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

[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

 

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.

 

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.

Agreed. I recall RP events that garnered in the 200 players area (and that was at that current time of the event, excluding users who never went or weren't online), and I've seen so many RP FC events that have maxed out house capacity with users coming and going. There have been Grindstone nights where just 80 people alone have participated as fighters - that isn't counting the healer and audience. 

 

RPC doesn't even count all the roleplayers, either! I know a good deal of people who don't use the library.

[Virella]

Mind you, I think despite those events being massively popular, I think the silent majority really doesn't like those big events. Not because they aren't fun, but just due to chatspam! Heck, I avoid bigger events these days due to it myself as well.

 

So while, yeah, awesome those houses are that full! BUT. I won't go take those as an indicator on how many roleplayers we really have.

[Gabineaux]

If they split the server in half and let me keep my house, I'd go with the rest of the RP. But if it was just 'lol move over there!' ...Nah, I'm not competing with housing all over again.

[Hilde]

Mind you, I think despite those events being massively popular, I think the silent majority really doesn't like those big events. Not because they aren't fun, but just due to chatspam! Heck, I avoid bigger events these days due to it myself as well.

 

So while, yeah, awesome those houses are that full! BUT. I won't go take those as an indicator on how many roleplayers we really have.

Hence why I said that the number is excluding people who don't want to go and those who aren't online to make it.

[ArmachiA]

Mind you, I think despite those events being massively popular, I think the silent majority really doesn't like those big events. Not because they aren't fun, but just due to chatspam! Heck, I avoid bigger events these days due to it myself as well.

 

So while, yeah, awesome those houses are that full! BUT. I won't go take those as an indicator on how many roleplayers we really have.

 

True. And RPC numbers aren't really accurate either, since we had a huge influx of people from 1.0 and before 2.0 sign up. My initial statement was 10% - which was 2600 people - and I don't think I'm that far off. Still, I can concede is could be closer to 15%, maayybbe 20%. I still don't think Rpers are the majority of the server, or even near it. Even in WoW, with the notable exception of the one RP server everyone talks about all the time, RPers weren't even the majority on RP servers. It's actually kind of impossible for a guesstimate.

 

a few hundred RPERS (Not people, RPers) migrating to a different world - 500 would be 10% of the rpers - would be enough to really have a decent community (Not that that's a lot of people compared to Balmung but it's a good START). If that many transferred said they were transferring off, it's enough to give some sort of pause. A thousand and you may see people consider their stance on staying.

[Shofie]

Maybe, if they offered the housing refunds and exp incentives talked about for the EU realms. It's sort of ambiguous at the moment if those are going to apply to all transfers off high-pop realms, but I won't lie, it's sorely tempting to pack up and start somewhere fresh.

 

We'll see how it goes come Stormblood, I suppose.

[Kage]

Maybe, if they offered the housing refunds and exp incentives talked about for the EU realms. It's sort of ambiguous at the moment if those are going to apply to all transfers off high-pop realms, but I won't lie, it's sorely tempting to pack up and start somewhere fresh.

 

We'll see how it goes come Stormblood, I suppose.

 

It's actually not only for EU realms. It's for designated worlds across all data centers.

[Shofie]

It's actually not only for EU realms. It's for designated worlds across all data centers.

 

I read that, but people seem to be up in the air on it for some reason. Either way, I'm not even going to really consider a serious move until I get hard confirmation that we'd get the same perks offered. I assume SE will post more about it the closer Stormblood gets, or shortly afterward when they open up the new EU realm(s) they were talking about.

[Erah'sae]

Maintain a positive atmosphere for roleplaying. Harassment of other players is never tolerated.

 

Given that WoW seems to have completely failed in enforcing that, I severely doubt SE would be able to. I'd rather stay on a server with my friends where I can speak freely if wanted.

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.

 

If only they were consistent on that.... We watched Earthen Ring fall apart due to fallout from in game harassment by both roleplayers and otherwise.  Including hostile takeover of in game channels, infiltrating guilds to look the guild bank, and the like.

 

I have seen more anti-harassment action on FFXIV in the last year then I have over a decade of playing on WoW.  They're usually pretty prompt in response too from personal experience, especially if sexual harassment or hate speech gets thrown around as long as you're civil with the report.

[Mercer]

Hi, my name is Oswin.

 

You might remember me from such posts as "Dear lord, there are a lot of RP communites" as well as "Will this jackass shut up about server numbers?".

 

I'm here today to remind folks that the population bloat on Balmung is very real and RPers make up a large number of those people. Transferring off to a single server is not going to solve the problem, it's going to make that new server be in the exact same spot as Balmung.

 

The RP community in XIV is pretty damn huge. Membership on the RP-C for example grows at 4 new members a day. That's over 1,200 new RPers a year. The RP-C also has over 200,000 visits each month. Even if only 1/4th of the membership base of the RP-C is active, we are still looking at 3,000 players. 

 

If 3,000 players all moved to Mateus or Faeire, for example, it would push them from the smallest servers in the game to one of the top 8 biggest. That doesn't include people that enjoy RP communities going as well. Crafters love us, we make them millionaires. Trolls love us, we feed them delicious grief.

 

Really, the best solution is to build up two communities outside of Balmung. We have the player base for it. The RP community is just too damn big to keep a single server or two serves functioning healthy. The best solution in my opinion? Help the EU players build up a player base in their region, so their game play is healthy and help the NA players build up a player base on an alternate realm.

[Virella]

Maintain a positive atmosphere for roleplaying. Harassment of other players is never tolerated.

 

Given that WoW seems to have completely failed in enforcing that, I severely doubt SE would be able to. I'd rather stay on a server with my friends where I can speak freely if wanted.

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.

 

If only they were consistent on that.... We watched Earthen Ring fall apart due to fallout from in game harassment by both roleplayers and otherwise.  Including hostile takeover of in game channels, infiltrating guilds to look the guild bank, and the like.

 

I have seen more anti-harassment action on FFXIV in the last year then I have over a decade of playing on WoW.  They're usually pretty prompt in response too from personal experience, especially if sexual harassment or hate speech gets thrown around as long as you're civil with the report.

Idk but I had even once a GM coming up to my Blood Knight IC as a guard to tell the 'nuisances' had been dealt with by the city guards, when I reported someone for griefing RPers :< That was pretty cool.

[Kage]

It's actually not only for EU realms. It's for designated worlds across all data centers.

 

I read that, but people seem to be up in the air on it for some reason. Either way, I'm not even going to really consider a serious move until I get hard confirmation that we'd get the same perks offered. I assume SE will post more about it the closer Stormblood gets, or shortly afterward when they open up the new EU realm(s) they were talking about.

 

People fail reading comprehension.

 

Edit: I think now's a good time to push SE to elaborate further and encourage those from smaller communities to seriously consider what they would want to see as incentives to move.

[Kilieit]

WoW GM team's quality was highly variable, in my experience. Like I said in the other thread I played WoW for 10 years and obviously I reported a few separate instances of harassment in those years, many of which were for disrupting RP.

 

Responses varied from "they're not doing anything wrong" and "there's nothing we can do"... to "we'll look into it" (harasser mysteriously disappears from game for 3 weeks) and, like Virella's experience above, GMs not only dealing with the harasser but also in-character attending the RP event I was holding. I can remember at least three separate instances where a GM had come down to my RP event to join in.

 

In the end, I got into the habit of reporting an incident again if nothing happened the first time. If GM quality was going to be a lottery, then nothing was stopping me from getting multiple tickets.

[Popoko Poko]

I've been giving this a lot of thought and I think that this would be an extremely hard thing to ask an entire server of people to do. They'd lose immense amounts of money, housing, items, etc. I don't think I'd be able to do it; even if I thought it was actually the better idea.

 

It'd be easier for them to offer the non-RP'ers a way off of Balmung, than to move ALL of the RP'ers that make up Balmung.

[Flynn Bladebreaker]

We shouldn't be trying to get non-RPers off the server. SE are working on ways to transfer whole FCs, gil, housing, etc.

[Val]

Clearly SE just needs to download more RAM and increase the pagefile size in order to make more server space for us all. That way we can also stop vaccinating our children and get rid of this ridiculous theory that the earth is round.

 

That being said, I'd have to think long and hard about whether or not I'd actually move. It would depend on whether or not my partner/contacts go as well.

[Arrelaine]

I'd keep Arrelaine on Balmung, I've got a house, it's all decorated and everything. More than likely, if they did name an official RP server, you'd have to fully pay to transfer. They wouldn't offer incentives or reimbursements for it. I probably would make some alts, however.

[Gegenji]

I probably would make some alts, however.

 

That's my thoughts on the matter, too. I have enough character ideas to fill three realms, I'm sure. The issue, of course, is leveling them enough to dress them up appropriately... and juggling my time on them. I'm bad enough with the three that I have on one server, I'm sure I'd have an even worse time keeping track and tabs across multiple.

 

I'd still try, I'm sure, if I had some good RP in potentia on both.

[Kage]

I'd keep Arrelaine on Balmung, I've got a house, it's all decorated and everything. More than likely, if they did name an official RP server, you'd have to fully pay to transfer. They wouldn't offer incentives or reimbursements for it. I probably would make some alts, however.

 

The hope or idea is that SE names a low population server so that the incentives would apply.

[Haven's Fox]

I'd rather not have to deal with moving to a low population server for RP. The economy of Balmung is at a pretty nice place compared to some lower population servers where things are outrageously high. Or even mid population for that matter in some places. Having all of the legacy gil and tons of additional pve players makes this server rather comfortable as it is.

 

Now this bit goes totally off topic but it's what I would like in some form.

 

My pick would be to have SE work on their server tech instead. Let the current servers act as homeworlds. Have places like the main cities and housing be shared instancing all together. In the case of housing it would just scale ad infinitum with new wards as wards are needed. Have cross data center friends list along with the supposed pearls we are getting. Then give players the ability to invite or join a friend/party members home world. Sort of like how I recall GW2 did this. Though I am not sure how it has changed over the last few years since my last time over there.

 

That way when EU players want to pve they have access to local EU servers with excellent ping. Or the same for NA, JP, AUS, or wherever a player might be located. Or you can join your friends server and enjoy content over there with them. So even if a RP world might be set no one is left out despite where they may reside in their homeworld. Though we might have to use a single datacenter after that big overhaul they did years ago.

 

Again totally off topic but this is where I wouldn't mind seeing the game at some point.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I'd rather not have to deal with moving to a low population server for RP. The economy of Balmung is at a pretty nice place compared to some lower population servers where things are outrageously high. Or even mid population for that matter in some places. Having all of the legacy gil and tons of additional pve players makes this server rather comfortable as it is.

 

Now this bit goes totally off topic but it's what I would like in some form.

 

My pick would be to have SE work on their server tech instead. Let the current servers act as homeworlds. Have places like the main cities and housing be shared instancing all together. In the case of housing it would just scale ad infinitum with new wards as wards are needed. Have cross data center friends list along with the supposed pearls we are getting. Then give players the ability to invite or join a friend/party members home world. Sort of like how I recall GW2 did this. Though I am not sure how it has changed over the last few years since my last time over there.

 

That way when EU players want to pve they have access to local EU servers with excellent ping. Or the same for NA, JP, AUS, or wherever a player might be located. Or you can join your friends server and enjoy content over there with them. So even if a RP world might be set no one is left out despite where they may reside in their homeworld. Though we might have to use a single datacenter after that big overhaul they did years ago.

 

Again totally off topic but this is where I wouldn't mind seeing the game at some point.

 

Given the current server archtecture of FFXIV, this isn't completely doable. I went into some of the more gritty technical details in this post.

 

The basic gist is that Balmung being closed for transfers isn't as easily fixed as just allocating more instance servers or memory to it. There are limitations based around how the internet works.

[Tortles]

If my primary RP partner(s) were going, yeah, I would. I do not think SE would designate an RP server, though. We are a very small portion of their market, so I doubt they'd make a new server, or drop RPers on an existing server.

 

But I can't say! I'm not SE.

[Haven's Fox]

Given the current server archtecture of FFXIV, this isn't completely doable. I went into some of the more gritty technical details in this post.

 

The basic gist is that Balmung being closed for transfers isn't as easily fixed as just allocating more instance servers or memory to it. There are limitations based around how the internet works.

 

Ya, pretty much that to some degree. Maybe they can't do it in the full capacity of serving an entire data center at this time(holy shit lotta connections) but I do not think they are so far behind in how the servers are setup to where it couldn't become a possibility. The 3.0 split zones being an early example of it. Hopefully the new NA data center can provide some of that growing room.

 

Also maybe borrow some of the tech/ideas from the EVE guys. What they do is pretty insane.

[Kailani]

We shouldn't be trying to get non-RPers off the server.

 

I agree with this. Half of my friends on Balmung aren't even RPers, yet are very active with PvE and respect the community as it is. And I can't think of a single friend of mine who does RP, who doesn't also take part in PvE. I think the server we have now is a good mix.

 

I'd say "just expand the server capacity!", but to what extent? It's one of the biggest servers, and when new people start they tend to look for the most populated. So it would be a never ending endeavor. =\

[Sig]

Although SE could resolve the population issue on Balmung by lifting restrictions and implementing alternative measures, the designation of an official RP server by SE is the most probable long-term solution that would benefit the RP community as a whole. 

 

RPers should encourage SE to designate an official RP server.  It is a reasonable request that would cost SE very little in terms of resources, satisfy a substantial number of subscribers (RPers), and alleviate much of the population issue on Balmung. 

 

If you have not done so already, please consider supporting the thread Nero made requesting an official RP server designation on the official forums (and spread this around to friends and contacts however you can):

 

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/324942-Transfer-Restrictions-and-Roleplayers