discussion The State of Balmung's Lockdown

[Parth Makeo]

[align=center]DISCLAIMER![/align]

[align=center]I am by no means trying to start a war of servers or anything to ignite a feud. This is a topic i've been asking myself and friends and felt like getting off my chest. KEEP THIS CIVIL![/align]

 

 

 

 

Stormblood has been out for nearly six months or so and in that time i've seen people on Balmung and met move to other servers in the first few days (who now are regretting their choice for some reason) and overtime the effect of a server effectively contained with no way to transfer back on nor make a new character brought a slowly growing issue....

 

[align=left]No new blood.

 

"WELL NO SHIT PARTH! OF COURSE NO NEW BLOOD WOULD COME TO THE SERVER!"[/align]

 

 

[align=left]But this is a problem in of itself. Without new blood we might face an incoming drought of RP contacts and friends. Now i am sure majority of Balmung won't care and personally i don't mind RPing with my pals on the server since i came. My problem is when people get either tired of a character but cannot really RP on the server if they have no alt characters, or people who want to make a fresh start for some reason but find that people will most likely know who they are.

 

New RPers are all heading to Mateus and good on them, but i feel as if without any chance to 'return' to Balmung for anyone who left or want to try the server, there's no real growth that can come from Balmung less we all suddenly hit the reset button on our RP characters and start fresh. While of course we all are caring and loving of our characters, the fact that Balmung does not seem to be opening it's gate will wane.

 

I was lucky to get six characters on Balmung before the lockdown. I have six potential characters to RP as with varying levels of personality. Though some have exclusive items or are much more tended to. For others? Not so much...[/align]

 

[align=left]People i have talked to on my discord who transferred their characters to mateus are kicking themselves in the ass for not keeping at least one person on Balmung for sake of talking with pals or casual RP. 

 

So i ask you all...What are your thoughts as a balmung player about the Lockdown? Do you feel like at some point you might just drop RP activity until they open the gates? Do you think Square should just update their server capacity already to accommodate more than 50k characters? (tbh i'm just joshing on the number ) [/align]

I'd like to hear your concerns. 

[Wemrys]

As I've stated on other threads like this...the most efficient thing to do is to make the most of the situation. We're in a gated community right now and those of us who have no intention of transferring off either stayed up super late a number of nights in a row or paid the money to get our character(s) on the server. If we keep to ourselves and not make the most of being here, then what was the point?

 

Attend community events, open yourself up to new experiences with other RPers, meet new people, start new stories, build new RPs. On a server with 15k+ people on it, it's impossible to have met them all, no matter how long you've been around.

 

If we're a gated community, it's time to get to know our neighbors and have as much fun as we can...then when the floodgates open once again we're all well-equipped and prepared to meet and greet even MORE new people. If you're staying around here, you can't lose with that formula. You just need to get out there and RP more, take more risks, be less shy. It's hard I know because I can be pretty shy at times, but it really is awesome getting to know new folks and getting RPs started.

[Parth Makeo]

 You just need to get out there and RP more, take more risks, be less shy. It's hard I know because I can be pretty shy at times, but it really is awesome getting to know new folks and getting RPs started.

i have no problem with RP. I just am wondering about others. Its kind of why i am not posting actively on the fourms because of some people im rping with lately as a group

[Roen]

I am in agreement with Wemrys.

 

Since the lockdown, I have found myself being more proactive about reaching out to people, looking through the Looking For Connections posts here and on tumblr (and recently, thanks to Zhavi, also looked through recent changes in the wiki area). I've always sort of kept an eye out for new folks and poked some for RP over the years, but lately I've definitely taken more of an initiative in doing so.

 

I am still finding plenty of people I've never met or RPed with. And I come across lots of names that I've never seen on either tumblr or RPC either that are RPing out in the world. Balmung is locked down because it is overpopulated. Surely there are plenty of RPers in that crowd that most of us haven't ran into!

 

I do hope that Balmung will open up again sometime in the distant future, but until then, I think we still have plenty of avenues to meet new people here. New to us, not the server. We just gotta put aside our apprehensions (I know, I myself sometimes have a hard time doing this) and just poke people.

[Wemrys]

i have no problem with RP. I just am wondering about others. Its kind of why i am not posting actively on the fourms because of some people im rping with lately as a group

 

Oh no I'm sorry! I didn't mean that toward you specifically. I was speaking more in general terms, I should have been more clear about that.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I'm of the mind that the Balmung lock is still a good thing. We shouldn't be sacrificing the stability of our server (which does have actual hard limits) and possibly that of the datacenter simply to keep all the people with a common interest on a single space.

 

As said in other threads, SE deems a server "large enough" to start restricting new characters when it hits about 7500 active connections at any given time. That's a LOT of people. When we look at the unofficial census to see how many active people are on balmung, that number breaks 10,000, which is an extremely large amount of people. And that doesn't include people who took a break from content to RP or anything else, which is why the numbers likely underestimate the total amount of people active on the server.

 

Given that the server lock has stayed despite incentives to move off, I'm under the assumption that there is still a staggering amount of people playing on our server. I still see new/sprout characters on a regular basis as well.

 

I suppose my bigger issue is "why does someone have to be 'new' to have new experiences?" I see talk about how everything is going stale because there are new people, but are they really a requirement for a server that has so many people it's been locked? If the server caps were lower like "classical" MMOs where the cap was maybe 1000-3000 characters, I could justify someone knowing all the other characters on the server. But we're nowhere like that.

 

I would also like remind that we do have cross-world functionality. People who transferred from Balmung to Mateus, or any other Aether world for that matter, aren't "gone." You can still party, chat, and do content with them. They even persist on the friendslist. While it is probably wise to keep a character on Balmung to be able to access the actual zones, we are in a state where people moving servers can continue to stay in contact with the friends from afar. ...hopefully done even easier once those mobile app and cross-world group chat features are implemented.

 

So to the people who are frustrated about the server being closed, what is the appeal of "new blood" over new experiences with the people already on the server? We're certainly not hurting for diversity or lack of participation.

[ArmachiA]

"New Blood" is basically how things don't stagnant in general, in video games or in real life. Countries grow and change based on the younger generation becoming the older generation and lots of countries are worried over their low birth rates that will eventually lead to a stagnation and a dead end stop on growth unless they do something.

 

Same is true for MMO servers really. It's not bad now, we're only seeing a little bit of stopping due to the server being shut down for six months, but Balmung is 100% relying on people to never quit the game, never stop doing content on the server and never stop RPing. For arguments sake, a lot of RPers could just, I dunno, get bored of RPing one day and there would be no "New Blood" to come in from behind with their eagerness for RP to fill in the hole left by ex-RPers. As people quit (And people will quit, the game is on it's 4th year) there's no new people to take their place, to keep the communities alive and vibrant. Right now, we're all comfortable. One wouldn't notice a change at all if they aren't looking or, more likely, their circle hasn't really gotten any smaller.

 

But 100% relying on the old guard to stick around because the new guard aren't allowed to play has already had an impact on the server. Not a terrible one, mind. It's small things. FC recruitment has slowed, people have to make more of an effort to combine already established circles (Which could be a good thing in the end), there's this weird ouroboros of rumors of the same people because no one new is coming in to make people stop caring about them.

 

Not that I disagree with the idea of locking the server. I thought, and still think, it was necessary. However, I do think at this point, 6 months in, that SE needs to be looking at other options. Everyone who wanted to leave has left, and the server is still locked. It's time to split the server imo.

 

For me personally, it's actually frustrated people from outside the server can't come to play yet. My guild had to roll an alt guild on a different server for people who want to play with us but can't. Luckily people had no problem rolling an alt to hang with those people but it's still annoying.

[S'imba]

Personally I don't see the server getting unlocked for a good while. If the server is stable enough they won't have any reason to take further action. Though I think I heard they're going to add more incentive. 

 

Hopefully they don't split the server. I really think that would be something that would cause major problems. Groups getting split up type things.

 

As far as lack of new blood goes I feel both ways. We've got a lot of people and contacts to make. Though that can sometimes be easier said than done. On the other hand there is a chance that things will die off. Especially when Mateus becomes more and more active. More and more people will continue to jump ship looking for greener pastures.

[Kismet]

Unnamed Merc said most of what I could've offered on this subject.

 

I have not RPed with a large majority of people on this forum, let alone this server. This is mainly due to a combination of selectiveness, scheduling clashes, my mood, and laziness. However, none of these factors are dependent on other people. They're all based on ME. If I was the sort of person who was hurting for more RP, I wouldn't be able to say that I've exhausted most of my potential options. And I believe that's a claim that most people cannot truly make.

 

Can anyone who believes that a lack of "new blood" on Balmung is "the" issue really say they've RPed with a thousand people? Thousands? Everyone I've met doesn't even know 500 people on this server, let alone RPed with that amount. To clarify, I'm not saying there's no one like that out there... It's just extremely naive to think it describes the average RPer.

 

If you're the sort of person who feels RP is scarce now, chances are you felt the same prior to the lockdown. That, or if you weren't going out of your way to meet new folks before (like I wasn't, because I've always been comfortable in my respective groups, like the OP)? Chances are you aren't doing that now, either.

 

But even if none of that describes your particular situation... I feel that people should take a good, long look at themselves first before pointing fingers at other things.

[Faye]

While I have my share of complaints about the lockdown, a lack of fresh blood is at the bottom of that list right now for me, personally. Considering this lockdown is indefinite, it may become an issue later on, but it hasn't felt like a problem yet. As someone who I feel is social, puts myself out there and meets a lot of people, I am still regularly meeting new people on Balmung, some I've really enjoyed role-playing and chatting with. Who knows if I would have met them if the Quicksand had been full of newbies and people's fresh alts who might have snagged a walk-up with my character or theirs first? My FC is even still getting new recruits; we just picked up someone who's played on Balmung a while but is just now venturing into FFXIV RP! I try to look at the bright side of things, and this is a good opportunity to branch out and meet more people who are already established on Balmung and more likely to stick around than someone who picked up the game a month ago and transferred to Balmung for RP and may not end up enjoying the game/community and disappear within another month.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

snip

 

Wouldn't people quitting Balmung be exactly what SE wants to happen before they open up the server again? It seems awfully unlikely that the vast majority of RPers would quit RPing on Balmung, but continue logging into it in such high numbers doing other activities that the server would remain locked. Or we could assume that if the case is that non-RPers on Balmung have a large enough population to keep the server locked, that people would then transfer to other RP servers.

 

I don't think we're in any danger of FFXIV losing some large amount of RPers. They may shuffle around on different servers, but that was already happening. And the same would happen if they were all on the same server as well.

 

--

[Responding to entire thread down here]

 

So again, I'd ask whether this is a fear of not being able to find new experiences or new people to RP with, or a fear of lacking newbies on the server who aren't already part of someone else's RP? Like the feeling I get from these types of threads is that there's a bigger concern about no new people to indoctrinate or "get into RP" than there is about not being able to find new RP connections.

 

People namechange and buy fantasias all the time. Balmung isn't going to just suddenly run out of character ideas. And if/when the population has subsided, it would be opened again to replenish and population shortages, which do seem pretty unlikely to happen when the active population still doubles the soft cap.

[Syranelle Ironleaf]

My only beef with the lockdown is that I finally got my husband playing FFXIV and I was totally willing to pay to transfer him here so he could play and RP with me and my friends.  We've rolled a pair of characters to level together on Mateus in the meantime, but I'm still hoping that at least paid transfers open up eventually so we can go where my friends, my main, our FC, and all the things I've spent years building are.  XP

[Akeno Asukai]

[align=justify]What are your thoughts as a balmung player about the Lockdown? 

In truth, the lock-down is probably far more problematic for people who have taken a more prominent/active roll in the community as a whole -- people who, unlike me, are well known within the communities of Balmung as their role-play is likely to be centered around the same group of people day-in and day-out. I've actually had this conversation with friends repeatedly and I don't find myself too restricted -- in truth, I don't see it as a problem; but of course, I am not a well-known member of the Balmung server. 

     While yes, when frequenting to the "regular" hot-spots of Balmung I do tend to see the same people day-in and day-out, but I chalk that up to the fact that these are the same people who've hung out there for years -- I'm only just beginning to "notice" this due to the distinct lack of "new blood". 

To put it bluntly: I don't feel very affected by the lock-down as a whole.

Do you feel like at some point you might just drop RP activity until they open the gates?

Absolutely not and for several reasons; the largest of these reasons is that I've finally begun to put my name (and my character) out there in the world. As the Magister of the Invitational (a weekly role-play event) and the Kingpin of a Syndicate Free Company, I've committed to Balmung for better or worse. 

     As state above, there are a plethora of people I've never interacted with and I've been on the server for three years. 

 

Do you think Square should just update their server capacity already to accommodate more than 50k characters?

I don't. While it would be nice to have "fresh meat" hanging around, I don't personally feel like it's absolutely necessary for my characters growth. The upside to the servers opening would be Free Company recruitment being a whole lot easier however, I am still able to put together events with the few (and when I say few I mean four) members I do have. 

     There are selfish reasons for me quite enjoying the server being closed off. They are petty and small. 

I know there are lots of people who have new friends and as Syranelle said, their significant others have joined the game and they are unable to have them here on Balmung -- in this regard, the lock-down is a detriment. However, I don't foresee Square opening the gates anytime soon. [/align]

[Nebbs]

Locks are bad, with no new blood or worse, no new alts all that can happen is total numbers will fall. The only hope is to get more RP from those that remain just to keep things at the same level.

 

I suppose it is also double trouble for me being from EU, and I find raiding is not viable given the increased lag. So I have two reasons to go.

 

Yet i am still here, and that is for two very simple reasons...

 

1. People I we RPing with at the time stayed

2. I setup an EU FC and we are active and they are great

 

However, for one reason or another (I think maybe RL, for good reasons not bad) I am not as active in RP at the moment. But maybe when things calm down I will come back to seeking out RP and not looking at walls.

 

The housing mess always gets me down, more than I like to think. The Lock does not bother me as numbers are high enough.

[ArmachiA]

snip

 

Wouldn't people quitting Balmung be exactly what SE wants to happen before they open up the server again? It seems awfully unlikely that the vast majority of RPers would quit RPing on Balmung, but continue logging into it in such high numbers doing other activities that the server would remain locked. Or we could assume that if the case is that non-RPers on Balmung have a large enough population to keep the server locked, that people would then transfer to other RP servers.

 

I don't think we're in any danger of FFXIV losing some large amount of RPers. They may shuffle around on different servers, but that was already happening. And the same would happen if they were all on the same server as well.

 

---

 

I think that's dependent on a few factors. A bunch of RPers could quit but PVE wouldn't and the server would stay locked, or visa versa. It's not just an RPer problem, as much as reddit likes to think it is. If, for arguments sake I'm not saying this will happen, a bunch of RPers decided to quit/transfer to Mateus/stop rping/whatever while the PvE community never moved - the server would stay locked and RP would die. So I think context is super important for that discussion and we don't have context yet because Balmung isn't in dire straights right now. My what-ifs are just as valid as your what-ifs which makes that hard to gauge.

 

I'm not saying it's a problem -right now-, but I also understand the people who are worried about the future. Both arguments are valid, some try to live in the present and make the most of it, some think of the future and what they can do to fix a problem that hasn't happened yet. Both is fine.

[Oyuu]

When my FC was actively recruiting after the lockout, we were still getting a decent number of apps - probably one of our better campaigns tbh. I still have a really long list of people I would like to RP with, and meet new people on tumblr, the RPC, and in-game everyday. I filled all eight character slots before it was closed, so I've never felt the need to make new characters on different servers. 

 

So to answer your questions, I've not been heavily affected by the Balmung lockdown at all. All my friends stayed on the server and I've not been struggling to find roleplay, nor do I feel the community's activity has dropped at any noticeable rate (granted, I don't hang around the QS all that often, but new FCs and LSs spring up all the time.) I won't drop RP activity unless my RL situation affects it. And I can't give an opinion on how SE should deal with it because I am not educated enough on server capacity and the like.

[Maril]

My main concern when it comes to the lockdown is that whilst Balmung has a heck of a lot of RP'ers, there's only a chunk of those who create events or "content" if you would on a larger basis (outside of FC's), and that chunk of people are prone to burnouts. I'm not saying that we can't get new proactive people from the chunk of people who do not usually create events, it just doesn't really seem to be something that happens a whole lot? I have noticed that there's less new events sprouting up, there's recurring events shutting down that are not getting naturally replaced by something else, and attendance at the regular events - both from my experience and what I've heard - has been on the decline. Getting new blood is absolutely vital to recurring events, because once people have attended something a few times the interest will just naturally drop unless the event is very very good at re-inventing and branding itself. I'm not saying that we don't have enough stuff going on, I am just worried that as we go on being in this lockdown, the proactive people will become fewer and fewer and that we might lose even more of the fantastic open event culture we've got on Balmung. 

 

So whilst I am not starved for people to RP with, sometimes I end up being starved of things to bring people to. Whilst at the same time hosting events that is getting less and less attention, putting a larger demand on re-invention, proactively seeking people out for them instead of relying on advertising, and going above and beyond which isn't a bad thing it's just not very sustainable.

[maoilmhin]

What are your thoughts as a Balmung player about the Lockdown? 

 

I wish SE would get it over with and do a forced split.   I've been wanting to recruit friends to the game, but can't. I know I won't be able to play with them, and they'll miss out on the RP that prompted me to invite them.   As large as the Balmung RP community is, it seems most primarily RP with their FCs and linkshells.   Public / Event RP is the fall back plan.  For me, this is because of my wild work schedule.  I pop and grab the first RP I can get, which is usually guild RP.  

 

 

Do you feel like at some point you might just drop RP activity until they open the gates? 

 

No.  I try to get RP whenever / wherever I can.   The lockdown has definitely limited my possibilities.

 

 

Do you think Square should just update their server capacity already to accommodate more than 50k characters?

 

Eventually, adding hardware reaches a point of diminishing returns.  It is possible we are already there.  Distributing Balmung players across other servers new/existing is likely more effective.

[ArmachiA]

My main concern when it comes to the lockdown is that whilst Balmung has a heck of a lot of RP'ers, there's only a chunk of those who create events or "content" if you would on a larger basis (outside of FC's), and that chunk of people are prone to burnouts.

 

The truthiest truth to ever truth. This really has nothing to do with the thread, just agreeing that's something I've noticed a whole lot in 4 years.

[Nebbs]

My main concern when it comes to the lockdown is that whilst Balmung has a heck of a lot of RP'ers, there's only a chunk of those who create events or "content" if you would on a larger basis (outside of FC's), and that chunk of people are prone to burnouts.

 

The truthiest truth to ever truth. This really has nothing to do with the thread, just agreeing that's something I've noticed a whole lot in 4 years.

 

Alas I suspect the 1:9:90 rule applies

 

1% are active creators of RP situations and events

9% will engage and contribute to these

90% will just expect to turn up and be served

[Lydia Lightfoot]

I'll echo some of the others - there's a big enough pool of roleplayers that there's literally never been a day where if I went to one of the major cities and ran through I didn't pass by total strangers who were RP tagged or in a <##-RP> FC. 

 

I think the problem isn't a lack of newcomers, the problems are instead:

 

1. Lack of support for content providers by non-providers. What Maril said is true - the players who are content providers will feel discouraged and lose enthusiasm if they begin to feel as if their effort to host activities for others isn't appreciated. That doesn't mean they want a bunch of praise and ass-kissing, it just means that it becomes the responsibility of the non-providers to either find the time - make the time - to show up at some of those activities, or, provide feedback to the content provider as to why their activity isn't drawing their interest. Else, the inevitable outcome would be that the content provider may feel as if they're wasting their time putting effort into things people don't seem to care about, and then... maybe they stop.

 

2. Loss-paranoia among FC leaders. Every FC leader out there is going to be concerned about other FCs trying to recruit from them, since the existing players are our pool of players. I run an RP activity group which is open to anybody from any FC (or no FC), and while we have an FC structurally at our core, I make a point never to solicit anybody to join said FC (and participation is open to anyone, so there's no "incentive", either). However, nearly every effort I've made to try and coax interest in getting involved with the group, out of leaders of FCs, has been met with this... fear I guess is the best way to describe it, and at worst they've outright declined to become involved, and in the best case I get indifference. Guys, you're going to have to not be insular if you want your FC to thrive in the current conditions. 

 

3. Sentimental attachment: I've seen this one kill more players than anything else. This is where an FC is clearly dying or dead, but the individuals in said FC cling tenaciously to their continued existence in said FC. They even acknowledge that it's going nowhere. Its time has passed, the leaders aren't around, there's no activities going on, etc. Arguably, from an exterior point of view, they're getting literally nothing out of continuing to be a part of it, and they certainly seem unhappy. Their own enthusiasm for the game and RP in the game is waning because their friends in the current group have been dropping off... and yet they won't branch out. They won't consider that there's dozens of other FCs that are active that they could join. The current one might become active again, they'll say. The leader claims they're going to be coming back soon, they'll say. So-and-so and this-other-person are just a little busy with RL and they'll be active again in a few weeks, they'll say. Yet time and again, I've witnessed this to turn out that the ones who are gone don't come back, and the ones clutching to that hope end up just eventually fading away themselves. Players, do yourselves a favor - cut the sentimentality, for your own good. If your FC isn't making you happy, find a different one. Remember! Being in a different FC from your old friends doesn't mean you can't still also RP with those old friends too. I roleplay regularly with people from a dozen FCs. You can too.

 

4. People transferring off of Balmung even today: Stop it. Stop it right now. By all appearances, that's a one-way trip forever and there are players out there who would love to be able to play on Balmung and literally can't (and likely won't ever). If you really want to quit the server, that's okay, but please, please, please consider the option of not transferring, and instead consider the option of trying to reach out to the community to find out if there's somebody who has a friend who wants to play on Balmung who can't, who might be interested in trading accounts with you. We have the means now, for cashbux, to bypass most leveling and most of the story. There might be a player out there who's interested enough in Balmung that they'd be willing to get you a brand new account with a character who has an MSQ pass and several level 60 jobs. They might be willing to buy said character Mog Station outfits and emotes and so forth. Yep, it'd cost them quite a chunk of money to do that, but for some players who just want to be able to play with their friends, that might be worth it. 

 

All of that said, I will point out:

 

We are almost certainly heading for a server split. They did it in FF11, so they have precedent. Stats on Balmung have shown that although the active population has lowered, we're still nearly double their volume for an unlocked server - and the majority of those who transferred off did so during the queue and 90k woes immediately following the launch of Stormblood, and they had incentives for transfer. Transfers off are basically a trickle now. There's no logical outcome for us at this point but a split. Do yourselves a favor and don't pretend that it's not going to happen. Avoid being surprised by it. Expect it. Plan for it. Stay tuned to the community so you can be aware of the general consensus as to which server the other roleplayers are going to once the split comes.

[Suko'to]

I'd like to throw my two cents in here.

 

First off, while I would agree with a lot of people that 'new blood' isn't a problem that will cause RP on this server to stagnate, I will say the RP community compared to the Non-RPers of this server may also not be as high as we all believe. Although, it's most definitely higher than that of other servers, I can say with confidence. If more than 10,000 active players are on Balmung at any given time, how many of those players can we actually say are RPers, how many PvEers, how many PvPers? This server's been around well before it was unofficially established a major RP hub for the game. It -is-, after all, a legacy server, so RPers aren't the only contributing factor here to its large population I think.

 

Does this mean there's a chance that population will even out enough for transfers (at least paid ones) to open back up? Maybe, maybe not.

 

My other thought I'd like to contribute goes into character creation as a whole, and not just on Balmung, but on all servers, and I think the idea would be a pretty decent solution for those afraid of stagnation. I don't get why, if you have a character/presence already generated on a server, you can't generate new characters on said server if it's considered a congested server. Having more characters on the server and having the ability to delete unwanted characters then starting fresh with a new character doesn't really change the amount of active accounts on the server. One thing WoW had over this game is that, if you already had a character on a congested server, you were still able to create a new one because Blizzard understood this fact.

 

If it were a question of resources, I could see it, but character data alone doesn't contribute that much to the usage of resources. SE's already limited character storage, they've already limited housing, I highly doubt they've reached the limit of existing Retainers on the server. I don't know very many people who've hired more than 2 or 3 retainers (maybe a topic for another thread), and I know only one who has maxed out the number you can hire. I myself can have up to 3, which, so far, is all I need. Given this, I don't know how character creation for accounts already on server should be impacted, even if the server is congested.

 

Edit: Also, wanted to add a little to my first point, since the thought didn't come until after I posted. I think it also would've been a good idea for SE to have done something similar to what WoW and Tera Online did, actually designate servers as RP, PvE, or PvP. I think this would've helped SE out in the long run to even things out a bit more, though, sadly, that ship has sailed.

[Suko'to]

We are almost certainly heading for a server split. They did it in FF11, so they have precedent. Stats on Balmung have shown that although the active population has lowered, we're still nearly double their volume for an unlocked server - and the majority of those who transferred off did so during the queue and 90k woes immediately following the launch of Stormblood, and they had incentives for transfer. Transfers off are basically a trickle now. There's no logical outcome for us at this point but a split. Do yourselves a favor and don't pretend that it's not going to happen. Avoid being surprised by it. Expect it. Plan for it. Stay tuned to the community so you can be aware of the general consensus as to which server the other roleplayers are going to once the split comes.

 

First off, it's not really a good idea to compared this game to FFXI in the sense of what can or should happen. This game is completely different in regards to UI, gameplay, and allocation of server resources, and comparisons like that are part of what caused 1.0 to flop. They tried to make it too much like FFXI, and the UI was a dying system that making improvements to was creating more problems than fixing them. ARR was an overhaul, and thus should be handled differently. I think such a drastic measure requires even -more- careful consideration now than ever before because, now, you're not just affecting players' communities, but you're affecting their FCs, their housing, all the money they put into the house/apartment they have, all the money they put into the private chamber they'd be losing by being separated from their FC.

 

Sure, you can reimburse them, but you can't guarantee they'll get a house on the new server either. It's a more complex system than FFXI was. To my knowledge, you didn't have whole housing communities, just Moghouses. You didn't have FCs, just Linkshells, which were little more than private channels anyway. You didn't have a community you actively contributed to and were rewarded for, other than simply playing the game with others. A splitting of servers was more feasible in FFXI, but not so much for FFXIV.

[LiadansWhisper]

I'm okay with the server lock except that I have friends I have encountered in other games who desperately want to come play on Balmung and can't. That has sapped my own engagement to an extent.

[ArmachiA]

We are almost certainly heading for a server split. They did it in FF11, so they have precedent. Stats on Balmung have shown that although the active population has lowered, we're still nearly double their volume for an unlocked server - and the majority of those who transferred off did so during the queue and 90k woes immediately following the launch of Stormblood, and they had incentives for transfer. Transfers off are basically a trickle now. There's no logical outcome for us at this point but a split. Do yourselves a favor and don't pretend that it's not going to happen. Avoid being surprised by it. Expect it. Plan for it. Stay tuned to the community so you can be aware of the general consensus as to which server the other roleplayers are going to once the split comes.

 

First off, it's not really a good idea to compared this game to FFXI in the sense of what can or should happen. This game is completely different in regards to UI, gameplay, and allocation of server resources, and comparisons like that are part of what caused 1.0 to flop. They tried to make it too much like FFXI, and the UI was a dying system that making improvements to was creating more problems than fixing them. ARR was an overhaul, and thus should be handled differently. I think such a drastic measure requires even -more- careful consideration now than ever before because, now, you're not just affecting players' communities, but you're affecting their FCs, their housing, all the money they put into the house/apartment they have, all the money they put into the private chamber they'd be losing by being separated from their FC.

 

Sure, you can reimburse them, but you can't guarantee they'll get a house on the new server either. It's a more complex system than FFXI was. To my knowledge, you didn't have whole housing communities, just Moghouses. You didn't have FCs, just Linkshells, which were little more than private channels anyway. You didn't have a community you actively contributed to and were rewarded for, other than simply playing the game with others. A splitting of servers was more feasible in FFXI, but not so much for FFXIV.

I CANNOT for the life of me remember which game it was, it's been to long, but FCs actually got to be made early and FCs got to pick which server they'd be placed on before launch (I think it was TOR? Gonna say TOR), if SE could do something like that, where people who care choose which server to go on ahead of time and people who don't care just get thrown on whatever server it would be pretty feasible. Just like TOR though, there would be a cap of how many people could do that. I remember the rush to get to the website when it opened because Bioware said there would be a cap. If the RPers got word they were all going to a certain server, a bunch of PvE's who are convinced Balmung was ruined by them would go to the opposite.

 

Housing is really the only difficult thing in this scenario. I'm going to keep an eye out for how they fix it in 4.2 and maybe whatever they do will make people feel more comfortable leaving.