My friend paid and immediately quit, as will I

So, at my request, my friend buys the game then subscribes. Would be good news had he not unsubscribed the same day.

He was so incredulous that he paid all of this money to play a game with a friend and is unable. Why, do you ask?

Asinine design decisions. That is, character creation restrictions. I have spent a ton of time in game as it is. I have zero desire to start over. He is not allowed to create on Midgardsomr. He spent all day logging in to keep trying, to no avail. He planned to spend this day together with me, but was unable.

Now we had several others who were planning on joining us but decided against because of the ludicrous barrier to entry.

Server queues? Ok, I get that. But outright preventing friends from joining up? Whoever the moron was at the meeting who suggested that should no longer have a job. The fact that the idea was carried through to fruition boggles the mind.

You just lost several customers, myself included. I won't be renewing.

You're absolutely right. Everyone should be able to make characters on a single server. There is NOTHING wrong with that!

Or you could make a character to play with your friend on another server then he/she could transfer over when it opens up again.

Note: Transfers work regardless of character creation status.

As for the actual character creation: While right now actually might not be the best time to do so (Being that even if they could, they'd likely be in the same boat as many of us since Aether is having problems in general server wise.), usually character creation starts opening up in the early mornings and the like except for Balmung (which is almost 24/7 locked.) Being that the expansion is here it may be locked for a while but I don't know if Midgarsomr is usually locked. If they have the patience to be up early to check the server status it may help. As well, just about anytime shortly before maint will allow character creation, even Balmung.

Unless you're extremely dedicated to your guild on your current server you could always switch servers to one that he can create on. It's not like as if you created your character on a Japanese Legacy server thinking legacy was a word for servers with swagger only to find out when you finally finish the story line and hit level 50 that characters on Legacy servers wouldn't be able to transfer over to normal servers until 6 months in.

http://i.imgur.com/N6rLAHh.gif

So the answers are:

1. Start over
2. Pay for a server transfer.

1. BS
2. BS

There should be a character creating queue just like the login.

There time during the morning that the world open for most worlds you just have to check.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

There should be a character creating queue just like the login.

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That's not a bad idea.

#FirstWorldProblems (Sorry, bad pun there too...)

Anyway, first off it is known that the game itself is widely popular and that lots and lots of people play it. The server caps were put into play at the launch of the game in order to help stabilize the servers since they were being terribly overloaded leading to massive queue times and disconnects. They have remained in play since then to maintain the stability so that we all can continue to play with (relatively) little issues.

Secondly, Midgardsormr has always been a heavily populated server. I made my character there initially during Beta Phase 3 and thus was on it through launch, however friends I talked into the game couldn't join because that server filled. They instead went to Lamia and I transferred to follow them. Yes, I transferred early so it wasn't such a pain, but back then it wasn't known about how the restrictions were going to play out so you did what you had to.

Now there's been nearly 2 years of data to show which servers are popular and routinely have restrictions, and you had plenty of resources to know if your friend would be able to create on your server or not. The fact that you didn't do this research when it is even conveniently located as a topic in the launcher (Midgardsormr is on the open list at the moment, btw) falls upon you, not SE. You have plenty of viable options to play with your friend, which have all been noted above. It's either you take the routes that have been given to you or throw it all a lark and leave... do whichever suits you best.

Well lets see right now the publicly available info on Primal servers I can create character on says:

○ Malboro - Locked
○ Brynhildr - Locked
○ Famfrit - Locked
○ Lamia - Locked

Clearly they don't update their information often enough. Last night there were 0 servers in the Primal data center that were allowing character creation.

Let's go log onto WoW since I have just hitting refresh every 3 minutes...

Area 51 - Full, create new character. "Are you sure you wan't to create a new character you may have long wait times...blah blah blah" Yes.

Oh look I have a new character.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

Let's go log onto WoW since I have just hitting refresh every 3 minutes...

Area 51 - Full, create new character. "Are you sure you wan't to create a new character you may have long wait times...blah blah blah" Yes.

Oh look I have a new character.

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I swear, if we ever have a MMO feature discussion that doesn't end up involving 'This is how WoW does it' I'll probably die of shock....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

Well lets see right now the publicly available info on Primal servers I can create character on says:

○ Malboro - Locked
○ Brynhildr - Locked
○ Famfrit - Locked
○ Lamia - Locked

Clearly they don't update their information often enough. Last night there were 0 servers in the Primal data center that were allowing character creation.

Let's go log onto WoW since I have just hitting refresh every 3 minutes...

Area 51 - Full, create new character. "Are you sure you wan't to create a new character you may have long wait times...blah blah blah" Yes.

Oh look I have a new character.

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Wow! Famfrit is Locked? thats gotta be a first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Malzian

I swear, if we ever have a MMO feature discussion that doesn't end up involving 'This is how WoW does it' I'll probably die of shock....

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Maybe when it stops being the most successful MMORPG of all time, that might happen.

If they allow you to do a PAID server transfer to a server regardless of character creation status, obviously the server isn't full.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

Maybe when it stops being the most successful MMORPG of all time, that might happen.

If they allow you to do a PAID server transfer to a server regardless of character creation status, obviously the server isn't full.

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Being successful like that doesn't always mean having the best features or experience. The fact is that WoW is as popular as it is because it was one of the early successful MMOs out there when there weren't many other good options. A lot of players have simply stuck with it, partly because of the time and money they've already sunk into their characters. That being said... WoW suffers from a massive issue of subscriber sway where they gain and lose subs in the millions at and between patches. I'm not sure if I can really call that successful in the long run... but everyone has their own opinion. This still does not mean we should hold every game up to it as a standard. XIV is very much not WoW.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Malzian

Being successful like that doesn't always mean having the best features or experience. The fact is that WoW is as popular as it is because it was one of the early successful MMOs out there when there weren't many other good options. A lot of players have simply stuck with it, partly because of the time and money they've already sunk into their characters. That being said... WoW suffers from a massive issue of subscriber sway where they gain and lose subs in the millions at and between patches. I'm not sure if I can really call that successful in the long run... but everyone has their own opinion. This still does not mean we should hold every game up to it as a standard. XIV is very much not WoW.

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Really...swaying between 7-10 million subs for over 10 years is not successful. WoW being the second generation of popular MMO's, not the first.

I get it though. Create a character, pay $18 for a transfer to a "full" server. That is the better model right?

They need to update this information more often.
Character creation queue would help solve the problem.
Don't allow paid transfer if you claim the server is full. It is either full or it is not.

Really they should just lock the full servers and allow for free transfers away from them. Unless they have plans (in the near future) to greatly increase the capacity of concurrent connections, I don't see why they should want any new characters on the high population servers at all. There's regularly complaints about having to wait until late at night to make a new character and how people want to invite their friends to play on the overstuffed servers, and then, of course, more and more complaints about the very same servers being too congested.

Outright lock them, allow for free transfers from them, and wait for the populations to stabilize before reopening them. It seems like it's needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

Really...swaying between 7-10 million subs for over 10 years is not successful. WoW being the second generation of popular MMO's, not the first.

I get it though. Create a character, pay $18 for a transfer to a "full" server. That is the better model right?

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Yes, second generation of successful MMOs, the first generation having a rather limited list as well. And yes, swaying between that many subs is a problem, because it's not gaining and losing them in an extended period. The sway happens rapidly, within a month of an expansion which Blizzard doesn't do all that often. Despite your retention rate of the other 7 million, having a turn over rate that is roughly 1/3rd of your gamer base in such a short amount of time isn't exactly a healthy sign. However, we can sit here and debate all day as to whether or not WoW will continue on as it has or take a drastic turn up or down... that's not the point.

SE made the decision to restrict the servers for character creation for stability purposes. Yes, they let you transfer onto the servers that are full but that's only because it's a pay-for service so they feel you should be able to choose any server you want to play on since you are actively paying for it. I'm sure if it was a free transfer service, they wouldn't let you pick servers with those caps in place. They also know that if they open up one of those "full" servers to character creation they're likely to get a flood of people trying to create on them and thus cause stability issues really... really quickly. So they say, 'Hey, if you really want it, here's an option' but because it's a pay-for they know a lot less people will opt for it and that will inherently flood-control the server for them. Does it suck for people who want to play together on a server? Yes, it does, but they're making sure the people who are already on the server have the ability to play the character they created potentially well before yours.

-Edit-
Also, let's not forget there's a huge issue of population sway of RMT characters and the like on servers, so this is also another way of limiting the amount of characters they can create on a server at any given time (not that it seems to help much).

Point being Nutz is right. If your server is FULL it should be locked, period. If I can wake up at 5am and make a character but not at noon the server is not full. What is the point of continually allowing the creation of character on off peak hours if the server is in fact FULL.

I could argue about WoW all day, but in the end...It's not going anywere anytime soon. We all know that.

The World populations are bloated because of Early Access. Famfrit is usually open otherwise. OF the four Famfrit is the lowest population and most likely to reopen.

I agree that the queue system needs to be expanded, both for character creation and the lobby server. SE should probably designate or open a few RP servers for the NA and EU data centers as well (honestly this should have been done at 2.0's launch). I don't think PvP is really a big enough part of the game to have its own servers. We don't have open world PvP.

That said Balmung and Gilgamesh need to be completely locked for a while. The popularity of those two servers is causing stability problems for the entire data center.

Part of people's reluctance to transfer is coming from the housing system, however, so that needs to be in addressed in conjunction.

For now, having a post stickied in New Player Help about how the character creation restrictions actually work would be nice as there is plenty of confusion from people who don't realize that the list is only posted on the lodestone every four hours, while the servers are self automating and changing the restrictions constantly. Most people don't read the fine print.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nutz

Really they should just lock the full servers and allow for free transfers away from them.

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Yes, they definitely need to let people leave the full servers for free. But they also need to make it possible to move with a Free Company (of course giving members the option to stay), and without losing the FC and personal houses and most of the character gil.

I find it a little amusing that everyone's response to this person being upset that their friend can't join their server unless it's at 3 AM is that people should be unable to join the server at all :P

I had this issue when I first started, and it was really upsetting. Despite the game saying that my server was open for character creation, I was not able to create a character. I had to wake up at 3am just to be able to create a character on my server.

I understand the queues and stuff but I don't see why creating a character is such a problem. Why can't we create a character and still wait to log in due to queues? Absolutely ridiculous having to either wake up super early (the only time the server seems to accept creations) or to freaking pay for a transfer.

I'm in the same boat right now, trying to make a new character on a server with my friend, just returned to the game and to find I cant make one is pretty lame. I get ques but to completely get rid of character creation on a server sucks. Please change this

Quote:

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Originally Posted by prdc

I had this issue when I first started, and it was really upsetting. Despite the game saying that my server was open for character creation, I was not able to create a character. I had to wake up at 3am just to be able to create a character on my server.

I understand the queues and stuff but I don't see why creating a character is such a problem. Why can't we create a character and still wait to log in due to queues? Absolutely ridiculous having to either wake up super early (the only time the server seems to accept creations) or to freaking pay for a transfer.

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They are trying to tell you to pick a different server. Putting you in a queue doesn't send that message...

It should be hard to get on these servers because you are hurting everyones gaming experience on these servers when you help overload them. I'm not sure how this stuff isn't common sense.

For high pop servers, usually I recommend trying to create a character around 4am (US TZs), and not on Friday, Saturday, nor Sunday. These times you can often get in. It is a bit of a pain but once you're in, you're in.

Also, do not trust the lodestone list. It only updates every 4 hours or so, while the ingame server list updates by the minute.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sikkun

Point being Nutz is right. If your server is FULL it should be locked, period. If I can wake up at 5am and make a character but not at noon the server is not full. What is the point of continually allowing the creation of character on off peak hours if the server is in fact FULL.

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Their system is too simplistic. Preventing new characters on overcrowded servers makes sense. They just don't do a great job of deciding what constitutes overcrowded. The current system just measures server activity by looking at how many players are logged in right now. A better measurement (and one that wouldn't fluctuate nearly as much) would be to look at what's the average number of players that have been logged in at any one time within the last 48 or 72 hours.


It's not intended that you can create on an overcrowded server if you get up at 5 in the morning to do it. That's a way players have come up with to exploit the poor logic used in the software's determination of which servers to lock or allow.

Nor is it intended that you can avoid the server locks by paying for a transfer. Paid transfers officially follow the same character creation restrictions as creating a character yourself does. (It just seems like they avoid it because the system will do the constant checking of "Is it open yet? ... Is it open yet? ... Is it open yet?" instead of having to keep refreshing and re-attempting it yourself. Due to the fluctuating lock status, that will eventually get through.)

The intention for these character creation restrictions is that if a server is crowded, you don't put more characters there. You go to another, less crowded server and play there instead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

-snip-

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Pretty much agreed all around. That said, I'd say more flawed is their server architecture to begin with. This ain't the late 90s anymore, or at least it shouldn't be. As the OP demonstrates, and many many many other parallel posts on the XIV forums-- people just want to play with their friends. MMOs first (to my knowledge) made servers not really matter in 2005. Here we are, 2015, many other MMOs since then that don't have a 'hard' server definition or at least allow guesting and such...

And Square still can't do it? Only we have the duty finder, which kinda suggests we can.

People need to really stop trying to jump in the super populated servers and start joining the less ones as well. The population of those servers wont become bigger if everyone wants to join the already full ones.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cirgellon

They are trying to tell you to pick a different server. Putting you in a queue doesn't send that message...

It should be hard to get on these servers because you are hurting everyones gaming experience on these servers when you help overload them. I'm not sure how this stuff isn't common sense.

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The solution shouldn't be to play with people you don't want to play. I want to play with my friends and guildmates, not progress on a different server.

My issue is simply that it'll say my server is open for character creation but it never is.

I agree they need to fully lock them and stop only partly locked them. That does not help their cause. Honestly people should know by now to not keep trying to get into the obviously full servers by now and make characters on the lesser pop ones, Balmung and Gilgamesh are not the only servers alive after all, everybody doesn't have to be on 2 servers, newsflash, that causes problems lol. I always research my servers before putting toons on them for multiple reasons, including population issues. I don't know why more people don't understand to do that. Being with friends is nice I agree but come on, you know when servers are full, can't blame the system for trying to make you go to another server, not their fault your friends are on other servers after all.

If you're new player I strongly suggest go to less populated server.
Because there is lots of empty house there, the economy is not that well grown yet.
And you can be a pioneer.