A humble request to Square Enix: please unlock Gilgamesh.

They block incoming new players. Population stagnates. Some decide to leave. Population drops. Server reopens. Population fills up again. Rinse repeat. It's a mess, but what else can really be done about it except what SE has tried so far, with the "preferred" thing, etc. They can't be closing/reopening servers all the time, as it doesn't really solve anything.

Maybe they can try to break new ground with the cross-server features. Like if it's a social thing, make cross-server FCs a thing, or create instanced virtual idling zones where it seems like they are in the same space. Ideas that would make being on different servers a non-issue, while expanding the community.

As long as individual servers exist, there will always be some servers busier than others.

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Originally Posted by Jas710

There really isn't a long-term solution. They block incoming new players. Population stagnates. Some decide to leave. Population drops. Server reopens. Population fills up again. Rinse repeat. It's a mess, but what else can really be done about it except what SE has tried so far, with the "preferred" thing, etc.

Maybe they can try to break new ground with the cross-server features. Like if it's a social thing, make cross-server FCs a thing, or create instanced virtual idling zones where it seems like they are in the same space.

As long as individual servers exist, there will always be some servers busier than others.

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You've basically hit it on the head. Its not a long term solution, but imo its unfortunately needed. That smaller servers have grown as much as they have since the lock is proof enough. Theres always going to be an imbalance, but the difference between the biggest and smallest servers shouldn't be ridiculous.

And for what its worth: Yoshi has said he wanted to make cross server FCs a thing. I would happily use it the day it'd go live as I have a few friends who joined after Balmung was closed.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

YOU ARE LITERALLY, THE THIRD MOST ACTIVE SERVER. You have 16k active characters. Recruit them. Sell to them. Talk to them.

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According to the most recent census this is false. Gilgamesh is the 6th largest server as of this point in time in the NA. Overall it is now the 12th largest server between both NA and EU. Granted that does not take away from the fact that there is still a sizable population on Gilgamesh, but it makes no sense for it to be locked when servers with larger populations aren't. Somehow only Balmung and Gilgamesh are Congested worlds, but there are four servers that aren't locked with larger populations. SE done screwed up.

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Originally Posted by Aerinae

The only active zones in the game are Rhalgr's Reach and Limsa. Everywhere else is a ghost town.

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Wasn't that the case since the beginning?

I was on Gilgamesh when I started playing, until 2 years ago when I moved to Balmung. The only places that got the most people was Limsa Lominsa because of the marketboard and summoning bell convenience, and the current endgame hub which is now Rhalgr's Reach.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

You've hit it basically on the head. Its not a long term solution, but imo its unfortunately needed. That smaller servers have grown as much as they have since the lock is proof enough.

And for what its worth, Yoshi has said he wanted to make cross server FCs a thing. I would happily use it the day it'd go live as I have a few friends who joined after Balmung was closed.

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Yeah, same. Cross-server FCs and linkshells would be the next logical step after the PF and friendlist. After those, then they could try world rooms that would make being on different servers almost invisible.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

According to the most recent census this is false. Gilgamesh is the 6th largest server as of this point in time in the NA. Overall it is now the 12th largest server between both NA and EU. Granted that does not take away from the fact that there is still a sizable population on Gilgamesh, but it makes no sense for it to be locked when servers with larger populations aren't. Somehow only Balmung and Gilgamesh are Congested worlds, but there are four servers that aren't locked with larger populations. SE done screwed up.

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It makes sense when you consider that for quite some time a lot of people have been pointing to Gilgamesh and Balmung and encouraging players to move there. Now, finally, other servers are starting to attract players. Mateus and Omega have become legitimate options for role-players, finally breaching Balmung's former dominance over such a niche.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

According to the most recent census this is false. Gilgamesh is the 6th largest server as of this point in time in the NA. Overall it is now the 12th largest server between both NA and EU. Granted that does not take away from the fact that there is still a sizable population on Gilgamesh, but it makes no sense for it to be locked when servers with larger populations aren't. Somehow only Balmung and Gilgamesh are Congested worlds, but there are four servers that aren't locked with larger populations. SE done screwed up.

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YOU ARE LITERALLY, THE THIRD MOST ACTIVE SERVER.

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Active =/= Size. Despite not being the 2nd biggest server anymore, they've still one of the most active populations. In that same vein, the overall number of characters on Balmung isn’t the highest, its it’s active player count thats crazy huge.

I fully agree that the servers that have overtaken it should be locked too (Levi especially), though. If SE wants to balance the populations, they've got to be more consistent :c

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Originally Posted by Rokke

According to a survey posted one of the reddit links, Gilgamesh is the 3rd most active server. Its plenty healthy :.

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Actually, it's fallen to fourth now. Cactuar pulled ahead, which surprises me quite a bit since it used to be such a quiet server from what I've heard. The issue with Gilgamesh is it has a fairly large raid community who tend to unsub around this point. That being said, it doesn't need to be locked anymore. Not only are other servers more active, you have Omega and Excalibur nipping at its heels. It does make me wonder just what direction the devs intend to take with server congestion. I sincerely hope they don't move more servers into congestion to try and force players onto the preferred worlds, if only because it destroys their economies. Balmung's suffered equally as bad as Gilgamesh in that regard.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

According to the most recent census this is false. Gilgamesh is the 6th largest server as of this point in time in the NA. Overall it is now the 12th largest server between both NA and EU. Granted that does not take away from the fact that there is still a sizable population on Gilgamesh, but it makes no sense for it to be locked when servers with larger populations aren't. Somehow only Balmung and Gilgamesh are Congested worlds, but there are four servers that aren't locked with larger populations. SE done screwed up.

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This only shows just how inconsistent population totals can be. Luck Bancho lists Gilgamesh at fourth, just narrowly behind Levi and Cactuar.

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Originally Posted by Tillie

Wow... that's a pretty harrowing sight. Mateus is poppin at all hours of the day, every day since the transfer campaign, and we were the lowest population server. If you don't have things tying you to Gilgamesh, I'd recommend transferring--but completely understand if you have things keeping you there.

+1.

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Just a fun little factoid for you. According to that census above, Mateus has more than doubled its population since June. That can mostly be attributed to people leaving Balmung, which has seen the largest decline. :)

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Originally Posted by Aerinae

The server is not dead, but there are the same old people sticking to their own circles and no new players to inject into any of these existing communities (that are shrinking)

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To be blunt, thats the whole point of what SE is doing. There are servers that are overfull and SE needs them to move to other servers to balance the load and keep the servers healthy. They locked the server to stop new people from entering and gave incentives to make people leave...and its working. All the census numbers are is a guess at what the active population looks like according to some arbitrary data set the players came up with. It is NOT an accurate depiction of the whole server, only SE has that information.

When the server population has fallen to where SE likes it then they'll reopen it and see what happens. If people try to crowd it again then SE will just lock it again, if they don't then it'll stay open. One way or another, the days of the super massive server is over.

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Originally Posted by Jas710

Slight tangent here, but just wondering. Do you guys on Balmung and Gilgamesh have RMT spammers?

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Because our server is locked, you can't create characters. We haven't had gil spammers since HW released. Every now and then, the server allows for another person to create a character, but outside of that, they're non existent on Gilgamesh. Unlike most other servers, where I seem to be flooded with spam tellers.