Returning After a Year - Gilgamesh is Dead

I just returned after about a year away, and it seems Gilgamesh has died a horrible death. I never see anyone when I'm out and about, and my FC is dead. I read about the months and months the server was locked killed it. I would like to be on a server that is active in all areas of the game, not just end game raiding. I've read through some things about current servers status elsewhere, but the only things I could find when searching were from 6+ months ago.

I know it might not be accurate, but one thing I found said Leviathan was hopping in all areas of the game with some screenshots, but on FFXIV Census it appears many servers have more "characters". I laughed too because Gilgamesh and Balmung are like the lowest on census now when they used to be the highest. /shrug

Anyway, like I said before, I'm just looking for a highly active server, not a dead server. I signed up to play an MMO, not a solo RPG, and what I'm dealing with now has me wanting to cancel my sub already.

Come to Faerie :) Alive and well. Limsa's a big hangout spot. Hunts are very friendly. People do a mix of content (you even sometimes see people doing fates and battle leves).

What are you talking about, OP? Going by the most recent census, Balmung has the highest population by far (19,978), followed by Mateus and Gilgamesh (13,434 and 13,175 respectively).

OP, after a quick recon of you on the Lodestone, it appears you are just at the beginning of SB or possibly still in Heavensward MSQ. At lv60, there will be very few people around you as the rest of us are lv70.
Limsa is usually pretty full of activity, no one is Idylshire anymore.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

What are you talking about, OP? Going by the most recent census, Balmung has the highest population by far (19,978), followed by Mateus and Gilgamesh (13,434 and 13,175 respectively).

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

OP, after a quick recon of you on the Lodestone, it appears you are just at the beginning of SB or possibly still in Heavensward MSQ. At lv60, there will be very few people around you as the rest of us are lv70.
Limsa is usually pretty full of activity, no one is Idylshire anymore.

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Before I left, it didn't matter what area of the game I was in, there were lots of people around doing things and the game actually felt like an MMO. It no longer feels like that on Gilgamesh from what I've seen since my return. I found this article and it apparently illustrates what I've been seeing. https://mmos.com/editorials/death-of...ng-a-community

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Originally Posted by Macleod

Before I left, it didn't matter what area of the game I was in, there were lots of people around doing things and the game actually felt like an MMO. It no longer feels like that on Gilgamesh from what I've seen since my return. I found this article and it apparently illustrates what I've been seeing. https://mmos.com/editorials/death-of...ng-a-community

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That's an article from when Gilgamesh was still considered a congested server, and didn't allow character creation or transfers to it. It's kinda old news by now, and likely no longer applies, considering Gilgamesh is back to being the third most populated server.

You're not seeing a lot of people in the overworld, because there really isn't any reason to go to most of the zones. The playerbase is also spread out over the Doman Enclave, Kugane and Rhalgr's Reach, or Yanxia/Azim Steppe if they're working on the new MSQ or the Namazu beast tribe, with a large part also being inside instances (the new trial, alliance raid, or the new dungeon).

I read that article last year. We were even contemplating transferring to a preferred world around that time. Then like 3 weeks later, Gilgamesh was unlocked.
Basically, the issue was Gilgamesh was the "raid" server. If you were on a smaller server and wanted raid, it would be hours to fill party finders.
But since raiding is now done cross-world within your data center, Gilgamesh lost its identity as the raid server. There is nothing specifically different about Gilgamesh from any other server beyond that it was locked.
The RP community has congregated on Balmung with the overflow going to Mateus.
The hardcore raid community, many of which still call Gilgamesh home, are basically in hiatus mode right now, as this is an odd patch and they have cleared the raid tier and BiS their gear weeks ago. There is nothing really interesting or challenging for them, at least not for the next week and a half. Then Ultimate Ultima will release and bring them all back.

The old areas have seen a small increase in activity now that the lock has been lifted but Gilgamesh is still one of the servers with the highest percentage of players at the end game. Why, well you create a new character SE encourages people to join the preferred worlds, so new players oblige.

With PotD being the recommended leveling method, there's not much reason for anyone to be out anywhere. If it's true that Mateus is at a similar population now, it's just as true. City-states for rp, everywhere else is just a scattering of players that haven't made it to the end game areas.