If SE was to designate an RP server, would you move?

[Yian Kutku]

If there is another (non-Balmung) server officially designated as RP, the only delay to my transferring would be logging in just long enough to take down all my marketboard items to prepare my character.

 

I don't have many attachments to Balmung as such. I've made acquaintances and friends, but none deep enough to anchor me to the server, should they decide not to transfer. I don't mind starting fresh socially, especially since I intentionally keep my RP light.

 

Having said that, I doubt Square Enix is going to create (or designate) such a server. I don't think there's a large enough population of players to warrant such a move, since not only would it require said players to be interested in RP (already a minority), players would also have to care enough about the issue to demand an official RP server, and be willing to transfer to it.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

The scalper issue is why they need to do tokens of some sort. A medium house = a medium house token.

[zaviire]

Truth be told, I don't think I would move unless most of my immediate friends/RP partners along with most of my FC (including all the leadership) and LS (also including all the leadership) were down to move. And only if I could move back if things ended up not panning out for whatever reason, either because people decided to just not move or because the people I currently RP with or have a vested interest in RPing with decide to move back or stay behind.

 

I don't think most of the RP community on Balmung would move, though, truth be told -- regardless of whether an official RP server was created/designated or not. Even if it was free and even if people could take everything with them (housing tokens or something, which I honestly think is a pipe dream because even with the moving feature they're implementing, you still have to buy the plot for full server price. I also do not think that letting people have special tokens to automatically have/buy a house is a good idea in general).

 

There are immaterial things that Square Enix cannot be reasonably expected to replace in the move over, such as RP connections and the like, and I don't think that the rules and distinctions that would come with being on an "RP" server (like the lore-compliant name thing? What if a character goes by an alias? Can SE be reasonably expected to monitor backstories and alter-egos?) would necessarily sit well with everyone who RPs. Plus there's the fact that PvE/PvP players might transfer to watch RP and be with their RPer friends, and it would kind of be unfair to make them change their names for "muh immersun" unless said name changes were also free. Realistically beyond that, PvE and PvP players would have nothing to lose by transferring to an RP server along with the RPers due to the cross-world party finder and stuff, unless it was placed on a different datacenter (which considering that Aether has both of the super-highpop NA servers, it probably would be I'd think? Primal definitely has population disparities but I'd think it's a bit more evenly-spread than Aether given the absence of the population black holes that are Balmung and Gilgamesh) which might make things a little more complicated for them...

 

... Of course all this changes if they were to add additional actual functionality to an RP server in order to enhance the RP experience. Then I might be a little quicker to the draw. Like if they added some small extra emotes (can I have that hand-waving thing Alphinaud does when he's explaining stuff please?!), or gave a discount for emotes on the Mogstation if you sent it to a character on an RP server, which they could cover by jacking up the price of Fantasias if it were sent to characters on RP servers. :^)

... Or even just raised the character limit a bit (One extra line?) on search comments for character info/bio links (an in-game way to have short character bios would sell me immediately on an RP server actually) or world PFs for advertisements. Stuff like that. Asking them to make an RP server already is, imo, already pretty unrealistic -- so may as well go ham with all of my hopes and dreams if it were to happen...

[Kailani]

They actually do throw the ban hammer quite hard on people who harassed roleplayers. Only places it was questionable was RP-PvP server due to you technically signing up for PvP as well.

 

It's nice to know they did that on the EU realms at least. >.<

 

I played on the main NA RP server (at least by population standards) for many, many years and not a single instance of harassment, unless there were threats involved, were handled just from what I saw among friends/guilds. Reporting names didn't do much either unless it was super lewd or offensive and people used /shout channels for all kinds of annoying things, especially when a guild would be trying to use a zone for a big RP event. Most times the GM's simply said "put them on ignore".

 

It's just really hard to enforce much when you have so many players on a server, especially when not everyone who plays there is a roleplayer. I had only about 10% RPers in my guild and the rest of it was there for raiding, though I strictly enforced the "don't be an asshole on the server" rule with my folks. So you just never really know. Policing things like this really isn't a top priority unless again there are threats involved and it's really unfortunate.

 

 

 

I personally wouldn't move now if they did start tagging servers as RP Servers. After just getting a house and the nightmare that comes with that all over again, it's not worth it to me. I've also made a good amount of connections with players who are not RPers and I know they wouldn't move so, I'm pretty much content to stay put.

[Kuzhuk]

Yeah, if they designated an official RP server I would move to it. The details aren't particularly relevant to my decision as the choice to be on the officially designated RP server would outweigh any of my other considerations.

[Kilieit]

Strong maybe from me. I'd definitely be looking to do so.

 

At the end of the day I feel it'd depend, for me, on stuff like how easy it was to move gil (I'm below the new gil threshold but I'm hoping to not be in the relatively near future), what the deal would be with housing, especially FC estates (as previously mentioned I own 4 private chambers in a company house - soon 6, eventually 8 - and 2 apartments set up as RP venues)... and other mostly boring, mostly gameplay-related concerns.

 

I would probably, at the very least, roll alts or body-doubles on the new server. And depending on how the ratio of Balmung:RP server events levelled out, I would either end up levelling them in their own right, or eventually transferring.

[Aaron]

I don't get why anyone would move to an identical in every way server just because it has "Official" in its name. It's odd to me, it won't stop plenty of non rpers from joining it anyway.

[TheLastCandle]

I don't get why anyone would move to an identical in every way server just because it has "Official" in its name. It's odd to me, it won't stop plenty of non rpers from joining it anyway.

 

Because every community is a revolving door. Veterans leave for whatever reason, new people subscribe, and the first thing those new people will see is a great big sign that says "Official Role-Playing Server." The majority of people interested in that activity are going to go there, probably without putting any effort into a Google search to find this website.

 

Without that revolving door, over time, communities stagnate.

 

That's why.

[Aaron]

I don't get why anyone would move to an identical in every way server just because it has "Official" in its name. It's odd to me, it won't stop plenty of non rpers from joining it anyway.

 

Because every community is a revolving door. Veterans leave for whatever reason, new people subscribe, and the first thing those new people will see is a great big sign that says "Official Role-Playing Server." The majority of people interested in that activity are going to go there, probably without putting any effort into a Google search to find this website.

 

Without that revolving door, over time, communities stagnate.

 

That's why.

Majority of RPers are already aware Balmung is the biggest RP server though?

[TheLastCandle]

I don't get why anyone would move to an identical in every way server just because it has "Official" in its name. It's odd to me, it won't stop plenty of non rpers from joining it anyway.

 

Because every community is a revolving door. Veterans leave for whatever reason, new people subscribe, and the first thing those new people will see is a great big sign that says "Official Role-Playing Server." The majority of people interested in that activity are going to go there, probably without putting any effort into a Google search to find this website.

 

Without that revolving door, over time, communities stagnate.

 

That's why.

Majority of RPers are already aware Balmung is the biggest RP server though?

 

I am a bit hesitant to believe that this is a well-known fact to potential role-players who haven't even started playing the game yet, which was my point. (And even if they are aware of it, they can no longer create or transfer a character here anyway.)

 

At any rate, this is all hypothetical because I haven't seen anything indicating SE has any interest whatsoever in designating an official anything and the community on Balmung is currently quite healthy as far as I can tell as someone who's just come back from a one year hiatus.

[Kuzhuk]

I've had great experiences with official RP servers in other MMOs in the past, and want to replicate that experience again.

[Aaron]

I mean I'm not arguing against it, just seems odd to me people would leave something they're already on just cause of a title. I found Balmung because some people on Exodus just flat out said that was the RP server.

 

Ah well, not my issue I guess. Was just curiosity.

[Arashin Kujqai]

I'd say maybe as well simply because I think of Tera's "official RP servers" and I remember what messes they were.... While RP existed, that was definitely not the intent of the players that joined, but then again the devs of Tera couldn't care less what happened as compared to SE who would prolly ban people that did even 10% of the things people did on Tera's RP server.

 

I personally like the concept of a community run unofficial RP server as it creates a more democratic feel for roleplay as compared to being assigned/designated to a server for it that can make it feel more forced and relentless. As someone just beat me to by just a second, I can't see a title making me want to actually move.

[ArmachiA]

Maybe, leaning toward "yes". There's a lot of factors that would go into my decision (someone mentioned a token system for housing which is brilliant) but mostly it would be who actually goes. If it's only like 50 people from Balmung who would go, probably not. But if a bunch of RPers - in the hundreds or so - went "Yes, lets go there." I'd definitely consider, especially if my FC voted they'd consider it too.

 

At the very least, housing wouldn't be as horrible to grab as it is on Balmung. Jesus H. Christ.

[Aldotsk]

At the very least, housing wouldn't be as horrible to grab as it is on Balmung. Jesus H. Christ.

 

This is the biggest thing that makes me want to go to Mateus or make a character for that reason

[Kage]

From what I hear people are going in to buy up housing plots atm

[Mercer]

There are also a lot of plots being opened with SB with another housing district coming. Even if current housing does get bought, it appears there are many apartments available and a few hundred houses being opened soon.

[Hilde]

I wouldn't move - spreading Balmung out might fragment what community has already blossomed there, and I honestly prefer the larger RP server. 

 

As for designating rules for moderators to enforce - I've seen cases where someone legitimately harassing/bullying people on multiple occasions weren't given but a slap on the wrist. Their subs are important, so I don't see seriously modding a specific RP community being a thing.

[Hilde]

Maybe, leaning toward "yes". There's a lot of factors that would go into my decision (someone mentioned a token system for housing which is brilliant) but mostly it would be who actually goes. If it's only like 50 people from Balmung who would go, probably not. But if a bunch of RPers - in the hundreds or so - went "Yes, lets go there." I'd definitely consider, especially if my FC voted they'd consider it too.

 

At the very least, housing wouldn't be as horrible to grab as it is on Balmung. Jesus H. Christ.

During the last population check, Balmung's numbers are around 50,000 players. Hundreds or so is still a small amount of players in comparison.

[ArmachiA]

There is no way there's even close to that as RPers on this server though. It's niche, it's a big server for RPers but it ain't that big.

[Kage]

Even by LuckyBancho's numbers it was 26k???

[Literal-Ghost]

I don't think it's going think happen. If SquE's goal is to have a more even spread player population across the board, I don't think they're going to put a big shiny sign over a specific server that says "hey, you should join here" to a particular demographic. (Legacy server aside).

 

If it does happen, I don't see it happening at least until NA server populations are more even across the board.

 

I also don't really see it happening unless it justifies each Data Server getting an RP server, and it would probably be a new server entirely for each one.

[ArmachiA]

Even by LuckyBancho's numbers it was 26k???

 

26k for the whole server seems about right. Considering most servers in any mmo I've been in are comfortable in the 5-8k range, Balmung being at 20k+ makes sense if it's in dire straights.

 

I'm not convinced even 10% are RPers though, feel free to prove me wrong

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Even by LuckyBancho's numbers it was 26k???

 

26k for the whole server seems about right. Considering most servers in any mmo I've been in are comfortable in the 5-8k range, Balmung being at 20k+ makes sense if it's in dire straights.

 

I'm not convinced even 10% are RPers though, feel free to prove me wrong

 

We currently have 11,471 members registered on the RPC.

 

Of those, even if I was super-pessimistic and sald even half were bots/duplicate accounts (that number is actually released elsewhere), that'd leave us with a good 5000-6000 members. Minimum, because the bot-blockers are actually doing a pretty good job now!

 

Assuming that the vast majority of those accounts then are on Balmung, and that the RPC is only part of the larger collection of RPers on Balmung, I think it's safe to say we make up a significant portion of users on the server.

[Hilde]

Even by LuckyBancho's numbers it was 26k???

 

26k for the whole server seems about right. Considering most servers in any mmo I've been in are comfortable in the 5-8k range, Balmung being at 20k+ makes sense if it's in dire straights.

 

I'm not convinced even 10% are RPers though, feel free to prove me wrong

It's incorrect (bad source), but there are more roleplayers than just a few hundreds for sure (whether currently active or not).