Creation restriction suggestions?

So I've had a friend who has been trying to play with me for 3 days. He just got the game, but has been unable to play because I am on Balmung server (and my roots are pretty set here... it would be inconceivable for me to change servers and still have a desire to play). Balmung has been locked pretty solidly. I know that it opens from time to time, but after a few days he has not had much luck creating a character by randomly checking.

Does anyone have any tricks or suggestions that might help? I'd love for him to actually be able to play the game, and for us to actually be able to play together. I'm not really sure what to do to help him, though.

Any suggestions would be great!

We're on EST time, btw, in case anyone has specific times that are good to try.