It's your server

[Diavolo]

Some of the most rudest, meanest, angriest players I've ever had the misfortune of coming across either in-game or on various forums have all been from Asura, or have all moved to Asura.

Some of the nicest, most helpful players I've come across are also on Asura. That's just the nature of the beast, you'll have more of every type of player on a larger server, both the good and the not so good. Personally, I like variety in my life. I might get bored if I agreed with everything everyone said.

Might just be me but low server population = more $ for s.e. Everything from gil making to cp takes longer which in turn produces longer subscriptions. With the fee for world change its a win win for them.

That's an odd argument. Gil and CP can be made just easily, if not more so on a quieter server. When the player base dips to a point where forming pick up groups, linkshells and transactions via bazaars/auction house becomes painfully slow players tend to consider cancelling their subscriptions. There's no evidence to reference other than forum threads/posts such as Rooj's, but I'd imagine it's easier to keep players happy on a server that's constantly around the 1,000 online accounts mark than it is on a server struggling to get 300 accounts online and, well, happy players don't usually think about cancelling their subscriptions at the end of the month.

Merges are generally bad, I saw more people quit after merges than any other time.

Losing your name, losing the names of random people who you were familiar with. The server no longer seems like your home, you wander around and all the familiar names no longer exist. They decided some time ago to not do merges, here or on ffxiv.

That's purely anecdotal. People will always have an opinion about major events, like forced name changes in this case, and often times a good chunk of the negative comments tend to be reactionary with emotive language - making decisions when you're angry isn't always the best idea. Sure, someone might quit because they despise the idea of losing their name, but in the grand scheme of things that's a really small price to pay for a livelier game world that will be far better suited at attracting new/returning players in addition to serving the existing player base.

Is that sibling/roommate/friend/significant other going to want to give the game another whirl if they know they'll have to pay $13 to resubscribe on top of $18 to server transfer? I've seen more than my fair share turn the game away because of it and it's unfortunate because I know they'd have enjoyed it with a more active population.

Considering that I have had to wait at Ambuscade, Tenzen, Salvage and a few other places here and there over the months I've come back, I'm gonna say that Asura has to see this more frequently.

Ambuscade was absolutely terrible for everyone, regardless of server size, simply by design and the congestion around it on Asura today is far less annoying than it was even back on Cerberus where the population was often only a quarter of the size or smaller. The fact you bring up Tenzen also makes me laugh because I suspect everyone on your server is just like everyone back on Cerb, sticking to just that one HTBF regardless of how many other parties are lining up for it. Things are thankfully a bit more varied on Asura.

There is no overcrowding issue on Asura or anywhere else, not in the slightest. If it comes to the point where content is too crowded for the server's population see that as a positive and not a negative. We'll bring it up with the devs, the same way we complained about Ambuscade, and watch how they start to mold the game around a larger player base rather than a smaller one for a change.

Honestly i see FFXI a game for play with your old friends a small group of 4 - 5 players.

Most of the shouts look only for GEO, BLU, SCH, BLM and COR the DD classes are taken before shout. Lets be realistic the game do not have content for support big allies anymore.

The game doesn't have content for big allies anymore because we made it this way. Only we can turn it around. Do you think that will happen on servers housing 300 accounts at any given time?

Let's all put our feelings aside here for a minute and think this through: are there enough active accounts today to bring to life 16 giant MMORPG worlds? The simple answer is no.

Dont get me wrong i would love to see FFXI like at 2007s with 2000 players online all time, with a solid economy, with shouts happening for Kirin, VW, ZNM, Dynamis etc

More like 8,000+, at least back on Cerb.