Transfer Restrictions and Roleplayers

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I agree, it's easier for non-RPers to leave. but that doesn't answer my question. What are you going to do if the non-RPs don't want to leave also?

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This isn't helping at all, it is just being circuitous with what if's and stating issues that should be considered, but not seriously discussed until something actually occurs and we have outcomes rather than assumptions. Also, Balmung does not need to be the RP server, any server could be it, having a future official option would lessen the strain overall~

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Originally Posted by Kuroneko_Jutah

It is difficult. It requires coordination, cooperation, and planning; networking together (outside the game in many cases). The unfortunate reality of the situation is that doing these things involves a lot of risk and little reward and folks would rather stay on Balmung instead. It's this attitude that bugs me because it just enforces the status quo and doesn't allow for change. SE putting up an RP tag on specific servers would go a long way to solve it but at the end of the day if people aren't willing to relocate to "seed" these communities we'll end up right back where we are right now: an overpopulated Balmung.

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But with options to what we have now, and better yet: "Official Options" we would have solutions that could more easily facilitate the move over time.

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Originally Posted by artemos7

This isn't helping at all, it is just being circuitous with what if's and stating issues that should be considered, but not seriously discussed until something actually occurs and we have outcomes rather than assumptions. Also, Balmung does not need to be the RP server, any server could be it, having a future official option would lessen the strain overall~

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Yes, it's a question to make people consider it. Refusing to answer it, whether publicly or not, is simply denying a possible reality. It is better to be prepared to act if the situation arises than to scramble when it's already too late.

The RP community better be having some serious discussion right now, because right now, it's a reality that people can no longer go to Balmung. That isn't a "what if" anymore.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I have a question to those who don't want to leave. What would you do if SE created a completely new world and designated it as an official RP server, and didn't do so for Balmung?

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I'd probably move to be honest. I think something like that would be the much needed catalyst to spark a proper movement. FCs would feel safer moving to a completely new server since Housing wouldn't be too massive of an issue I imagine.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I have a question to those who don't want to leave. What would you do if SE created a completely new world and designated it as an official RP server, and didn't do so for Balmung?

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Personally, I don't think I'd move. RP always came second to playing the game with my friends. If they all moved, then that'd be another story. But that's also one of the issues on Balmung. A lot of us have PvE and RP friends. There's no perfect solution when it scales so far.

For the people struggling to make RP contacts, a new server is a good chance. That change of size could work out well. For PvE players who aren't in a big FC or like previously said, if they don't have many friends, moving to another server could work out.

They could have let pvpers keep their pvp rank, to move somewhere this late in the season? You might barely climb back up to gold.

As a non-RPer on Balmung, I'd love to see a new RP server get made, just so more non-RP players will join Balmung. We're so inflated it's hard to get more people into my non-RP FC and most of the sprouts around are RP-alts. I like having an RP presence on Balmung, and I doubt it'd go away completely, but if we were not so inflated, we could get new people. I think an official RP server would help new RPers know where to go and keep the whole "make an alt and pay for transfer" mentality to stick around there.

This "server is on total lockdown until some of you get up and move" is understandable given the massive overpopulation issue but I can already see the seeds of a PVE vs RP civil war starting to stem from this and I feel like there's not much Square can realistically do to incentivize an entire subset of players to leave without forcing them or treating them like absolute kings. I don't RP, my entire FC doesn't RP, and I have tons of friends who don't RP and I can guarantee you absolutely none of us are interested in transferring, even given the free transfers and additional incentives provided. I'm absolutely sure the same can be said of a lot of people in the other camp as well, leaving no one happy and a server permanently on ice.

I play Besaid from there Balmung after 2.0 launch, I don't RP an never been interested on that.
Will I move? No
Will I stop playing? No
Do I care if RP move or stay? No

No need to point an "RP server", is just gonna divide the community more than it alrdy is.
Balmung is been overpopulated for many years , I do hope doors stay close for a long time to come.

I'm hoping SE will name Balmung as the official RP server as for the many reasons stated beforehand of the history of this server having always housed the main populace of RP'ers in this game. But to aid in stabilizing the server itself if this were to come to pass they'd need to have policies in place that would deter the non-rp'ers away from the server.

Such as naming restrictions: having lore friendly names. No names like: Ipee Freely, Shaz Bot, Donut Girl.

Enforcing their rules about what is an appropriate discussion in public chats and making certain topics and discussions reportable offenses.

SE is very well aware of their RPing player base as many of you have said they are not. The first sign of this was the implementation of the Company Profile and recruitment in which Role Play is an option you can select as what your FC focuses on. They also recently added a tag for Role Players to use to designate if they are In Character or not.

But I've been saying this a long time that something needed to be done about Balmung and the fact that its bursting at the seams. And I fear that even the free transfer and incentives need to be implemented NOW rather than in Stormblood.

As SE has it, one single character can now transfer 50 mil in gil if they have 8 retainers and upward to 400,000,000 gil if they have 8 characters on a server and all 8 have the max amount of retainers.

Whether all these changes will be incentive enough for people to move off these populated servers or not remains to be seen. As others have said these changes have come a little too late and I fear that not many will budge off the servers they have chosen unless certain steps are taken to ensure a healthy distribution to lesser populated servers.

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Originally Posted by Grimmel

I'm hoping SE will name Balmung as the official RP server as for the many reasons stated beforehand of the history of this server having always housed the main populace of RP'ers in this game. But to aid in stabilizing the server itself if this were to come to pass they'd need to have policies in place that would deter the non-rp'ers away from the server.

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So you are basically suggesting the RP community gets aid from SE to do a hostile takeover of a server?

I really don't get why some people in the RP community think they own the server. Setting up a brand-new RP focused server and letting people transfer there is the most logical (and friendly) solution, not forcing people out of "your" server.

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Originally Posted by Grimmel

Such as naming restrictions: having lore friendly names. No names like: Ipee Freely, Shaz Bot, Donut Girl.

Enforcing their rules about what is an appropriate discussion in public chats and making certain topics and discussions reportable offenses.

SE is very well aware of their RPing player base as many of you have said they are not. The first sign of this was the implementation of the Company Profile and recruitment in which Role Play is an option you can select as what your FC focuses on. They also recently added a tag for Role Players to use to designate if they are In Character or not

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This would only work for a new server tagged as a rp server as can't force the rules on existing players or force them to transfer.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I have a question to those who don't want to leave. What would you do if SE created a completely new world and designated it as an official RP server, and didn't do so for Balmung?

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I've been on Balmung for years now as a roleplayer as well as someone involved in PvE... but I joined this server (back when it was Besaid in beta 1.0) because it was arbitrarily picked out of the list of names via the RP community.

The RP community made this server the behemoth that it is because RPers tend to stick around through good and bad, through patches filled with content and through times of content drought. Simply put, we make our own content and thus we inflate the numbers of the realmpop even when most have gone on to other places to play other games while awaiting the next expansion/patch/whatever. For this reason, people flock to it.

That said, I would move if they designated a RP server. It would not be a pleasant move for most of us, including myself. I have a house, FC rooms, an apartment, a ton of gil (thankfully most of that would be able to come with me now that they've upped the number). I would also only move if the vast majority of my friends were on board to do so.

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Originally Posted by Grimmel

But to aid in stabilizing the server itself if this were to come to pass they'd need to have policies in place that would deter the non-rp'ers away from the server.

Such as naming restrictions: having lore friendly names. No names like: Ipee Freely, Shaz Bot, Donut Girl.

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That's an incredibly horrible idea to enforce on Balmung.

Thank god the server is locked. It should have been locked before 3.0 realistically. To the people who say its temp, haha. If it is locked due to population balance it isn't becoming unlocked. If it is locked for stability reasons I am sure 4.1 and on SE will want their transfer fees to bypass the lock. Some of the numbers on characters transferred into Balmung over the course of 3.0 are more then a certain server has population. If the scrapes are to be believed.

The answer is simple and I don't understands SE issue with implementing it. If A housing transfers are coming or B they wish to 100% refund a house. Create a new server locked only to transfer from Balmung and mark that bad boy rp. Allowing a whole sale move of the rpers off the legacy server. Once the transfer period is over allow all other servers a chance to transfer to the rp server if it is sub 10k. And maybe close that waste of space server and force them to merge. If they don't want to add an extra world.

SE should designate a few servers for RP, yes I agree..this would help fix a lot of the issues and over crowding.

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Originally Posted by Kuroneko_Jutah

It's going to take players dedicated to establishing a community elsewhere, or an incentive for the non-RP crowd to shove off instead.

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They should just remove savage and ex content from the RP servers since so few people are doing that content ;)

I guess at least this came before I bought my next gamecard and happily I didn't preordered Stormblood already.

As Square Enix randomly told me that the Servertransfer for 18$ is worth nothing anymore and I'm not allowed to roleplay in there game, I guess I will quit it.

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Originally Posted by T-Owl

I'm not allowed to roleplay in there game, I guess I will quit it.

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what you mean they told you can't rp?

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Originally Posted by Lexia

what you mean they told you can't rp?

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I mean that I'm not able to transfer on Balmung, which means that there is not a real option for rp in this game anymore. Sure, I could go on a low-pop RP Server, but from my experience with small roleplay servers, this means to adjust the personal standarts for roleplay to the absolute bottom due to the lack of options. Currently, Balmung is the only option for roleplay I see, if I want the certainty to find enough good roleplay.

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Originally Posted by T-Owl

I mean that I'm not able to transfer on Balmung, which means that there is not a real option for rp in this game anymore. Sure, I could go on a low-pop RP Server, but from my experience with small roleplay servers, this means to adjust the personal standarts for roleplay to the absolute bottom due to the lack of options. Currently, Balmung is the only option for roleplay I see, if I want the certainty to find enough good roleplay.

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I would recommend going to Mateus. The community there is small but growing, and quite friendly from what I've experienced speaking to them over Discord. By no means does everyone agree, nor is everyone super polite, but they seem like a pretty solid group to be certain.

Is the community the strickt on Lore and more into stuff like adventures, playing as members of ingame factions and things that make the Lore of Final Fantasy 14 exciting type of community or is it the kind of community that stays in taverns and talks about this stuff instead of actually doing it?

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Originally Posted by T-Owl

Is the community the strickt on Lore and more into stuff like adventures, playing as members of ingame factions and things that make the Lore of Final Fantasy 14 exciting type of community or is it the kind of community that stays in taverns and talks about this stuff instead of actually doing it?

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I can't say as I haven't played with them yet, but they apparently live streamed an IC run of the Palace of the Dead, so something tells me probably a bit more of the former.

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Originally Posted by T-Owl

I don't really no. Locking Balmung for transfers seemed to be the same as FF13 back in the day, Squares way to tell me that they don't my money anymore, so I guess I will rather give it to Blizzard, who allow me to play wherever I want and offer me actual RP Servers. I think more people should try to give World of Warcraft or other MMOs a try.

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Uhhm Blizzard actually has a longer track record of locking servers. None of this pay to bypass either. The fact is rping servers were the ghost servers all the other vanilla players went to annoy.
Rping ended up on a LEGACY server which created an ungodly population. Which in turn led to more random players I need to play on the biggest. Which led to oh my god i play on a ghost town I need to play on balmung.

There's no reason not to have a designated RP server at this point, and to offer free transfers.

Actually, nevermind, there is a reason: milking money off of transfers. I'd argue one of the main reasons the problem got this bad to begin with is because of the revenue from RPers transferring to Balmung.

What is with you Balmung RPers and being so entitled? There's a pretty healthy RP communnity on Mateus and no one reacts like this. (But please, don't come to Mateus we don't want you here)

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Originally Posted by Marluxia

I'd argue one of the main reasons the problem got this bad to begin with is because of the revenue from RPers transferring to Balmung.

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Gilgamesh?

Personally, after I thought about it, I think it would be the best alternative to split Balmung in two, with one of the new servers being a RP-Balmung Sucessor and the other one being Non RP and copy the houses people had for the RP-Balmung. This way, it would be a fair deal for everyone and the problem would be solved.

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Originally Posted by Marluxia

There's no reason not to have a designated RP server at this point, and to offer free transfers.

Actually, nevermind, there is a reason: milking money off of transfers. I'd argue one of the main reasons the problem got this bad to begin with is because of the revenue from RPers transferring to Balmung.

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Would an official RP server have worked in the past or would people still have gone to Balmung. The community fixation that you can only RP on one server has been a thing for to long and SE have been slow to respond but people can't be surprised that they have done what there are planning to do.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

What is with you Balmung RPers and being so entitled? There's a pretty healthy RP communnity on Mateus and no one reacts like this. (But please, don't come to Mateus we don't want you here)

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Well, that's a lovely attitude with which to try and entice RP'ers to leave the comfy safe atmosphere of Balmung with...

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

What is with you Balmung RPers and being so entitled? There's a pretty healthy RP communnity on Mateus and no one reacts like this. (But please, don't come to Mateus we don't want you here)

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As someone who runs the RPC on Mateus, while yes the Balmung RPers may be over-reacting a bit, this is by no way a means to behave or act.
Many of the folks on Mateus also come from Balmung, including myself and while I devote now nearly all my time in operating the Roleplay community ON Mateus, this is not going to help anyone taking such an attitude.

I have no problem with anyone from Balmung and really, you should have a bit more tact on how you say things to those who are having a difficult time right now with something that has been thrown at them.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

Well, that's a lovely attitude with which to try and entice RP'ers to leave the comfy safe atmosphere of Balmung with...

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Maybe I'd be nice if you guys weren't showing just how childish and ridiculous you are. How are we to know you don't act like this in your RPs? Because if this is how you act over a temporary ban on world transfer... geez.

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Originally Posted by Koti

As someone who runs the RPC on Mateus, while yes the Balmung RPers may be over-reacting a bit, this is by no way a means to behave or act.
Many of the folks on Mateus also come from Balmung, including myself and while I devote now nearly all my time in operating the Roleplay community ON Mateus, this is not going to help anyone taking such an attitude.

I have no problem with anyone from Balmung and really, you should have a bit more tact on how you say things to those who are having a difficult time right now with something that has been thrown at them.

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But it's TEMPORARY? I don't understand at all what they are even upset about. if they are already on balmung what does it even matter to them?

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

But it's TEMPORARY? I don't understand at all what they are even upset about. if they are already on balmung what does it even matter to them?

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See, that is where my confusion is. Where are people saying it is 'INDEFINITELY' closed? SE didn't say that. They said it was 'Transfers to the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.'

Why? Because anyone who has ever been around for a game launch or Xpac release knows everyone comes back to play and rushes on all at once to try and do what they can. After like 2-3 months people then go back to their way of life and hop back to the game they were originally playing. Happened in Heavensward, Happened with Legion, will happen with Stormblood as well. I mean, does no one remember the 500+ queue times to log in for the first month of Heavensward? Now we're back to the normal 10-20 queue during peak hours.

They will open it back up. Just not until after Xpac.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

But it's TEMPORARY? I don't understand at all what they are even upset about. if they are already on balmung what does it even matter to them?

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Because they had friends that we planning to transfer in after the datacenter move and those friends ended up being locked out by the surprise change.

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Originally Posted by Foofy

See, that is where my confusion is. Where are people saying it is 'INDEFINITELY' closed? SE didn't say that. They said it was 'Transfers to the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.'

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While I admire Yoshi-p and his team, I think this decision is out of their hands. People are valid to be wary given customers service and care isn't something they are known for, especially in the West. Might be different in Japan though. Couldn't tell.

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Originally Posted by Foofy

See, that is where my confusion is. Where are people saying it is 'INDEFINITELY' closed? SE didn't say that. They said it was 'Transfers to the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.'

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In my interpretation of SE's words, this is basically the same as the character creation lockouts. Basically, there are too many connections to Balmung at any point in time that it's hazardous to the server health and overall gameplay experience. Especially in a new data center with new (probably) servers that haven't been fine-tuned to the game perfectly. Given that Balmung has been placed into this status in a content lull where most of the come-and-go players aren't currently subscribed, the population will spike up even higher once 4.0 releases and the people who haven't subbed come back.


So yes, it's technically "temporary" but it could take months or possibly years for Balmung's population to naturally decrease to a point that it'd be opened up again. And in the meantime, that still wouldn't answer "where should people go if they want to RP in FFXIV?"

I keep seeing criticisms that seem to be based off of the assumption that Balmung is 100% filled with RPers, which it demonstrably is NOT.

One of the biggest factors in Balmung's overpopulation is the fact that it's effectively two servers' worth of communities packed into one. The non-RPers of Balmung (who are themselves quite populous) and the RPers.

The best solution is to have a designated RP server so that all RPers can draw from the largest community without worrying about the volume of their respective servers.

It'd be ideal for Balmung, Faerie, Jenova, Siren, and Mateus RPers to all be on the same server.

There shouldn't have to be a forced split of the RP community, unless the RP-designated server is filled with RPers to 100% capacity. Which is definitely not the case now.

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Originally Posted by Velynea

While I admire Yoshi-p and his team, I think this decision is out of their hands. People are valid to be wary given customers service and care isn't something they are known for, especially in the West. Might be different in Japan though. Couldn't tell.

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RP isn't something well known in Japan. Yoshi-P even asked if that was a thing.

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Originally Posted by reiichi

In my interpretation of SE's words, this is basically the same as the character creation lockouts. Basically, there are too many connections to Balmung at any point in time that it's hazardous to the server health and overall gameplay experience. Especially in a new data center with new (probably) servers that haven't been fine-tuned to the game perfectly. Given that Balmung has been placed into this status in a content lull where most of the come-and-go players aren't currently subscribed, the population will spike up even higher once 4.0 releases and the people who haven't subbed come back.

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If it takes years and no one has RP communities on other servers then the RP communities themselves are at fault for this, not SE. I would love to see another server have a large community like Balmung; hell, fairly sure Maetus and Faerie are trying.

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Originally Posted by Foofy

See, that is where my confusion is. Where are people saying it is 'INDEFINITELY' closed? SE didn't say that. They said it was 'Transfers to the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.'

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While I'm not in any real bandwagon rush to leave or move or stay, you realize that indefinitely means possibly to an infinite or an unspecified amount of time? It's not a fixed time. Stabilization of Balmung's population could take a week, a month, or even years. Or if no one transfers, never.

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Originally Posted by Marluxia

I keep seeing criticisms that seem to be based off of the assumption that Balmung is 100% filled with RPers, which it demonstrably is NOT.

One of the biggest factors in Balmung's overpopulation is the fact that it's effectively two servers' worth of communities packed into one. The non-RPers of Balmung (who are themselves quite populous) and the RPers.

The best solution is to have a designated RP server so that all RPers can draw from the largest community without worrying about the volume of their respective servers.

It'd be ideal for Balmung, Faerie, Jenova, Siren, and Mateus RPers to all be on the same server.

There shouldn't have to be a forced split of the RP community, unless the RP-designated server is filled with RPers to 100% capacity. Which is definitely not the case now.

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Will the Balmung RP community move to the new server though?