All of Aether closed down

*laughs in crystal*

I was initially salty that my server and several others got bundled up with Balmung and shipped off to another datacenter, but it was I that got the long end of this stick.

You just pick literally any other server than Balmung and it's lit.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

Honestly, I don't feel too bad. Everyone neenered at Crystal when the split was announced, and then turned around to whine about Aether being locked up when they dogpiled on it because they were scared of the RP cooties. It's a completely player made problem and the only thing SE could do at this point is split Aether again and make people join Crystal (which obviously is a terrible idea).

They won't add new servers until every single one is full, and as of this post there is 10 open servers. Either deal with being on a congested server, or come to one of the open servers right now.

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It's definitely not a completely player made problem. This is the only MMO I can think of that I've played where you straight up couldn't make a character on a server because it was too full. It's ridiculous that new people can't log in at all on an entire datacenter.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

It's definitely not a completely player made problem. This is the only MMO I can think of that I've played where you straight up couldn't make a character on a server because it was too full. It's ridiculous that new people can't log in at all on an entire datacenter.

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Yeah but... there's free worlds. Like right now. This is not a case of no new characters anywhere. There is space. But boohoo people like to write in their spare time, must be a bad data center where no one runs content.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Yeah but... there's free worlds. Like right now. This is not a case of no new characters anywhere. There is space. But boohoo people like to write in their spare time, must be a bad data center where no one runs content.

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As an active RPer, I could not care less about whatever nonsense people are saying about Crystal or what people's reasons were for transferring away from it - personally I moved because most of the people I played with were on Behemoth, and I'd have been stuck with nobody to do anything with if I didn't move off Diabalos.

The point is that there's a whole datacenter that people can't make characters on, which means anyone who wants to play with friends or family who are already there - like the OP - is fresh outta luck. Which both sucks, and is pretty darn ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

As an active RPer, I could not care less about whatever nonsense people are saying about Crystal or what people's reasons were for transferring away from it - personally I moved because most of the people I played with were on Primal, and I'd have been stuck with nobody to do anything with if I didn't move off Diabalos.

The point is that there's a whole datacenter that people can't make characters on, which means anyone who wants to play with friends or family who are already there - like the OP - is fresh outta luck. Which both sucks, and is pretty darn ridiculous.

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It is but as SE has shown in the past they're not going to do anything about it till Crystal stabilizes. We complained about Balmung two years ago and were laughed off by the community /and/ had the dev's shrug their hands in a sort of 'what can we do' sort of gesture. There's no way they're going to intercede for an entire Data Center when they refused for one server on the very basis that they wanted to funnel more people to preferred worlds.

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Originally Posted by Enla

It is but as SE has shown in the past they're not going to do anything about it till Crystal stabilizes. We complained about Balmung two years ago and were laughed off by the community /and/ had the dev's shrug their hands in a sort of 'what can we do' sort of gesture. There's no way they're going to intercede for an entire Data Center when they refused for one server on the very basis that they wanted to funnel more people to preferred worlds.

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Crystal has a higher total population than Aether, and 3800 fewer active players (roughly 10% less).

I'm not sure what they expect people to do.

As a population base, NA could support FOUR datacenters the size of the JP datacenters (which have 35% more world servers than the NA servers) and still have MORE PLAYERS PER SERVER both total and active than the largest JP datacenter.

Its only going to get worse on the NA side for playing with your friends.

If anything, Crystal is the most stable out of the Datacenters. Only one server is congested and only a couple servers are restricted for character creation. Queues to log in are less than 100 in Balmung, even at peak hours.

Pretty much like the others have said, I believe the community is somewhat at fault that Aether is in such a state with the whole Aether/Crystal split and people being so afraid and/or disgusted being lumped with Balmung and Mateus for being roleplay servers and that they apparently don't raid. However I think NA needs more servers than ever with the amount of new players we're getting.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

Crystal has a higher total population than Aether, and 3800 fewer active players (roughly 10% less).

I'm not sure what they expect people to do.

As a population base, NA could support FOUR datacenters the size of the JP datacenters (which have 35% more world servers than the NA servers) and still have MORE PLAYERS PER SERVER both total and active than the largest JP datacenter.

Its only going to get worse on the NA side for playing with your friends.

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Going off of unoffical census data? If that's the case, crystal probably just has a crapton more alts cuz of the rpers.

Afraid of ERPers? Go to Mal or Coerl or Diabolos. One of the servers that weren't RP heavy in the first place. They still aren't. ...and at this point there are probably some people on them who would point and laugh (or worse) at people trying to out of sheer spite from being pulled off Primal.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

Crystal has a higher total population than Aether, and 3800 fewer active players (roughly 10% less).

I'm not sure what they expect people to do.

As a population base, NA could support FOUR datacenters the size of the JP datacenters (which have 35% more world servers than the NA servers) and still have MORE PLAYERS PER SERVER both total and active than the largest JP datacenter.

Its only going to get worse on the NA side for playing with your friends.

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That's false. There's a reason why Aether is locked down. Crystal looks bigger right now because of alts being made.

As others have said we just have a /LOT/ of alts here, which don't count in terms of congestion but absolutely show up in the unofficial census data. In terms of single-user activity we are smaller.

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That's false. There's a reason why Aether is locked down. Crystal looks bigger right now because of alts being made.

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I'm taking that information directly off the only tool we have for seeing these numbers.

Additionally, bots are still accounts being made and played, and being logged in uses up resources. The active category tracks msq progression (Currently tracks 4.1 msq completion) . For total characters, it doesnt matter if its a level 1 bot, a level 1 alt, or a level 20 sprout, a character existing and logged in to and run around is a character that exists.

The overwhelming majority of bots arent counted in the active category, which still holds closer than expected numbers between Crystal and Aether, and massive differences between NA and JP and EU.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

Crystal has a higher total population than Aether, and 3800 fewer active players (roughly 10% less).

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The active players count should be what counts toward determining whether a world would be restricted, I would think, as a logged out character doesn't use resource other than storage space.

As for being "roughly 10% less," if true, I'm not sure how that works out as Crystal has 3 preferred worlds, and all other worlds are standard aside from Balmung. Does Balmung really have that many active players? Either that, or there is actually not that big of a difference between congested and preferred populations, and Aether just so happens to have crossed the line for all of its worlds. So if a few people would move out of each Aether world, they could all be standard.

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Originally Posted by linay

The active players count should be what counts toward determining whether a world would be restricted, I would think, as a logged out character doesn't use resource other than storage space.

As for being "roughly 10% less," if true, I'm not sure how that works out as Crystal has 3 preferred worlds, and all other worlds are standard aside from Balmung. Does Balmung really have that many active players? Either that, or there is actually not that big of a difference between congested and preferred populations, and Aether just so happens to have crossed the line for all of its worlds. So if a few people would move out of each Aether world, they could all be standard.

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Created characters don't matter, as Balmung can attest. Had the lowest number of created characters when they hardlocked it back in Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Created characters don't matter, as Balmung can attest. Had the lowest number of created characters when they hardlocked it back in Stormblood.

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It might matter if they were all created in a short time span, which would count them as active. But yeah, speaking of Stormblood, Balmung was opened 2 or 3 times throughout the course of the expansion (not counting post-world distribution), and the last time it opened (in late 2018), lasted quite a while I think. That could be attributed to either people leaving Balmung or people being less active until newcomers made it more active again.

There is currently a 22 person queue on Jenova which is in Aether. There is a 20 person queue on Zalera and a 28 person queue on Coeurl. Jenova is classified as congested, Zalera is preferred but temporarily locked for new players, and Coeurl is listed as green standard. Last night there was NO QUEUE on Jenova.

I know a few servers are truly full like Balmung, Giglamesh, and Leviathan, but there are several servers on Aether that should not be artificially listed as congested. The best part of a new MMO or new expansion is playing with your friends and progression during the first month. I'm just speaking for myself and my group of friends but if nothing changes by the end of August we are going to take a break with another game.

If you are on Aether and want to bring your friends and play with them, transfer your own character to Crystal and have your friend play on Crystal. If you transfer from a congested realm to a preferred realm, you will get 10 gold chocobo feathers, the transfer will be free, and you be able to bring far more gil than you would otherwise. Also, our queues are super short, almost never more than a couple dozen players, and less than a minute long.

If you already have too many connections on Aether, roll an alt on Crystal to play with your friend.

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Originally Posted by Microbrewed

There is currently a 22 person queue on Jenova which is in Aether. There is a 20 person queue on Zalera and a 28 person queue on Coeurl. Jenova is classified as congested, Zalera is preferred but temporarily locked for new players, and Coeurl is listed as green standard. Last night there was NO QUEUE on Jenova.

I know a few servers are truly full like Balmung, Giglamesh, and Leviathan, but there are several servers on Aether that should not be artificially listed as congested. The best part of a new MMO or new expansion is playing with your friends and progression during the first month. I'm just speaking for myself and my group of friends but if nothing changes by the end of August we are going to take a break with another game.

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I think some of the problem is caused by world visit. You can have a preferred world with many people logged in either from visitor or resident and a standard world with less people logged in currently.

Malboro sure is congested. When it takes 10 minutes to login at 5am in the morning with queue of 6. In the after noon takes me 10 to 20 minutes to login. They really need to add some new servers. I blame all gold sellers and bots for all this congestion where having.

The way I see it, if they can have a dead server like Mateus sitting as vacant as it was for as long as it was, prior to the Balmung lock and pop explosion, then it really shouldn't be a huge ask to toss in some new worlds at this point. Worst case scenario, you end up with a couple "empty" servers, which isn't really anything new for this game. And as things stand, between the balancing incentives and world visit, they may just as likely end up seeming more populated than Mateus was back in the day.

On the subject of playing with friends. Another option, how about make a new character with the friends you want to play with on a free world.

It's what I did. If I'm intent on showing a friend a fun time, I don't need to be max level with a FC to go through the MSQ with them. Nothing is stopping you from logging in on your main and offer a branch of communication via discord or saying, "Hey guys I'm gonna be on X for awhile to help a friend until they can transfer over."

Wasn't Crystal created explicitly to help with the influx of players problem? Just come on over here, it's not that bad. The perception that Crystal is dead will only change if, y'know, people actually go to Crystal.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Seems to me that's not acceptable they really should add another server to Aether.

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Why not just move to an empty data center?

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Originally Posted by Mistyregions

Why not just move to an empty data center?

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I'd say a lot of people on Aether have been playing long enough to have a stable FC and a lot of connections and friends, giving all that up by moving to an empty data center because SQ decided to put Aether on lockdown doesn't look good at all

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Originally Posted by JumaroKezark

I'd say a lot of people on Aether have been playing long enough to have a stable FC and a lot of connections and friends, giving all that up by moving to an empty data center because SQ decided to put Aether on lockdown doesn't look good at all

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Exactly this. I've come to care about the people on Aether and have friends I've had for years here. In my time on Sargatanas, I've found friends and a community that feels like home for the first time in years of gaming. For the past 5 years or so, I've been trying to get a friend from wow to give this game a try and come play with me. She's finally picked it up and is genuinely enjoying the gameplay but she can't play on Aether. I've made an alt on Crystal to visit her and thankfully, she's found her own good community there. It just sucks that after all this time, we still wont be able to do content together on our mains.

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Originally Posted by JumaroKezark

I'd say a lot of people on Aether have been playing long enough to have a stable FC and a lot of connections and friends, giving all that up by moving to an empty data center because SQ decided to put Aether on lockdown doesn't look good at all

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But nothing's stopping you from making an alt either.

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Originally Posted by Gula

But nothing's stopping you from making an alt either.

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Barely, I have an alt on Zalera where he wanted to at least try the game out since he can't on my main server, so there we could do some stuff together, and yet he had to wait until 3 AM for Zalera to open up. This is a problem even outside of Aether, restricting character creation is just not good at all for newcomers

Again all these points being brought up were brought up when people complained about the Balmung issue two years ago, which is now doubly ironic since every issue we on Balmung had and were chastised for complaining about at that time are now major game wide issues that everyone is facing. (Housing, having to split apart from friends due to congestion, etc.) If they weren't willing to increase capacity for a single server they're not going to increase capacity for an entire data center. Especially not when their reason from before has remained the same /now/, a.k.a. wanting to increase the population on smaller worlds.

Please don't mistake this as me being cold or trying to rub it in people's faces, but they're /not/ going to budge on this. Either you make an alt on Crystal or wait and hope that all the bandwagoners leave enough room once they pop off to the next game.

Not surprising, and the only solution is time. While some people prefer it, faster login queues and EXP bonuses simply aren't as valuable in an MMO as friends and easy access to established communities.

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Originally Posted by Enla

Again all these points being brought up were brought up when people complained about the Balmung issue two years ago, which is now doubly ironic since every issue we on Balmung had and were chastised for complaining about at that time are now major game wide issues that everyone is facing. (Housing, having to split apart from friends due to congestion, etc.) If they weren't willing to increase capacity for a single server they're not going to increase capacity for an entire data center. Especially not when their reason from before has remained the same /now/, a.k.a. wanting to increase the population on smaller worlds.

Please don't mistake this as me being cold or trying to rub it in people's faces, but they're /not/ going to budge on this. Either you make an alt on Crystal or wait and hope that all the bandwagoners leave enough room once they pop off to the next game.

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I dunno if I agree with that logic. A datacenter full of servers dealing with this is a much bigger problem than one server alone dealing with it. Not acting when the problem is (relatively) small doesn't mean they won't act now that it's much bigger. Or at least, it shouldn't. Heck, they should've done something even when it *was* just one server. But I guess it's a bit late for that. :P

Besides, whether SE does something or not, people are allowed to be upset by how things are now - and to point out that this problem is, in fact, a problem.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

I dunno if I agree with that logic. A datacenter full of servers dealing with this is a much bigger problem than one server alone dealing with it. Not acting when the problem is (relatively) small doesn't mean they won't act now that it's much bigger. Or at least, it shouldn't. Heck, they should've done something even when it *was* just one server. But I guess it's a bit late for that. :P

Besides, whether SE does something or not, people are allowed to be upset by how things are now - and to point out that this problem is, in fact, a problem.

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I never said people can't be upset though? Like I get it, I was there two years ago, it'd be highly hypocritical of me to tell you all to get over it. I'm just saying that SE has a pattern of focusing on filling empty servers first and ignoring the ones that are filled to bursting. If they change their stance and help out I'd be surprised. Happily surprised mind you as no one should be separated from their friends, but SE has a LOT of convoluted ideas about how to manage their servers.

Time to face the cold hard reality that SE is not going to let people pack onto a servers to the point of making them unstable. This is why are they are trying to funnel people to lower pop servers too keep populations under control. Be mad all you want sooner or later you will hit this wall where they cant up caps and people have to find a different server.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Time to face the cold hard reality that SE is not going to let people pack onto a servers to the point of making them unstable. This is why are they are trying to funnel people to lower pop servers too keep populations under control. Be mad all you want sooner or later you will hit this wall where they cant up caps and people have to find a different server.

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"unstable" lol

Perhaps they should actually make transferring your entire community to a new data center actually worth it?

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Originally Posted by Hitoshura

"unstable" lol

Perhaps they should actually make transferring your entire community to a new data center actually worth it?

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Don't need a carrot to make communites move, Look at all the people who jumped off crystal for Aether. Sorry not everyone gets to be where the action is..

Yeah, to those people, uprooting their communities to get onto Aether was enough. Now, the people who are actually established on Aether and don't give a damn about the raiding or RP drama, but just want to play with their friends without having to divide their free time across two separate characters, have to "deal with it" and "accept it", simply because you folks seem to be content with your lot or the otherwise state of things. Well, I'm not content with it, and I do absolutely believe something better should be done to handle this situation. It's rather disappointing that there are so many here who just either accept it, or seem to chastise those who are discontent with the fact that there is now this barrier standing between trying to play with friends new to the game and the communities we already have established. Really, the only way that SE even knows there's a problem is if people complain about it, report it, and even if it doesn't amount to anything, it's still better than staying silent or telling others to do so.

SE is plenty aware of it, but playability of the game for long terms subs takes priority of new players who may or may not hang around. Nobody wants to relive the storm blood launch. The lock down and funneling is helping to ensure we don't relive that mess

It’s gonna be closed indefinitely. The whole point of the split was to get people OFF Aether, but they just went right back. This is the consequence, they had to be heavy handed.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

NA has (I've heard at least) the largest raiding community

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That’s kind of sad considering NA clear rates are so low.

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Originally Posted by savageink

Afraid of ERPers? Go to Mal or Coerl or Diabolos. One of the servers that weren't RP heavy in the first place. They still aren't. ...and at this point there are probably some people on them who would point and laugh (or worse) at people trying to out of sheer spite from being pulled off Primal.

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Going to be honest. I somehow don’t even see it on Mateus, probably because I don’t idle around pubs. Been on Mateus since nearly the beginning, like spring 2014.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

SE is plenty aware of it, but playability of the game for long terms subs takes priority of new players who may or may not hang around. Nobody wants to relive the storm blood launch. The lock down and funneling is helping to ensure we don't relive that mess

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Login queue funneling? Yes. Absolute lockout of character creation? No, that only serves to create frustration for new players trying to play with their friends, and their friends who want to play with them. Does it really send a good message to new players to essentially punish them for not starting the game sooner?