The character creation restriction is bad, bad, bad.

I'm having a lot of problems with recruiting friends to FFXIV. It's a really disheartening, when you try to get a friend to play; with no cross-server action, they of course want to come on the server. But then! The character restrictions kick in and they can't come on the server, and have to wait over five hours (after a two hour download)!

There should be better ways to restrict character creation than this restriction, that puts a total wall for people up. The fact that there is this chracater creation exists, some of my friends just blatantly rage quit and I can't convince them that it's worth the wait.

This has happened to me at least three times right now, one raged and created the character on another server and then transferred it to my server (extra 30€ paid...)

I genuinely think FFXIV would benefit of a different character creation restriction system. This system has it's benefits, but for players, new players to be exact, it has more disadvantages than advantages.

There is not a lot that can be done when some of the servers everyone plays on are already filled beyond what was intended. If they always kept character creation open, even after the world is full, the world wouldn't run as smoothly as intended. It would keep the lower population servers even lower as well, which is something that isn't ideal for those of us on one.

I agree that a different system could be put into place, but I am not sure what type of system could be put in place instead, since this is a system many other MMO's put in place as well.

Blame Balmung and Gilgamesh :P

There should honestly probably be some kind of World Pass system, like FFXI had originally. Initially on that game, you couldn't pick a specific server unless someone gave you a special code (retrieved from an NPC, I think, but it's been a very long time), which would then direct your character to their server at creation.

They could do something similar here and allow someone to give a code to a friend or something, so they can bypass the restriction.

If you can't understand why there is a restriction in place than I don't think there's much hope for you. It's crazy obvious why it exists.

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Originally Posted by Pence

If you can't understand why there is a restriction in place than I don't think there's much hope for you. It's crazy obvious why it exists.

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Why doesn't it exist on SErver transfers then?

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Why doesn't it exist on SErver transfers then?

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Presumably because they considered the additional barrier of the cost of transferring is enough of a deterrent to keep enough people on lower-population worlds. Granted, I don't think that's necessarily true anymore because of the heavy migrations to Balmung and Gilgamesh for NA players since the release of Heavensward. But that slowly seems to be righting itself, at least on some servers. Diabolos is back to being creation capped and it hadn't been for awhile.

Someone once said they couldn't transfer because it was full.

They could make a waiting list, I don't know how much effort that would involve though or if its even worth it.

The problem is thier "windows" are so small, it's not worth trying to get on a heavy server. As soon as the window opens, it closes soon after. Your best chance is usually after maintenance.

They should just let us all play on Balmung.

I wouldn't. Balmung is an overhyped terribad server.

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Originally Posted by Pence

If you can't understand why there is a restriction in place than I don't think there's much hope for you. It's crazy obvious why it exists.

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The thing is, I am not questioning _why_ there are server restrictions. I am questioning _how_ it's done. Blocking people isn't really a good way to restrict it really. There could be a system where you could bypass a restriction with a refer a friend -code. Or perhaps have the same system that WoW has; just state a list of servers and how full they are, and if you still choose a full server and then complain about the waiting on the server, shrug and say "You chose a full server, not really our fault". Which IMO is a better system than just plainly blocking them so that nobody can access it except for waiting.

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Originally Posted by Twilite

I wouldn't. Balmung is an overhyped terribad server.

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I'm on Balmung and even I'll agree with this.

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Originally Posted by AnaviAnael

I'm on Balmung and even I'll agree with this.

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My second character is on Balmung and it isn't that bad. A lot of fun going on, which I kinda miss on Ragnarok.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

My second character is on Balmung and it isn't that bad. A lot of fun going on, which I kinda miss on Ragnarok.

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True, but a lot of the "ice mages" and "autoattackers" I see are from either my server or Gilgamesh. But, when your server is about ready to explode because there's so many people, you're obviously going to get more bad along with the good. :D

On topic, I think it would be great to have a world pass or friend code system. Maybe have it be tied with the Recruit a Friend system?

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Originally Posted by Tenshinohana

Or perhaps have the same system that WoW has; just state a list of servers and how full they are, and if you still choose a full server and then complain about the waiting on the server, shrug and say "You chose a full server, not really our fault". Which IMO is a better system than just plainly blocking them so that nobody can access it except for waiting.

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What's the difference? Being able to visually see it's full prior to character creation? SE does provide a list of full servers and is updated periodically. It's not hard to find out the population and lock outs of a world. Everyone keeps coming to Balmung, then complaining their friends can't get in and it 'ruins the game' for them. Move to a new server. Problem solved. Patch/Expansion comes around and these same people that ignored the 'full' server warnings are the ones crying about queues. It's redic in a game this reliant on DF.

They need to offer special transfers *off* Balmung and Greg, rather than special transfers *into* them.

And probably lock those two to transfers.

Idk if this is true but I'm told the main factor of a server being locked at a specific time is how many people are logged on at the time. If this is the case I think forcing auto log out after say, 30 minutes in afk status or just 30 minutes of no character action could be helpful. All these people who afk for multiple hours while their character dances in front of the MB and such are pretty much keeping the server creation locked and this just seems unfair. Again not sure if it really works that way but if it does plz consider this.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

They need to offer special transfers *off* Balmung and Greg, rather than special transfers *into* them.

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I agree it wouldn't be a bad thing to do, but would it actually help though? Or rather would anyone actually do it? What incentive is there for someone to leave the (very) populated server? "Free transfer to another server with a lot less people on it!" I'm not everyone, but it doesn't sound very appealing to me :( A lot of people (most?) will already be established with friends/free companies/linkshells, possibly even housing... any of those makes the decision to transfer away harder.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimateSeph

If this is the case I think forcing auto log out after say, 30 minutes in afk status or just 30 minutes of no character action could be helpful.

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I agree completely, but the few times in the past they've temporarily implemented an AFK kick, a large part of the community seems to complain. Threads even pop up on places like Reddit with ways to get round the AFK kick.

For whatever reason a lot of people seem to think they get better value for money being permanently logged in than only logging when they want to play. Or they feel they paid a subscription, they have the right to stay logged in.

Or maybe none of them pay for electricity (or it's incredibly cheap) so it's just out of convenience that they save the 1 minute login/load time.

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

I agree it wouldn't be a bad thing to do, but would it actually help though? Or rather would anyone actually do it? What incentive is there for someone to leave the (very) populated server?

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While I don't know how successful this was for them, Blizzard did periodically allow free transfers to less populated worlds throughout WoW's lifespan. I'm not sure if they still do so as I haven't played in awhile, but they did so for several years which suggests at least to some degree that people will transfer. I suspect fewer would do so in FFXIV because of concerns about Housing, though.

Yeah, I'm not sure how successful free transfers to less populated servers will be, but it's better than nothing, I guess.

I do hear of people transferring into Gilgamesh in hopes to get into the raiding scene better, only to find out they don't like it and some even return to their old server.

People not satisfied with Gilgamesh/Balmung or whatever over-populated server they're in can then make the switch with much financial sacrifice. It'll also help if they increase the gil limit to transfer

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Originally Posted by Alahra

I suspect fewer would do so in FFXIV because of concerns about Housing, though.

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The people who actually own housing beyond a FC room are incredibly few compared to the server population though. I can imagine some people actually would want to transfer because of housing, since low-pop servers still have free plots.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

The people who actually own housing beyond a FC room are incredibly few compared to the server population though. I can imagine some people actually would want to transfer because of housing, since low-pop servers still have free plots.

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That's also true. I do think they're going to have to do something about the huge anchor servers in the long run, and I think offering free transfers to other worlds might have some effect. They definitely can't do mergers without significant changes to Housing infrastructure, at any rate, so something like this might be at least a small step they could take to make some changes.

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Originally Posted by Twilite

I wouldn't. Balmung is an overhyped terribad server.

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Yeah everyone stay away. We are all miserable speed runners and market board gougers. When we see a dead person in a zone we just laugh and take out our fat chocobos so they know they were walked over.:p

Oh and we have alot of OLD MMO players so we also complain about back in my day. You had to wait two days for a party as a dark and summoner and it took you 45 mins to get to a spot and it was uphill all the way and you had to fend off the hordes of mobs. When they killed you they took a whole level away to show you who was boss. fun times :cool:

On a somewhat serious note addressing the op. They should maybe make something that attaches to the recruit a friend that has paid X amount of time up front. It seems the only decent thing if you sign up and pay for X amount of months you should be able to play with the recruiter account.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

There should honestly probably be some kind of World Pass system, like FFXI had originally. Initially on that game, you couldn't pick a specific server unless someone gave you a special code (retrieved from an NPC, I think, but it's been a very long time), which would then direct your character to their server at creation.

They could do something similar here and allow someone to give a code to a friend or something, so they can bypass the restriction.

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This worked in FFXI due to the lack of social media. Nowadays, such a system would accomplish nothing. Between twitch streamers, forums, reddit and twitter, the password would be passed around so much, everyone would know it.

And locking heavily populated servers only hurts Square. How likely would friends of yours be to play the game if they had no way of playing with you? This actually happened to me during BnS' launcher, and I know if I couldn't have gotten on the same server as my group. I just wouldn't have played, period.

There needs to be incentives to play on less populated servers instead of trying to bar people from the larger ones.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

This worked in FFXI due to the lack of social media. Nowadays, such a system would accomplish nothing. Between twitch streamers, forums, reddit and twitter, the password would be passed around so much, everyone would know it.

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It was a one time code, so passing it around would have no real benefit. The code itself cost gil, as well, so you couldn't get an infinite number of them. It wasn't a huge sum, but especially early on in the game's life, it was significant. And if gil wouldn't work, some sort of limitation based on time (like one code per day or one per week, or whatever) would work, too.

They either restrict people and enable you to log in when you want.

Or they can let people go wherever they want and have people deal with login queues whenever their server gets to full. And if you played Blade and soul last week you should have fun memories of queues. (if you didn't play BnS picture 1hr+ queues at peak time before being allowed to play FFXIV.)

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.