Suspension of character creation: how long?

So we gotta fix this problem ourselves before 2.0? Heh, Gridania's music is more relaxing anyways :D

LolUl'dah :P.. It is kinda bland and just... Tannish.... I like Gridania Better.. at least the scenery has a more elegant touch.. despite its cave like maps :P.

Limsa Lomisa All the way. The weather's much nicer here, and the air isn't all stuffy like it is in Ul'dah or Gidania, with their towering walls and huge trees. I doubt they get any circulation in those cities either. The smell from the chocobo droppings probably lingers forever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings everyone!

As Yoshi-P mentioned a few weeks ago , Ul’dah is split into two zones and the problems related to congestion was stemming from zone A.

In order to give everyone a better idea of exactly how these zones are separated, we prepared an image to offer a good visual representation.

Attachment 281
*Click image to enlarge.

• Zone A = Red color
• Zone B = Blue color

As you can see, zone A is the often congested aetheryte and market entrance area. Please take and if possible, consider positioning your characters throughout zone B. Please note that shouts made in zone A will not be heard in zone B and vice-versa. We apologize for this inconvenience, but appreciate your help in working toward alleviating Ul’dah’s server issues.

---

I appreciate the detailed update with the map. Is there a timeframe for which they will determine if this has been corrected? It sounds like as of yet, it has not.
Between now and 2.0, will anything like World Passes be implemented? It sucks that my friend is now stuck playing alone on another server (rather pointlessly since you can't transfer your character either) while waiting for this to be resolved.

I love my Gidania, reminds me of the good old days of Windurst and i shall always stick to that. Oh and i love forest type area's should see my backyard its like a jungle XD and i got a cave to i build for relaxing lol

People aren't going to move... Not until the Market system and Party search system are fixed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

People aren't going to move... Not until the Market system and Party search system are fixed.

---

Search system is fine. I do agree with the Market system though.

Party search system is not fine. But thay's another thread.

The only reason I stay in Uldah is because of the shouts, otherwise I'd never be able to do anything unless i soley relied on LS, which on my timezone is pretty much impossible ><

Make a global shout! on its own chat server!

I mainly warp back and forth to town's Ul'dah for when i need help, and Gidiania to relax and etc

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

Party search system is not fine. But thay's another thread.

---

Nobody knows about the system or to lazy to use it because shouting is always the best way to go, that doesn't make it a bad system.. I tried it and it works wonders.. just the number of people that use it is whats lacking.

Quote:

---

In order to give everyone a better idea of exactly how these zones are separated, we prepared an image to offer a good visual representation.

---

That map doesn't seem to be accurate. The last I checked, the adventurers guild was in a seperate zone from outside. And you still seem to zone in/out when you go in there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starlord

Nobody knows about the system or to lazy to use it because shouting is always the best way to go, that doesn't make it a bad system.. I tried it and it works wonders.. just the number of people that use it is whats lacking.

---

/completedisagreement

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

That map doesn't seem to be accurate. The last I checked, the adventurers guild was in a seperate zone from outside. And you still seem to zone in/out when you go in there.

---

You don't zone in and out, it just reloads different characters around you since the game can only handle for many characters on the screen at once. So when you're in one area it'll load the 40+ chars around you, then if you move out of a certain radius it'll make those characters dissappear and load another 40+ characters, but you'll still be able to hear shouts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

/completedisagreement

---

And that's fine :P.

Just reduce each zone into two zones to reduce the congestion.
But then people will complain about smaller shout radius.

On second thought, move market ward entrance to zone B.

I wonder what it is about Uldah in comparison to the other cities that makes Uldah simultaneously over-populated across all server worlds? Whatever it is, perhaps it can be applied to the other cities?

Hmm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tremain

Just reduce each zone into two zones to reduce the congestion.
But then people will complain about smaller shout radius.

On second thought, move market ward entrance to zone B.

---

The problem is that - as far as I can tell - most people congregate in Ul'dah specifically because of shouts. Which means that no matter how small they make the zones, no matter how much they spread out the useful content (move market wards etc.) people will still move to one area to hear each other. This, in turn, means that this just isn't fixable with the current servers.

As a disclaimer, I should say that it isn't completely impossible to fix with the current servers, it would just take more work than they probably are willing to put into it given 2.0 is effective just around the corner (on the scale of how long it would take to implement a global channel, or another equivalent solution).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MStowastiqVahlshdeh

I wonder what it is about Uldah in comparison to the other cities that makes Uldah simultaneously over-populated across all server worlds? Whatever it is, perhaps it can be applied to the other cities?

Hmm

---

The moment market wards are universal and there is a general chat type channel, is when people will start to utilise the other city-states more. However, there will always be one town where most people will gather, like in every other MMO.

As far as the using shout for party issue goes, it's SE's own fault for introducing the party search system so late. People got so used to shouting, it's become the norm. The way it is now, it's faster and easier to use than party search.

I can't help but find it silly that they want us to stand in other parts of the zone, considering how inconvenient it is. You need to run longer to get to stuff and you're missing out on shouts. It has absolutely no benifits, unless you want peace and quiet.

remodel the entire city in 2.0 since it is a problem now.

Off topic: Andrien, I already miss your old sig.

Sorry, just had to get that out there.


But yeah...Ul'dah. More than anything, it's about the shouts now. But the devs already know that. If a critical mass of people start to shout somewhere else, than you can probably expect people to start moving there. I'm not sure HOW you get that critical mass of people to change where they shout, though. It looks like the dev/community team decided to try just plain asking us to do it. And why not? It might work.

EDIT: By the way, I also hope the the cities are redesigned in 2.0 to correct current flaws.

I think the AFK Bazaars cause a lot of the lag. I have 2 suggestions for a possible fix:

1. Make it so that Bazaars within the city only work in Area B.

or

2. Create a special Market Ward for all the AFK Bazaars.

or

2b. Move the retainers out of the Wards and into our bedrooms, conduct Market Searches/Purchases from the Inns...then use the Wards for Player-Bazaars.

This just makes me appreciate being in Gridania for the majority of my game so much more.

The issue with Uldah is kind of a circular self-sustaining problem.

People stay in Uldah for a number of reasons. I am not a big group player (I play in teams of 2-4 statics), but I stay in Uldah regardless because of the following
1) Uldah's map layout is the most efficient. The Market Ward is right next to the Aethyrite, the shops are relatively nearby, and the Adventurer's Guild is easily accessible.
2) The city offers a lot of repeatable in-city crafting leves. Having to travel all the way to camps just to turn in leves is a huge design flaw for me as a lazy player who hates having to run across tracts of empty land just to complete these crafting leves.
3) The city is in between LL and Gridania - now that we have airships this isn't as much of an issue, but I think this was one of the original reasons why I stayed in Uldah.
4) This one's the most important - a lot of people stay in Uldah because a lot of people are there. Because a lot of people are there, a lot of people stay in Uldah. A lot of players stayed in Uldah for reasons 1 and 2. Before airships and chocobos were introduced, a lot of people stayed in Uldah for reason #3 so that they can get to Grid or LL in an ok amount of time. This was back when we had an extremely flawed anima usage/teleport system.
5) Lots of people = easier to get pickup groups and the shout radius is very large.
6) Lack of Global Chat/LFG channel that is featured in most modern MMOs. This one's probably the big kicker. I'm sure if Yoshida & co. could implement such a channel with the slapdash mess that is the FFXIV 1.x code, they would've done so, but since they can't, people have to adjust and simply spam shouts in the most populated area, which is Uldah Zone A.
7) Slow walkspeed in town without Monk = stay in the town that makes you walk the least, which is Uldah.

Basically, Uldah is one giant huge design flaw that we can't do much about; its attractiveness for practicality is further worsened by the sprawled out and inconvenient designs of the other two cities, which are design flaws upon themselves. The devs have done the best they can to try to patch around these flaws and add features to encourage people to move out of Uldah (increased anima regeneration, lower anima costs for teleporting, airships, chocobos, favorited destinations, universal auction houses, etc), but I think this is a case of too little too late. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up so that the three cities are equidistant from each other and so that they either offer similar services so that there is no preference for ALL players to stick to one city or completely UNIQUE services that give players a strong reason to stick to one (different) city versus the others.

tl;dr: Wait for 2.0.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Davorok

I think the AFK Bazaars cause a lot of the lag. I have 2 suggestions for a possible fix:

1. Make it so that Bazaars within the city only work in Area B.

or

2. Create a special Market Ward for all the AFK Bazaars.

or

2b. Move the retainers out of the Wards and into our bedrooms, conduct Market Searches/Purchases from the Inns...then use the Wards for Player-Bazaars.

---

or 3, like has been suggested elsewhere:

non-optional automatic logoff for players afk for more than an hour.

So if someone shouts at the edge of Zone A, someone on the edge of Zone B a few feet away can't see?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arximiro

So if someone shouts at the edge of Zone A, someone on the edge of Zone B a few feet away can't see?

---

Correct, it may not make much sense from a player perspective, but from a design perspective, it's pretty logical (in fact it's how I always assumed it worked).

The way that the original dev team created these servers, you'd think it was their very first outting with an MMO.

What in the heck were they thinking?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

1) Uldah's map layout is the most efficient. The Market Ward is right next to the Aethyrite, the shops are relatively nearby, and the Adventurer's Guild is easily accessible.

---

This has been addressed with the aetherite network in the cities. Very easy to go anywhere even in the other cities.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

2) The city offers a lot of repeatable in-city crafting leves. Having to travel all the way to camps just to turn in leves is a huge design flaw for me as a lazy player who hates having to run across tracts of empty land just to complete these crafting leves.

---

I agree with that one, haha, especially considering that handing out local leves in camp doesn't change anything in the game world (doesn't make the camps NPCs sell more, have less monsters roaming nearby, etc.)
If a crafter wants to level up quickly, that's definitely the way to go. However, it is possible to go crafting in Zone B! Problem solved. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

3) The city is in between LL and Gridania - now that we have airships this isn't as much of an issue, but I think this was one of the original reasons why I stayed in Uldah.

---

Add to that two return points, there shouldn't be a reason why everyone need to gather in Uldah anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

4) This one's the most important - a lot of people stay in Uldah because a lot of people are there. Because a lot of people are there, a lot of people stay in Uldah. A lot of players stayed in Uldah for reasons 1 and 2. Before airships and chocobos were introduced, a lot of people stayed in Uldah for reason #3 so that they can get to Grid or LL in an ok amount of time. This was back when we had an extremely flawed anima usage/teleport system.

---

Well then, all we need is some brave players to move elsewhere, or AFK show offs to move to Zone B, or linkshell hang out points to be moved to zone B. The problem is really zone A.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

5) Lots of people = easier to get pickup groups and the shout radius is very large.

---

People need to learn how to use the player search function, so much more efficient and easier to use than watch your log get spammed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

6) Lack of Global Chat/LFG channel that is featured in most modern MMOs. This one's probably the big kicker. I'm sure if Yoshida & co. could implement such a channel with the slapdash mess that is the FFXIV 1.x code, they would've done so, but since they can't, people have to adjust and simply spam shouts in the most populated area, which is Uldah Zone A.

---

Again, why is it needed to shout? What we need is people to flag themselves up in player search if they want to do something. A world chat will only end in a log scrolling too fast and player spamming to be seen. I'm not sure this is good solution to the problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

7) Slow walkspeed in town without Monk = stay in the town that makes you walk the least, which is Uldah.

---

Again, use the aetherite network in town! Problem solved! :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bahn

Basically, Uldah is one giant huge design flaw that we can't do much about; its attractiveness for practicality is further worsened by the sprawled out and inconvenient designs of the other two cities, which are design flaws upon themselves. The devs have done the best they can to try to patch around these flaws and add features to encourage people to move out of Uldah (increased anima regeneration, lower anima costs for teleporting, airships, chocobos, favorited destinations, universal auction houses, etc), but I think this is a case of too little too late. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up so that the three cities are equidistant from each other and so that they either offer similar services so that there is no preference for ALL players to stick to one city or completely UNIQUE services that give players a strong reason to stick to one (different) city versus the others.

tl;dr: Wait for 2.0.

---

I'm not we need to go to such extremes as making the cities equidistant from each other and all. The airships doesn't make any difference in the distance between the cities, nor does the teleportation. I think it is a problem that will slowly solve itself when older players realize Uldah has lost its interest of being in the middle.

Can't leave Ul'dah when everyone is shouting there for groups - global channel? I don't like global channels, but it would be a way out of this :3

Wasted my Buddy / Guest Pass. Cant get a friend on to Durandal. No new pass going to be issued by SE :(

Their solution just have him create a character on an open server.... Yea makes sense then me and my friend can play all the time together... So sick of the shit service that SE offer up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oreth

Wasted my Buddy / Guest Pass. Cant get a friend on to Durandal. No new pass going to be issued by SE :(

Their solution just have him create a character on an open server.... Yea makes sense then me and my friend can play all the time together... So sick of the shit service that SE offer up.

---

They've been closed for a month. If you gave your friend the pass between then and now, that's not SE's problem.

No i gave my pass to my friend 4 months ago and he decided to give the game a try last week without letting me know. Now he cant play with me kind of is SE's problem. Makes the whole pass pointless. I understand the server is congested and they cant allow people to create new characters fair enough but at least re-imburse the pass so he can then try the game for free with me when it re-opens. It really isnt that hard to be honest. Generic auto responses from SE via email dont really help me fee like a valued customer to be perfectly honest.

All the drive around bringing people to the game and getting new people interested and being met with brick walls like this does wonders.. I suppose it really is my fault for trying to convince people to give the game a try though.. Shouldnt have bothered.

He went through every process of creating a SE account, adding his payment details, creating a character to be then met with not being able to pick the same server.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oreth

No i gave my pass to my friend 4 months ago and he decided to give the game a try last week without letting me know. Now he cant play with me kind of is SE's problem. Makes the whole pass pointless. I understand the server is congested and they cant allow people to create new characters fair enough but at least re-imburse the pass so he can then try the game for free with me when it re-opens. It really isnt that hard to be honest. Generic auto responses from SE via email dont really help me fee like a valued customer to be perfectly honest.

All the drive around bringing people to the game and getting new people interested and being met with brick walls like this does wonders.. I suppose it really is my fault for trying to convince people to give the game a try though.. Shouldnt have bothered.

He went through every process of creating a SE account, adding his payment details, creating a character to be then met with not being able to pick the same server.

---

I'm still not seeing how it's SE's problem.

Maybe you need help with your logical thinking...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oreth

Maybe you need help with your logical thinking...

---

No, you haven't made a convincing argument that it's SE's fault.

Hmm..

SE's badly designed servers cant handle a below average population for a MMO on an individual server. Merge servers to increase populations on single servers.. makes sense. Offer a buddy / friend pass to try the game with friends and be unable to join your friends on the same server.

Iv seen WoW servers full but being offered a friend pass or invitation allows you to make a character on the same server. I dont think you are really understanding my gripe. Its not that my friend cant join me on the same server right now its that my guest pass is wasted and im not entirely happy with their alternative to a new pass of having him just create a character on another server.

Even if they made all the changes to the wards etc you guys want ppl wont leave they have been there to long and like where they are(maybe). Also the search function works fine No one uses it it like 100x better than xi's and you can do command searches but no one uses that either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oreth

Hmm..

---

So why didnt you feel the need to tell your friend that your server was closed and full? Youve known this info for a long time. Its your own fault you didnt pass on that information.

SE cant fix other ppls mistakes all the time. Take responsibility. If he wants to try it that bad have him play it at your house a cpl hours. Point is you messed up on that one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oreth

Wasted my Buddy / Guest Pass. Cant get a friend on to Durandal. No new pass going to be issued by SE :(

Their solution just have him create a character on an open server.... Yea makes sense then me and my friend can play all the time together... So sick of the shit service that SE offer up.

---

not wasted. he should create a character on another server to activate the client of the game. that way when spots open up he's more than free to create an additional character on Durandal, He just cant join you at least not yet.