Balmung Transfer Restriction Megathread

[ShoggMommy]

This isn't an unheard of scenario either, FFXI forced a split on it's biggest server when it got too congested. Players woke up one day on a completely different server than their

 

I see you've been having deja-vu crica 2008 as well. The entire time I've been speaking of this, I've been having flashbacks to this event. THIS CAN HAPPEN TO US. Reopening the gates to Balmung will 100% CAUSE THIS.

 

How did FFXI fare afterwards? Did it still do well for long periods of time? Barely a blip in the profits etc? Did it start the decline in the game?

 

Considering FFXI is still running, and still has subs, and has been running for 15 years now? I'd say pretty good.

 

As far as I'm aware FFXI is shutting down? Did I hear that wrong?

 

They shut down the console support last year I think it was. It's why we had the samurai girl visiting-event.

[Nodem]

They shut down the console support last year I think it was. It's why we had the samurai girl visiting-event.

 

There's no more content being added into the game, as I recall, but the game itself is still running and still has players on it. She visited for the last major content that FFXI did.

[ShoggMommy]

They shut down the console support last year I think it was. It's why we had the samurai girl visiting-event.

 

There's no more content being added into the game, as I recall, but the game itself is still running and still has players on it. She visited for the last major content that FFXI did.

 

Ahh. Yeah I haven't kept up with XI. The only thing I recalled was that the consoles were shutting down for it. I didn't know they weren't adding more content. Thanks!

[Kuzhuk]

What makes this decision hard is that no matter what choice is made there are going to be people that lose out by virtue of it. All we can really do is support and take the actions that benefit us. In the end, you've got to do what seems right for you and yours. A choice will be made one way or the other by the natural aggregation of individual decisions, it's a quiet sort of Democracy that is the only fair way to handle this.

 

And trying to convince others? It is best not to do this. If you want to explain your decision and why you are making it where appropriate, that's great. Building empathy for other people's rationale is a healthy exercise. Just make sure you don't slip into persuasive mode. That's where the friction is coming from.

[Cassandra]

I think we should wait to make any hard decisions about another server until we see what servers will be free to transfer too. I think that's going to help immensely, though I'm still hedging bets on Mateus, as long as there's not an influx of people going there. Granted, it would have to be a lot of people, but.

 

Ironically, because Mateus has such a tiny population. If we all need transfer, we'd actually solve the problem for SE and probably see Balmung open again.

[Nodem]

I think we should wait to make any hard decisions about another server until we see what servers will be free to transfer too. I think that's going to help immensely, though I'm still hedging bets on Mateus, as long as there's not an influx of people going there. Granted, it would have to be a lot of people, but.

 

Ironically, because Mateus has such a tiny population. If we all need transfer, we'd actually solve the problem for SE and probably see Balmung open again.

 

I personally am throwing my support behind those guys on Mateus. as I mention, I'm gonna start up a Grindstone event there for them, even if it's just me, there will be a Grindstone event... This isn't a joke. It also would solve their low population issues without the need of a server merger.

 

 

 

(Off topic: Foxberry, I still get the emails from SE about FFXI, which is how I know it's still running.)

[Erah'sae]

Would it be more likely to see a designated-by-SE RP server? Will that mean by and large Balmung's RP community leaves? Will my friends by and large leave?

 

Balmung is locked and another community must now be the one to point to. Will people join there cause it's freer? How does this community do? What are pros and cons of everything being considered?

 

Will people decide on another unofficial server and move en-masse with the incentives?

 

On the first, I don't think we'll see SE stick their fingers in and flag something other then Balmung as the 'RP' server without also flagging Balmung the same.  It would also mean that SE is throwing an official hat into supporting RP, which while it would be awesome, I'm not sure I see happening.

 

I really don't know on the second and third.  

New players, if we have a unified "go here" will pending the health of the new community. Existing players, some might but many others won't uproot or deal with the disruption.  That said, Balmung's community is probably healthy enough to survive a sizable portion moving away and maintain it's post-critical mass state. 

 

The target to look for is about six months from now after the expansion's newess has worn off and people go wander off to 'game of the moment'. If the new community isn't over over a certain total mass (I'm just throwing a number out here) 100-200 players or so with at least five or six different distinct groups producing content for the community, it will have problems and need a lot of hand-holding to continue on.  If it goes decently above that, it'll probably hit a critical mass and become self sustaining.

 

The pro: Choice.  More choice is always awesome.  

The con: Choice?  You get different communities competing for incoming players. This sort of thing breeds community rivalries.  It's up for debate if this is 'good' or 'bad'.

 

The only real risk is that the community splits down into pieces below a viable self sustaining point.  At that point it is just a matter of time before fragments 'pillars' burn out and the community collapses.

 

I am really interested in how they structure the XP and Gil incentives.  This could be both an interesting and troubling thing depending on implementation.  I'll hold off on a real opinion until we know more?

[Delilah Scythewood]

Way back in the day, the devs got wind of us wanting an RP server and said they would think about it, but obviously went "Nah", and that's a very likely scenario this time.

Not necessarily. After reading dev responses on the main forums for the last few years, they usually state that things are in a list of sorts based on priority. The more sought after changes come first and then little things sometimes get worked in there as well.

[Kage]

A forced split of Balmung would be a horrible fucking outcome for players. I would love to make sure this is not a world we go to.

This isn't an unheard of scenario either, FFXI forced a split on it's biggest server when it got too congested. Players woke up one day on a completely different server than their

 

I see you've been having deja-vu crica 2008 as well. The entire time I've been speaking of this, I've been having flashbacks to this event. THIS CAN HAPPEN TO US. Reopening the gates to Balmung will 100% CAUSE THIS.

 

How did FFXI fare afterwards? Did it still do well for long periods of time? Barely a blip in the profits etc? Did it start the decline in the game?

 

Considering FFXI is still running, and still has subs, and has been running for 15 years now? I'd say pretty good.

What I meant was, did player subscription tank or not?

 

At the same time, I highly think people who have considerations for transfers to talk about what they want add to the current bonuses they listed and keeping it reasonable.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

If they designate any server(s) as RP, it will definitely not be Balmung regardless of the community here. There's a bizarre and pointless stigma among those who don't RP that somehow the server they're on being labeled post-launch as the RP server will decrease or destroy non-RP activities (such as PVE and PVP), because many believe that those who enjoy RP can't also be good at those activities and want to participate in them. I've seen it in other games and I'm getting the strong sense of it from the official forums here, too.

 

Were they to acquiesce in labeling any server as such, it would either be one with a dramatically tiny population (such as Mateus) or, more likely, a brand new server altogether (so they could thus have no complaint from anyone at all that their post-launch labeling would somehow be detrimental).

[Leggerless]

The voting poll should be supplemented (like the one on Tumblr) to include an option to not designate another unofficial RP server.  The OP of the poll (who apparently now holds the power to determine what procedures will be used to designate a new RP server [where was that vote?]) has refused a request to supplement the poll.  Members of the RPC community should have the right to select that option.

 

For technical reasons (*points at how strawpoll works*), I cannot edit that poll midway.

 

What I can do is an edit to the post that includes a new poll, or a reblog/new post with a poll for that option.

 

Anyways, that's done right... here:

 

http://www.strawpoll.me/13000568

 

EDIT: The tumblr link equivalent with previous poll attached: http://leggerless.tumblr.com/post/160850184586/shit-just-got-real

 

EDIT 2: No, these polls don't arbitrate a final decision, but it will help give an indication of the most selected choice(s) leading into the decision.

[Nodem]

What I meant was, did player subscription tank or not?

 

At the same time, I highly think people who have considerations for transfers to talk about what they want add to the current bonuses they listed and keeping it reasonable.

 

No, it didn't tank because of this. That was FFXIV's job, GG there 1.0.

[Kage]

What I meant was, did player subscription tank or not?

 

At the same time, I highly think people who have considerations for transfers to talk about what they want add to the current bonuses they listed and keeping it reasonable.

 

No, it didn't tank because of this. That was FFXIV's job, GG there 1.0.

Basically what I'm asking is: Did any user blowback actually make SE feel like it was a bad decision. It doesn't sound like it did.

 

The real question is: Is Balmung so big that if it stays at its current levels during patch lull and pre-expansion lull, that SE will decide to split it anyway as it did the FFXI server?

[Lydia Lightfoot]

The real question is: Is Balmung so big that if it stays at its current levels during patch lull and pre-expansion lull, that SE will decide to split it anyway as it did the FFXI server?

 

I don't think we have any way to know, but my guess is they're probably already planning on a server split and they're waiting until after the expansion sales plateau so that they can prevent financial blowback (because if they reorganized servers right now, there would almost certainly be a significant dip in initial sales volume of Stormblood). 

 

Locking down the server is, IMO, Step 1 of the plan. Step 2 will be incentives, which will be insufficient to budge most players because they will probably miss the mark as to what's important to the players. We have 26k according to that chart. Even if 25% leave due to incentives (which would be a spectacularly successful outcome), that still leaves 19,500 on Balmung, which is still more than the population of the next most populous server Gilgamesh which is also locked down right now. I just don't see another likely outcome for Balmung other than a split.

[Nodem]

The real question is: Is Balmung so big that if it stays at its current levels during patch lull and pre-expansion lull, that SE will decide to split it anyway as it did the FFXI server?

 

I don't think we have any way to know, but my guess is they're probably already planning on a server split and they're waiting until after the expansion sales plateau so that they can prevent financial blowback (because if they reorganized servers right now, there would almost certainly be a significant dip in initial sales volume of Stormblood). 

 

Locking down the server is, IMO, Step 1 of the plan. Step 2 will be incentives, which will be insufficient to budge most players because they will probably miss the mark as to what's important to the players. We have 26k according to that chart. Even if 25% leave due to incentives (which would be a spectacularly successful outcome), that still leaves 19,500 on Balmung, which is still more than the population of the next most populous server Gilgamesh which is also locked down right now. I just don't see another likely outcome for Balmung other than a split.

 

That's the 3 phases actually that happened in FFXI. Creation lock-down > Incentives to leave > SPLIT.

 

 

~

I'm not a squareenix employee so I can't accurately say if they would or wouldn't. I don't think SE felt bad about doing it either. Remember, that from a business PoV, stable servers and not having server crashes means they'll make more money long term.

 

Even if Balmung shed 1k of that 25k(?) number due to rage quitters from a split. That'd still be 12k players per server. to give you an idea. The only people with all the account numbers, and number of instanced log-ins during any given time is SE.

 

Mentioning that was just to show it is not below SE to possibly do that, when a server is getting to full. It's why I fully endorse people, even those that don't want to change servers, to support people who are going ahead and helping other communities etc.

[Kilieit]

Yeah. I'd need to look into it more and probably be better at statistics to work out likely thresholds for sure, because I think some of the servers had their total population taken into account as well while being selected for locks...

 

...but in terms of active population, the smallest realm that received a lock - Mandragora -

has a population of 7k. Balmung has almost double that.

 

Like I say, I think Mandragora's total population was probably taken into account as well? But I still think that's something to bear in mind when speculating on how long it will be before the lock is lifted.

[Kage]

Yeah. I'd need to look into it more and probably be better at statistics to work out likely thresholds for sure, because I think some of the servers had their total population taken into account as well while being selected for locks...

 

...but in terms of active population, the smallest realm that received a lock - Mandragora -

has a population of 7k. Balmung has almost double that.

 

Like I say, I think Mandragora's total population was probably taken into account as well? But I still think that's something to bear in mind when speculating on how long it will be before the lock is lifted.

 

I actually think Mandragora was chosen because it was top 3 of its data center. Leviathan and Tonberry have similar numbers but they're only the top in their data centers. There isn't as drastic a difference in populations.

 

Based on Bahamut's 9-10k lock on a single server, I think that's more of the hard limit. 7-8k is a soft limit for 'highly congested'.

 

I'm less sure of the "well there's no split coming" now. ; I didn't know FFXI had that similar situation.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Yeah. I'd need to look into it more and probably be better at statistics to work out likely thresholds for sure, because I think some of the servers had their total population taken into account as well while being selected for locks...

 

...but in terms of active population, the smallest realm that received a lock - Mandragora -

has a population of 7k. Balmung has almost double that.

 

Like I say, I think Mandragora's total population was probably taken into account as well? But I still think that's something to bear in mind when speculating on how long it will be before the lock is lifted.

 

We have above 26k according to the chart in this thread back on... page 16 or 17 I think? Somewhere around there. Gilgamesh is a bit over 18k and is the second highest. The high ones below Gilgamesh are all in the 11-13k range IIRC. I don't know off the top of my head which ones were locked, but, the numbers say even if Balmung were split 50/50 into two new servers, those two new servers would themselves already be considered high-population servers (and likely subject to transfer restrictions).

[ArmachiA]

It's a real possibility, we can only hope they give us some choice as to where we end up when we split.

[Kilieit]

There's two sets of statistics - total, and active. They can be found here:

https://ffxivcensus.com/

 

Balmung's total isn't even near top for NA, at 148k versus Famfrit's 289k (most of which are going to be bots, btw). But its active is far and away the highest, at 13k versus Gilgamesh's 11k.

 

We could lose 2,000 active players and still not be eligible for unlock.

[Kage]

 

I'll probably make another line graph tonight to better show how the data centers' worlds are grouped instead of how the census put them all alphabetical like that. I'll order it by data center so it shows why Leviathan and Tonberry aren't as bad, yet.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

There's two sets of statistics - total, and active. They can be found here:

https://ffxivcensus.com/

 

Balmung's total isn't even near top for NA, at 148k versus Famfrit's 289k (most of which are going to be bots, btw). But its active is far and away the highest, at 13k versus Gilgamesh's 11k.

 

We could lose 2,000 active players and still not be eligible for unlock.

 

Hmm. Correlates pretty much the same with what I'd said earlier, that if they had a smashing success with incentives and 25% of Balmung vacated, we'd still be about on par with Gilgamesh, which is also locked, and thus we would still not be unlocked.

 

Yeah, I'm smelling a split, guys. I'm smelling a split about 2 months after Stormblood's launch. I'm calling it right now.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Ohhhhhhhhhh it just became clear to me. 

 

Two months or so after Stormblood drops, server reorganization is announced and the high pop servers split. People are ticked, but most who were going to buy the expansion already did, too late, so sad. SE announces a date for 4.1, which they've already said is when they'll unlock more housing wards. The angry people get drowned out by the ones who are super stoked for the new housing area and the possibility of getting a house there. Some players unsub, but, other players who had previously unsubbed because they couldn't get a house resub due to the new housing coming. Subscription wash, maybe? 

 

I'd almost bet actual money this is exactly what we're going to see happen.

[Erah'sae]

 

 

The real question is: Is Balmung so big that if it stays at its current levels during patch lull and pre-expansion lull, that SE will decide to split it anyway as it did the FFXI server?

 

I don't think so since at lull levels it's stable.  From what I understand the FFXI server was actually having rather nasty performance issues.  Our queues during the 'lull' times are often only as long as it takes to hit "cancel" and try again (well below the 5 minute refresh timer)

 

Of course, this is supposition, but I don't really see a need to do it.  With all they're hype about cross world functionality, I think they're finally moving things to less of a physical server-centric architecture anyway.

 

Also remember on those charts that us RPers tend to exaggerate the "active" player numbers a bit since they're based on number of loadstone characters with specific achievements.  We often roll up multiple characters for the sake of the RP and glamour endgame that the non-RPers don't tend to do.

 

What numbers I'd really like to see is peak concurrency compared to the other servers.  I'm sure we'll be much higher (since we hit the cap frequently) but other servers also hit the concurrency cap as well.  Queues on Gilgamesh and JP's top server (chocobo? I don't have the chart infront of me) are not unheard of.

[Kage]

The specifics of the data was patch 3.3 minion obtainment. I'm not sure if most RPers get past more than getting their characters to 60?