Balmung Restriction Discussion

[Alothia]

Lolwat? Hyurs wearing cat ears?  Is that an actual thing?

 

I think that's a reference to the fact that there are a lot of miqo'te characters that aren't informed by (or hew entirely to, depending on who you ask) their racial culture; they're essentially being played as hyur who happen to look like miqo'te. Whether this is bad or incompatible with lore is a topic on which there's some debate.

 

That said, I wouldn't put it past some people to say their miqo'te is actually a hyur wearing cat ears and a tail...

 

The sad thing is that some of us made our characters before this lore was released. Holding that against people who play their Miqo'te that way is just as bad as yelling at people who play seeker males to lore.

[Naunet]

I am a bit contested on how SE does their servers. On one hand, I have played a LOT of MMORPGs. And while I have fairly nice internet and a fairly nice computer, I have always encountered some problems or a slight lag when playing the game at times. But with FFXIV? I encounter flawless servers that would probably keep me on the game even if my internet went out or something. I don't know how they keep such good connection while other even bigger games fail to.

 

Funny you say this, because random disconnects and crashes are an extremely common complaint about XIV...

[FreelanceWizard]

The sad thing is that some of us made our characters before this lore was released. Holding that against people who play their Miqo'te that way is just as bad as yelling at people who play seeker males to lore.

 

Agreed 100%. IMO (and with apologies for straying off topic here; we could and have had a whole thread on this ), it's not really fair to expect 1.0 players to remake their characters given what amounts to a major retcon -- especially since there's also the whole "adventurers are a different lot than normal Eorzeans" angle to consider, too. A miqo'te adventurer is probably going to act a lot differently than a miqo'te still in a tribe, just as a miqo'te born and raised in a city-state is going to have a different view on the world than one from Forgotten Springs or deep in the Shroud. Personally, I don't see this as a lore debate, really, but rather an opportunity for social conflict.

 

Au Ra are a bit of an interesting case, because presumably (other than Yugiri), they're going to be new to the city-states, so their cultural elements are going to be a lot more important -- assuming, of course, we get some lore in that regard.

[C'kayah Polaali]

As I've said before, they really need to fix this before the expansion, with all the Au Ra alts that people are going to want to make (and the player pickup on an expansion release).

 

I... hadn't thought of how the Balmung restriction might will still be in effect come Heavensward and severely limit AuRa creation. 

 

Best possibility I've read about AuRa and Heavensward in regard to RP in days, not even being sarcastic, I hope it stays locked.

So...you're hoping new character creation stays locked throughout the release of the expansion...?

 

Yes, anything to stop people from ruining AuRa the same way they ruined Miqo'te.

 

I know it's a controversial opinion and perhaps a bit mean-spirited, but after a year and a half of polarizing lore, man-hating futa covens, and Hyur characters wearing cat ears and a tail, I'm done. The fewer AuRa the better.

 

Dude, I don't know who you're RPing with, but it sounds like they're the wrong Miqo'te...

[Flickering Ember]

Lolwat? Hyurs wearing cat ears?  Is that an actual thing?

 

I think that's a reference to the fact that there are a lot of miqo'te characters that aren't informed by (or hew entirely to, depending on who you ask) their racial culture; they're essentially being played as hyur who happen to look like miqo'te. Whether this is bad or incompatible with lore is a topic on which there's some debate.

 

That said, I wouldn't put it past some people to say their miqo'te is actually a hyur wearing cat ears and a tail...

 

The sad thing is that some of us made our characters before this lore was released. Holding that against people who play their Miqo'te that way is just as bad as yelling at people who play seeker males to lore.

 

I don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion, even without racial lore.

 

There are a lot of gaps in racial lore so assuming/making your own fanon seems to be necessary if you want to play a traditional member of your race but be able to expound on your character's history.

 

Not everyone plays to lore, but if you do, I think it is expected to go back and change notes about a character as new lore makes some assumptions/fanon obsolete. Otherwise, you are not playing to lore.

[Alothia]

Lolwat? Hyurs wearing cat ears?  Is that an actual thing?

 

I think that's a reference to the fact that there are a lot of miqo'te characters that aren't informed by (or hew entirely to, depending on who you ask) their racial culture; they're essentially being played as hyur who happen to look like miqo'te. Whether this is bad or incompatible with lore is a topic on which there's some debate.

 

That said, I wouldn't put it past some people to say their miqo'te is actually a hyur wearing cat ears and a tail...

 

The sad thing is that some of us made our characters before this lore was released. Holding that against people who play their Miqo'te that way is just as bad as yelling at people who play seeker males to lore.

 

I don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion, even without racial lore.

 

There are a lot of gaps in racial lore so assuming/making your own fanon seems to be necessary if you want to play a traditional member of your race but be able to expound on your character's history.

 

Not everyone plays to lore, but if you do, I think it is expected to go back and change notes about a character as new lore makes some assumptions/fanon obsolete. Otherwise, you are not playing to lore.

If it were a few things to change, that would be great.

 

But some of us created characters in 1.0 and were playing them for a year before we knew anything about the tribal lifestyles of the Miqo'te. I've been playing Alothia since November of 1.0, and I sure as heck wasn't going to completely change her character at that point.

 

I did, however make a note in her backstory that her family didn't want to adhere to tribal law, and so they set out on their own, taking residence near a Hyuran village in the Shroud, hence why she was raised and acts the way she does. 

 

Anywho. I apologize for getting everyone off topic. Please continue with your regularly scheduled complaining about the annoying and unnecessary locking of Balmung to new character creation.

[Gegenji]

I think there's one positive side to the restrictions... I've had a bunch of goofball alt characters I've wanted to make for laughs that I never did because I wouldn't be able to get them in without concerted effort.

 

Most notably, my chocobo-chasing Keeper Whyl'li Miqo'te and my elitist Hellsguard Unpronounceable Name, son of Tongue Twister. :blush:

[C'kayah Polaali]

Considering the near-apocalypse that was the Calamity a mere five years ago (and all the build-up of war leading to it), there are enough orphans and refugees to explain pretty much anything. Miqo'te who are culturally Hyurish are one of the easier things for me to accept.

 

Oh, but to address the topic: Nyarrrgh! Server restrictions bad!

[allgivenover]

It's not about cleaving to the traditional lore. It's about missing the fact that you're playing a humanoid cat like race.

 

It's more than fine that people had to RP before there was sufficient lore, though the name lore wasn't outright stated, female naming conventions were easy to figure out in 1.0, the name Rakka Kuhn was chosen long before the naming conventions were released, and I arrived at that name after running around the 1.0 world taking notes of the Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te female names and combining those observable patterns with an old tabletop character name. If anyone doubts me on this one, here's the old lodestone link, and a snapshot of the oldest achievement, long before the naming conventions were released: 

 

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/rc/character/top?cicuid=12277162

 

 

But names are not even what I'm talking about and in fact many of my favorite Miqo'te RPers have characters that are non-traditional with non-traditional names. Even though there is not a single Miqo'te NPC that doesn't have a traditional name in some form I couldn't possibly hold it against 1.0 players like myself for getting attached to a name and not wanting to change it.

 

What I'm on about with "Hyur in cat ears and a tail" is that for the vast majority of Miqo'te RPers you could retcon their character into a Hyur and absolutely nothing would be different other than them no longer having ears and a tail. This holds true for a lot of long time veterans around here who are otherwise great roleplayers.

 

It's things like never emoting the expressiveness of these aforementioned ears, or the tail, failing to ever use the sensitive nose to emote picking up scents, ignoring the Keeper diurnal tendency entirely, and (although it's fine to have a non-traditional Miqo'te) outright ignoring the lore because many find it distasteful - at least have the character acknowledge that lore with an IC rejection, don't pretend it doesn't exist at all or be outright hostile to those who acknowledge Keeper promiscuity or the political correctness nightmare that is Seeker harems.

 

Most Miqo'te RPers are just Hyur in catboy/girl cosplay. And let's not spend any more time than we need too talking about the fetish crowd that permeates Miqo'te. I used to doubt how widespread some claimed it to be, but considering how often I run into Miqo'te who are just a vehicle for fetish, I had to rescind that view.

 

I'm just hoping beyond hope that AuRa have normal sexual mores and don't have a culture so unsettling that people choose to outright ignore it as they did en mass with Miqo'te, or this will happen all over again.

 

In the meantime, I'll take the possibility of character creation restrictions severely limiting the creation of AuRa alts as an unexpected boon.

[FreelanceWizard]

 

So, let's take this miqo'te tangent to another thread, if people want to continue it.

 

 

With the hat off: the Balmung server lock is extremely annoying. I've had a couple of characters in mind to play around with (a lalafell and an elezen), and I've not been able to create them. Sigh.

[SessionZero]

I'll just be fantasia-ing one of my existing alts into an Au Ra to circumvent server locks.

[Kellach Woods]

I think their bottleneck (besides the Lobby Server) might actually be the internet connection and its backbone connections. We've seen alarming issues with the USA<->Canada border connections having issues. If they allowed more players in, these would likely get worse. disclaimer: enterprise networking of any kind is not my specialty. But when there's a collection of people who all run a trace route from their various locations and it fails at the same gateway.... it's suspicious. Perhaps the EU datacenter will help out with this. Maybe a decent portion of progression-based EU players will hop off Balmung to go enjoy a less-laggy gaming environment.

 

In that case I shouldn't be blocked - I've a legitimate ping of 25 on average to the server.

 

Not because my pipes are good, but rather because I live around 20 minutes away from where we think the datacenter actually IS.

 

That's off-topic tho.

 

* * *

 

Y'know, I'm starting to think the login server doesn't check population (aka anyone logged in) but characters created. If Balmung's a legacy server, then there's bound to have a TON of those.

[Arrelaine]

I dread, dread, DREAD making my Au'ra alt. *falls to the floor sobbing*

[Havoc Snow]

I dread, dread, DREAD making my Au'ra alt. *falls to the floor sobbing*

This is why my main is a Secret Au Ra man!

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I think their bottleneck (besides the Lobby Server) might actually be the internet connection and its backbone connections. We've seen alarming issues with the USACanada border connections having issues. If they allowed more players in, these would likely get worse. disclaimer: enterprise networking of any kind is not my specialty. But when there's a collection of people who all run a trace route from their various locations and it fails at the same gateway.... it's suspicious. Perhaps the EU datacenter will help out with this. Maybe a decent portion of progression-based EU players will hop off Balmung to go enjoy a less-laggy gaming environment.

 

In that case I shouldn't be blocked - I've a legitimate ping of 25 on average to the server.

 

Not because my pipes are good, but rather because I live around 20 minutes away from where we think the datacenter actually IS.

 

That's off-topic tho.

 

* * *

 

Y'know, I'm starting to think the login server doesn't check population (aka anyone logged in) but characters created. If Balmung's a legacy server, then there's bound to have a TON of those.

 

I think you might've misinterpreted my point.

 

If there's a better EU server for EU players not interested in RP, but PvE, they'll probably move. That's more character slots in Balmung then, as the population would decrease. Plus, SE deals in packets, not ping. Which is why sending/receiving 0 is the worst thing ever, instead of a perfect connection. And why lag results in weird rubberbanding as the packets get sent/received in order.

 

--

 

But I do think total created characters is probably taken into account. Because assuming the server was still "full" so that no new characters can be made, what would stop every single person with an active account from logging in unless a zone actually gets full?

[Kinono]

But I do think total created characters is probably taken into account. Because assuming the server was still "full" so that no new characters can be made, what would stop every single person with an active account from logging in unless a zone actually gets full?

 

That's what the usual log-in queue is for, isn't in? Or am I misunderstanding...?

[T'shina]

You know, now that I do think about it. Balmung being a Legacy server may have something to do with it. Being that there are already tons of characters on this server already from 1.0 and what if they are reading those untouched characters and now untouched accounts from when it was 1.0? If I'm right, Balmung was merged from two servers then too? At least that's what my husband says is that Besaid use to be the old RP server.

 

It'd be kind of sad to think that would be the reason why.

 

Though how to solve the issue on our end is well, impossible. Because whether it be server congestion or data storage (which we can still transfer and they can deny that!) then I don't know...

 

I'm going to be pretty annoyed when I want to make my Au Ra alt because I think they are going to be fascinating and I want to learn all their lore. (And I bet you learn a lot from their starting quests since they HAVE to have something different from normal, right? Hopefully.)

[Enzo]

You know, now that I do think about it. Balmung being a Legacy server may have something to do with it. Being that there are already tons of characters on this server already from 1.0 and what if they are reading those untouched characters and now untouched accounts from when it was 1.0? If I'm right, Balmung was merged from two servers then too? At least that's what my husband says is that Besaid use to be the old RP server.

 

It'd be kind of sad to think that would be the reason why.

 

Though how to solve the issue on our end is well, impossible. Because whether it be server congestion or data storage (which we can still transfer and they can deny that!) then I don't know...

 

I'm going to be pretty annoyed when I want to make my Au Ra alt because I think they are going to be fascinating and I want to learn all their lore. (And I bet you learn a lot from their starting quests since they HAVE to have something different from normal, right? Hopefully.)

 

Make an alt With as standard of a name or (We know Au Ra can come from Doma) a japanese ish name this Maintenance. Then keep your starter vial of fantasia until the expansion comes out and switch that idle character to Au Ra

[Flickering Ember]

I don't think it has anything to do with legacy servers. Every main RP server in a mmo is like Balmung. Extremely full with server queue times and probably character restrictions. Or at least some point in that mmo's popularity they were.

 

RPers are a small group but we also underestimate ourselves. RP community can more than make up an entire server, even if no non-rpers ever rolled on it. 

 

But Balmung is so populated simply because we are the largest sub-community organizing ourselves on one server..Additionally, non-rpers join our server too, either to purposefully be near rp or because they don't know.

[Dravus]

There's also the idea that role-playing servers are 'more mature' and so a lot of outsiders flock to anything considered as a role-playing realm. I think there's some merit to that since the tone of conversation and sense of community on role-playing realms tends to be a lot more prominent than on regular realms based on my own experiences across various MMO's.

[Kellach Woods]

Guys, who outside of the RP community actually knows that Balmung is a RP server before joining up?

 

It wasn't made an official RP server.

[Warren Castille]

Guys, who outside of the RP community actually knows that Balmung is a RP server before joining up?

 

It wasn't made an official RP server.

 

It did get a bit of discussion in various channels. I remembered hearing way back when they allowed us to migrate prior to 2.0 that Balmung was going to be the designated unofficial RP locale. I was on Gungnir in 1.0 and remembered hearing about an RP server then, too, but man. 1.0.

[Kellach Woods]

Usually unofficial servers do go into the higher tiers of population, but saying that people joined up knowing it was gonna be the unofficial RP server without having any intentions to RP/grief RPers is kind of a stretch to me.

[Warren Castille]

Usually unofficial servers do go into the higher tiers of population, but saying that people joined up knowing it was gonna be the unofficial RP server without having any intentions to RP/grief RPers is kind of a stretch to me.

 

I also remember there being threads on the OF that are long nuked about how "I was on Balmung before you ERPers and I'm going to ruin every ERP I come across."

 

Not everyone on Balmung in 1.0 was a roleplayer, though most don't seem to care. Mind you, there are FCs in this game on our server right now who believe that RPing in /s equates to ERP and is wrong.

 

Takes all types.

[Kellach Woods]

Oh yeah, not saying that.

 

I'm just casting doubts on people who specifically joined the server because it was touted as the unofficial RP server who had no intentions on getting into the RP game or griefing RPers.

 

Besides, that doesn't solve the problem of maintenance being the only window of character creation.