocked.

[Luzia Dawn]

Hello and thanks for the welcomes everyone!  :love:

 

I did know that you could pay to switch servers, but if you can pay to get into over crowded servers, that actually makes me a little mad....

...

 

Actually... I don't think they are 'crowded' but simply locked... and this is a good thing.

 

Have you been on a regular server and started getting spam tells for gold sellers? ads in say, shout, etc? Random friend and FC invites? If not, just wait, because you will.

 

On the locked servers? Nope. We are FREE from spam!! (Aside from the occasional person/fc) Frankly, to me that's worth $18. I can use my tells, don't have to be in /busy for some peace and quiet. I wish there was a free way to keep out the goldsellers, but alas.. there is not.

THIS^^^

 

I started on Jenova and was getting tells from goldsellers approximately every five minutes (I actually timed it once because I was so irritated). The random friend/FC invites were a pain too. I have only gotten one tell from a goldseller since I transferred to Balmung, and that happened right after the server went down recently. So trust me, it's a good thing that Balmung is always locked.

 

It seems that Jenova in particular is pretty bad. It used to be the server I'd roll alts before transferring them over, but the amount of goldsellers over there, it's not worth it.

 

I, for one, will be happy if it is never unlocked.

 

In the news thread regarding being able to add characters it says "Due to congestion..." so that is why I am lead to believe it is due to well, congestion. 

 

However, your points are valid and make sense. Maybe they are dealing with soliciting issues at the same time they have this going. 

 

Either way, I do believe in outsourcing people that hinder the game play with ads. I guess I will have to just level up in Siren until I have the money to switch to Balmung like everyone else. 

 

If there are no solicitors that makes it more worth it anyway. How bad are the quene lines though if I do switch over, and how good should my internet be to run smooth in it?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

In the news thread regarding being able to add characters it says "Due to congestion..." so that is why I am lead to believe it is due to well, congestion. 

 

However, your points are valid and make sense. Maybe they are dealing with soliciting issues at the same time they have this going. 

 

Either way, I do believe in outsourcing people that hinder the game play with ads. I guess I will have to just level up in Siren until I have the money to switch to Balmung like everyone else. 

 

If there are no solicitors that makes it more worth it anyway. How bad are the quene lines though if I do switch over, and how good should my internet be to run smooth in it?

 

This is where we get into server design speculation about how SE implemented the server closings. We know that the server closes for character creation once a certain threshold of logged-in characters are present. But we also know that the number of logged in characters to close creation is nowhere near the maximum amount of characters who can be logged in and running around on the server.

 

There are likely a few factors at play here. Server CPU and Server Bandwidth. If we were to assume perfect/optimal conditions for one, we can see how the other might become unstable. Assuming that we had unlimited amount of bandwidth that wouldn't limit the number of connections to the server, it's possible that the number of characters logged in and the amount of processing done for them (think handling your movement, battle, skills, inventory, quests, sending other player actions/appearances to you, etc) would eventually bottleneck performance with too many things to get done. If we had unlimited CPU where there was an infinite amount of performance available, but limited bandwidth, we'd see everything get incredibly laggy while our character's actions were queued up on the server and the server's outgoing connections queued up to get to us. (Think rubberbanding in the game, if you've ever seen everything freeze up, and then all play out in superspeed as your client catches up to all the information it just got). But both of these things are limited. And that means that while the server probably -could- handle more, it's a safeguard against accidentally allowing a situation where one of both of those resources bring the server down.

 

 

There are a couple periods where we get some congestion, but that's generally due to either a vastly-larger-than-normal amount of players on a map (new patch content that everyone does at once that can actually generate an error where the particular zone doesn't allow anymore players on it) or due to a part of the network going to the server having issues. (A lot of people complain about Level-3's border router from the US to Canada having issues. Gaming VPNs like WTFast or Pingzapper help out here).

 

If you were to transfer to Balmung, you'd get a small delay when logging in, but that's about it. There's a login queue system in place so that the main server doesn't crash if an extremely large amount of people all try to connect at once. (Instead, the poor lobby server goes down). Depending on when though, you'll likely only see it during North America's awake primetime.

[Larson]

The queue is basically:

 

"The server is full. Number of players queued: 24. Please try again later."

 

*tries again immediately*

 

*gets in*

[Branson Thorne]

The queue is basically:

 

"The server is full. Number of players queued: 24. Please try again later."

 

*tries again immediately*

 

*gets in*

 

I remember back in the day when that would say you were number 350 and backing out and trying a 2ND time would put you right in.

[Accendie]

In the news thread regarding being able to add characters it says "Due to congestion..." so that is why I am lead to believe it is due to well, congestion. 

 

However, your points are valid and make sense. Maybe they are dealing with soliciting issues at the same time they have this going. 

 

Either way, I do believe in outsourcing people that hinder the game play with ads. I guess I will have to just level up in Siren until I have the money to switch to Balmung like everyone else. 

 

If there are no solicitors that makes it more worth it anyway. How bad are the quene lines though if I do switch over, and how good should my internet be to run smooth in it?

 

It really is worth it. When I'm on Cactuar, if I'm not in /busy then I'm getting spam just about constantly. Everyone I know have simply turned off tells. Heck I was in LImsa the other day and /say had a constant flow of a bot spamming until I bothered to blacklist it. I really wish there was a "right click/report spam" feature in FF14. It really is worth it to transfer.

 

That being said, you have to wait like 3-4 days after character creation before you can transfer anyway. I made Nef during the Halloween event and pushed to 30 to get the event out of the way before transferring (I wanted my broom!). I think it was a great thing to already have all the cities unlocked, access to the residential districts, etc. Then I don't feel like I'm missing out on any RP events because I'm stuck in my MSQ.

 

As for the Queue, The most I've had to wait to get in is like 5 mins and that was at a peek time. Usually I don't have to wait at all.

[Luzia Dawn]

In the news thread regarding being able to add characters it says "Due to congestion..." so that is why I am lead to believe it is due to well, congestion. 

 

However, your points are valid and make sense. Maybe they are dealing with soliciting issues at the same time they have this going. 

 

Either way, I do believe in outsourcing people that hinder the game play with ads. I guess I will have to just level up in Siren until I have the money to switch to Balmung like everyone else. 

 

If there are no solicitors that makes it more worth it anyway. How bad are the quene lines though if I do switch over, and how good should my internet be to run smooth in it?

 

This is where we get into server design speculation about how SE implemented the server closings. We know that the server closes for character creation once a certain threshold of logged-in characters are present. But we also know that the number of logged in characters to close creation is nowhere near the maximum amount of characters who can be logged in and running around on the server.

 

There are likely a few factors at play here. Server CPU and Server Bandwidth. If we were to assume perfect/optimal conditions for one, we can see how the other might become unstable. Assuming that we had unlimited amount of bandwidth that wouldn't limit the number of connections to the server, it's possible that the number of characters logged in and the amount of processing done for them (think handling your movement, battle, skills, inventory, quests, sending other player actions/appearances to you, etc) would eventually bottleneck performance with too many things to get done. If we had unlimited CPU where there was an infinite amount of performance available, but limited bandwidth, we'd see everything get incredibly laggy while our character's actions were queued up on the server and the server's outgoing connections queued up to get to us. (Think rubberbanding in the game, if you've ever seen everything freeze up, and then all play out in superspeed as your client catches up to all the information it just got). But both of these things are limited. And that means that while the server probably -could- handle more, it's a safeguard against accidentally allowing a situation where one of both of those resources bring the server down.

 

 

 

There are a couple periods where we get some congestion, but that's generally due to either a vastly-larger-than-normal amount of players on a map (new patch content that everyone does at once that can actually generate an error where the particular zone doesn't allow anymore players on it) or due to a part of the network going to the server having issues. (A lot of people complain about Level-3's border router from the US to Canada having issues. Gaming VPNs like WTFast or Pingzapper help out here).

 

If you were to transfer to Balmung, you'd get a small delay when logging in, but that's about it. There's a login queue system in place so that the main server doesn't crash if an extremely large amount of people all try to connect at once. (Instead, the poor lobby server goes down). Depending on when though, you'll likely only see it during North America's awake primetime.

 

This makes a lot of sense actually. Thanks for shedding some light on all this for me!