Hello! A few questions before beginning...

[Rainvillain]

Hello!

 

I've been playing FFXIV very casually off and on for several months now and I've just now discovered that the game has a vibrant RP community! I'm playing on Coeurl with a character that has little backstory so far but want to transfer her over to Balmung so I can start RP (and developing my character's story). 

I have a few questions:

 

1. It sounds like Balmung is a VERY busy and popular server. I see a lot of posts about people having difficulty creating a character on Balmung. I've read that doing the payed "server transfer" would allow me to swap worlds, hassle-free. I am very tempted by this, but, knowing little about MMOs and servers, does a popular server mean it can be hard to log in? On Coeurl I have zero problems logging in, and there are never any queues or wait lists. I log in instantly. Is this an issue an issue on Balmung?

 

2. I have a friend who's thinking of joining FFXIV in a few months. He said he'd play on the same server as me. But if I'm on Balmung I'm worried he'll have difficulty creating a character there. The prospect of "logging in at various hours" might turn him away from the game

 

3. Is this website exclusively for roleplaying on Balmung and Gilgamesh? I ask because maybe I'm better off just role playing on Coeurl... if there are any RPers on Coeurl???

[Warren Castille]

Answers, in the order you asked questions in:

 

1) Balmung being "open" refers specifically to character creation. Logging in during peak period sometimes will land you in a log-in queue, but I've never had it last more than a minute to get online, even during the busy holiday season and on weekends.

 

2) It is very possible your friend would have some trouble landing on Balmung when he starts playing. Once his character is rolled, however, it should be smooth sailing barring the seldom queue thing mentioned above.

 

3) We're inclusive here! It just seems we're more weighted towards Balmungians and Gilgameshians. There's a lot of forum RP that happens and while we don't often get cross-world threads, it's plenty possible.

[Kage]

1. The server queues are generally pretty short. You might be waiting -maybe- 1-2 min to login.

 

2. He may do the same thing with the server transfer. It may be possible that the current trend of "windows not open even at 4am PST" is just a trend from the holidays. He shouldn't have an issue if he plays during NA primetime of doing content. The primetimes just mean he might have a queue to login that takes maybe 1-2 minutes. The queue waits aren't long in regards to logging in.

 

3. Unfortunately, most of us do play on Balmung with others on Gilgamesh. A few one or two players do post about RP on other servers but it's usually in a "Is there any RP here?" capacity. We just don't know. If there are, you would have to search for it, usually a LS or an FC which seems to be where most of the RP in Gilgamesh and other servers seem to be.

[Gegenji]

1. Transferring does get past the character creation issues that often plague Balmung. Those issues are merely for creating a character on the server, though, so once your character is there, you shouldn't have any issues logging into it other than maybe a wait queue if a bunch of people are trying to log in at the same time (worst I've seen was... 16 people? And that was after a mass disconnect, usually I just log straight in with no problems).

 

2. That's a very valid concern. Most folks either have to try at odd hours or just before or after maintenance to get a new character onto Balmung. The most recent window was apparently open for quite a while, though, so anything's possible. Still, if they're not up to waiting for those periods, they could always try the transfer approach as well... if they don't mind the extra one-time cost.

 

3. The RPC is for all FFXIV roleplayers! It just so happens that Balmung and Gilgamesh are the two biggest RP servers at the moment. There seem to be small packs of RPers on other servers as well, but almost everyone you'll find around here will be from one of those two.

 

Hope that helps!

[Rainvillain]

Wow, thank you for the very prompt replies!

 

This seems like a good place

 

I'll do the character transfer to Balmung tonight. Hope to see some of you online in the future!