Personality of servers?

I've asked this before, but for the sake of not necro-ing an old thread, whats the main purpose of the community for the clusters? I know Crystal was more casual and Aether was more raid heavy if I remember correctly, but what about Primal?

Thinking of a possible transfer over to Primal to play with some old friends, but Behemoth/Excalibur are the only available servers. I know with world visiting this part is kind of moot, but what about them? I'm just not looking to dive into a hostile environment.

General consensus seem to be:

• Aether: Raiding.
• Primal: PvPing.
• Crystal: Roleplaying.

The reality however is:

• Aether: Mind your own business and become the nastiest human being when someone mentions your DPS or inability to do a speed run.
• Primal: Nobody really talks about you, so you're kinda just there.
• Crystal: "Ya'll casuals suck. Learn not to be so bad. I'm transferring to Aether.".

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Originally Posted by Lity

I've asked this before, but for the sake of not necro-ing an old thread, whats the main purpose of the community for the clusters? I know Crystal was more casual and Aether was more raid heavy if I remember correctly, but what about Primal?

Thinking of a possible transfer over to Primal to play with some old friends, but Behemoth/Excalibur are the only available servers. I know with world visiting this part is kind of moot, but what about them? I'm just not looking to dive into a hostile environment.

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I'm on Excalibur. I don't know how primal compares to the other data centers, but I have had a good time here; I consider Primal home. Server personality? I don't know really, seems about like every other american server I have been in with people making jokes. A lot of people with dumb names like mine are here, and you see a lot of cat girls and stuff emoting in hubs - I consider that normal though. Haven't been harassed or noticed a hostile environment, I do get the odd whisper here and there from people catcalling my character (no joke). Zones are active, and hunt trains are daily. Fates trains have kind of died out since launch of ShB. You'll still get a handful of people doing them most of the time in zones.

It’s a mix of Aether and Crystal. We raid and ERP.

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Originally Posted by Lity

I've asked this before, but for the sake of not necro-ing an old thread

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Just bump the old thread. They don’t expire and this isn’t some 16 year olds personal forums with ridiculously paradoxical rules in place.

I'm on Primal (Leviathan) and there are a mix of people. The majority seem to be nice. There are both casual and raid groups, FCs and Linkshells. There are some who like to sit in town and chat. I run an FC and LS for helping newer people get things done. I've had no problems with duty finder pts. At least none that I have left or been kicked. We're not much for role playing. I don't know who decided we ignore people but that's very far from true. There are Hunt groups by the dozen. I love it here.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

• Crystal: Roleplaying.

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I second this, I’ve been in Brynhildr (Crystal) for over a month now and have definitely noticed more RP’rs than my time in Aether. Just a few days ago in the Balmung Quicksand (adventures guild) it was bloody PACKED with what I’m pretty sure was RP’rs

Since the server changes and the current data centers breaking some worlds apart for other data centers (some of aether's servers went to crystal), I have noticed a huge difference between Aether, Primal and Crystal. I'm not really gonna mention RP, cause most of the servers from Crystal are there already, and were an given.

Aether Data center - As someone pointed out focuses on raiding, but they also focus on content in general. I see just about anything and everything, and players adapting more and more. So everything seems to feel faster (but this has always been aethers players since 2.0).

Crystal Data center - This DC Seems to have the exact opposite. This includes watching tanks. Tanks are (for some odd reason) too scared to pull more than 1 pack at a time (this is coming from players with savage gear too), which comes as a bit of a shock. I see dps players doing single rotations more than aoe's too. Everything feels slower or longer on Crystal in terms of just battle based content.

Primal Data Center - Players are just in the middle. They're not so far left of the scale, and not so far right of the scale either. So it's hit or miss, but consistent.

These are all observations playing DPS and tanks from all 3 data centers since shb release. This could just be me, but could also just be about 100% more new players (since shb hype release), and will adjust after the new players leave or get tired of the content (which happens around 5.1-5.3).

Still, I plan to bring my main back to aether, as I'm used to a moree fast paced player base (which I see as aether), but sadly need to wait the 60+ days after xferring to crystal right before shb T_T.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

General consensus seem to be:

• Aether: Raiding.
• Primal: PvPing.
• Crystal: Roleplaying.

The reality however is:

• Aether: Mind your own business and become the nastiest human being when someone mentions your DPS or inability to do a speed run.
• Primal: Nobody really talks about you, so you're kinda just there.
• Crystal: "Ya'll casuals suck. Learn not to be so bad. I'm transferring to Aether.".

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Primal needs to be: Nobody really talks to you, so you're just kinda there.

Ultros is memes, memes golly more reddit and memes. Plus an added obsession with ERP and egg shell delicate personalities you wouldn't think you'd just run into, but they are ironically what people joked Balmung to be. A very loud, very vocal minority though.

From personal experience, Aether has a more...friendly vibe. As Gula said, Primal is generally quiet, cold even, and when someone speaks it's to trash talk someone else (in an I'm kidding bro kinda way). At leas that's the general feeling I get whenever I play there.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

General consensus seem to be:

• Aether: Raiding.
• Primal: PvPing.
• Crystal: Roleplaying.

The reality however is:

• Aether: Mind your own business and become the nastiest human being when someone mentions your DPS or inability to do a speed run.
• Primal: Nobody really talks about you, so you're kinda just there.
• Crystal: "Ya'll casuals suck. Learn not to be so bad. I'm transferring to Aether.".

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I heard Primal is a mix of both.
Maybe it's just the "We do whatever honestly" server.

I find Crystal lax as everyone else said.
Friendly imo. RPers are actually really nice.

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Originally Posted by Mikhaill

I heard Primal is a mix of both.
Maybe it's just the "We do whatever honestly" server.

I find Crystal lax as everyone else said.
Friendly imo. RPers are actually really nice.

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Roleplay is a highly social activity. You're writing with all kinds of strangers and building fun things together. When on Crystal, I find it very easy to meet new people and socialize with people just idling. When I played on other non RP worlds, especially Primal, I feel like I'm interrupting someone and there's usually a different mood around hub areas.

I think the title is misleading cause I think OP means data centers not servers.

If we go by that, Balmung would be that family member who works the corner even during a family reunion that is going on right behind them and tries to get others to join in either through words or grabbing their wrist and bringing them along (like the Mateus Aunt who always had interest in joining in but never had the courage).

I don't do a lot of interacting with people outside of duties, and generally there's less tryhards on Crystal, but there's also people that just sit down in duties while everyone else does the work and then they roleplay walk to the exit. They're always actually RPers, too. They seem to have trouble understanding when to chat and when to pay attention to the fight.

Balmung, at least, used to have a 'big city' vibe to it. There was something for everybody here and although that is still true to an extent the years have not been kind to my server and a lot of people have moved elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

From personal experience, Aether has a more...friendly vibe.

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On Aether myself and I wouldn't necessarily say it's a friendly vibe. That, I think it's because you're on Faerie. Playerbase there seems to be just very nice and filled with all the DC's cinnamon rolls. I've had a fair amount of people being unfriendly towards one another ever since ShB was launched.

I talked about this with a couple of friends and I believe because everybody keeps spreading the mindset of "If you wanna raid go to aether", other DCs end up coming off as less skilled or overall less prepared/engaged into endgame activity. There's so many people that go to Aether thinking Party/Duty finder will be the best thing after sliced bread and end up disappointed because it's not what they expected at all. While I do agree that Primal as a more "cold" vibe to it, I'd say it's because people there seem to be very "I mind my own business", while Aether seem to like picking up fights on Alliance Raid with passive aggressiveness for no reason. Just my personal experience from being on both DCs, though.

No idea how Crystal works/is.
Regardless, we can all agree that "Friendly, drama free FC" is a trap and we should all avoid them at all costs.

I just know Behemoth is the " /Slap a SAM and we disband" server.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Ultros, the tentacle server, is a giant meme.

In all seriousness, Primal is great. I've gotten to play with some incredibly talented people. DF is almost always super chill, too.

I think the different data centers have less difference than people think.

Yes it is true that RPers congregated on Balmung because you need to have others of like mind around you to do RP. But it has also long been a hotspot just because it was big - and so attracted a lot of other types of players as well.

Now that I am on Crystal I have some some extremely hardcore raiding types show up in Party Finder hailing from Crystal. I have also met extreme casuals back when I was on Aether.

I think it really just boils down to whatever server you happen to first find a group of people you can along with on.

I don't think there are really that many differences between the data centers. Like people say, Crystal has Mateus and Balmung for roleplaying, and Aether may have a larger base going after raid content, but largely I feel they're all practically the same.

I don't plan to ever move my main from Excalibur because this server is largely very chill. It's good to see people shooting the shit every so often, though I'd prefer it to happen far more often than it does. Many people playing MMOs these days don't care about the communication aspects promoted.

I would argue it's all a bit of confirmation bias, or self-fulfilling prophecy, or anything of the sort. Whatever you want to seek out, you'll probably find it anywhere you look. But players think/expect they ought to go to a particular server/data center for a particular thing, and, what do you know, they find the thing they were looking for. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have found it on any other server/data center. They're all comprised of large groups of people with varied interests.

Brynhildr? We're like a bunch of meme lords who just want to have a field day whenever we're not busy doing stuff. But when we have our bad days, we like to yell. Nothing personal.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

General consensus seem to be:

• Aether: Raiding.
• Primal: PvPing.
• Crystal: Roleplaying.

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I have no idea where you're getting this info from. As someone who does PVP on Primal and Aether, Aether's PVP scene is generally regarded as better than Primal's, Primal is just "watered down" Aether in every aspect. Aether has always been more centralized for hardcore raiders and FCs, which also translates into a generally larger population of hardcore players in both PVE and PVP.

Your experience will likely not be too different regardless of if you play on Primal or Aether, though, since many of the hardcore players from either DC play on both of them, if you are playing at that level. It's pretty safe to say Primal and Aether are functionally the same.

Crystal is in a really bad place right now since most of the veteran players jumped ship to stay in statics or migrated to established servers on Aether and Primal. Playing on Crystal would be significantly different than the other two due to the disproportionate number of casual players to raiders left on it.

As far as specific servers on Primal and Aether, just avoid Behemoth or Gilgamesh if you don't want to deal with running into Dunning-Kruger type toxicity.

Spriggan: Cool, laid back, 'lets group and kill everything' kind of people.

I've never visited the other data centers, so I only got impressions of our various servers here in Aether.

I won't go into the ones that I have a negative impression of because I'm not looking to start fights, but I always got the impression that Cactuar is the party server. They're usually the ones joking around and making both my duties and Eureka chat not just memorable, but fun.

Primal used to be the casual datacenter, but crystal took that from us. Now we are just the middle child who is generally fine but just kinda here

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Originally Posted by Doozer

I don't do a lot of interacting with people outside of duties, and generally there's less tryhards on Crystal, but there's also people that just sit down in duties while everyone else does the work and then they roleplay walk to the exit. They're always actually RPers, too. They seem to have trouble understanding when to chat and when to pay attention to the fight.

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I've been on Bal a while now after transferring from Gilgamesh and have never seen this.

(Yes, once I realized I had no place among the hardcore I joined my people.)

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Originally Posted by Doozer

I don't do a lot of interacting with people outside of duties, and generally there's less tryhards on Crystal, but there's also people that just sit down in duties while everyone else does the work and then they roleplay walk to the exit. They're always actually RPers, too. They seem to have trouble understanding when to chat and when to pay attention to the fight.

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Been on Crystal meth for awhile and I've never in all my roulettes or spam for Shisui gear seen people RP through a dungeon. If anything, I've seen it on Primal exactly once in the Twinning of all places. And even still, he ran with the group despite being an overall bad player that kept futzing mechanics on the final boss.

Mal is casual. Public RP is pointed and laughed at. We didn't choose to leave Primal.

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Originally Posted by savageink

Mal is casual. Public RP is pointed and laughed at. We didn't choose to leave Primal.

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Why, though? What is public RP doing to you?

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Originally Posted by Gula

Been on Crystal meth for awhile and I've never in all my roulettes or spam for Shisui gear seen people RP through a dungeon. If anything, I've seen it on Primal exactly once in the Twinning of all places. And even still, he ran with the group despite being an overall bad player that kept futzing mechanics on the final boss.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I've been on Bal a while now after transferring from Gilgamesh and have never seen this.

(Yes, once I realized I had no place among the hardcore I joined my people.)

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I'm starting to think people are making this up just to join the "I haet Bawlmahng/ReePeers!" group.
I've been in Balmung since 2.0. Not once, in my life, have I ever seen this.

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Originally Posted by savageink

Mal is casual. Public RP is pointed and laughed at. We didn't choose to leave Primal.

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Then move to Primal? Lmao? Instead of acting like...that, and being rude to RPers?
Just a thought.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

Why, though? What is public RP doing to you?

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annoying me. isn't it obvious.

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Originally Posted by Mikhaill

Then move to Primal? Lmao? Instead of acting like...that, and being rude to RPers?
Just a thought.

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We were here first. You leave.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

Why, though? What is public RP doing to you?

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People don't understand it, therefore it's geh and an object for easy ridicule.

Speaking as someone from that mentality, it's a product of immaturity and an easy target to gang up on and bully because such and such's cool friend was pointing and laughing first.

Though to this day I have mixed feelings because despite enjoying RP, it makes me cringe when seeing people who paid for a sub+jump potion just to stand around the Quicksands and treat XIV like Second Life.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I've been on Bal a while now after transferring from Gilgamesh and have never seen this.

(Yes, once I realized I had no place among the hardcore I joined my people.)

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Originally Posted by Gula

Been on Crystal meth for awhile and I've never in all my roulettes or spam for Shisui gear seen people RP through a dungeon. If anything, I've seen it on Primal exactly once in the Twinning of all places. And even still, he ran with the group despite being an overall bad player that kept futzing mechanics on the final boss.

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Yesterday I was farming MSQ trials for new player bonuses so I could do some Anima stuff, and in both The Chrysalis and Singularity Reactor we had at least one person just monologuing the entire time while sitting down during important mechanics. Doesn't matter if the content is super easy now, they're expected to pull their weight. And whenever I examined them, sure enough, they were roleplayers. I've never seen it on other data centers anywhere nearly as much. I don't care enough to switch data centers, since I'm used to carrying people anyway, but it's still irritating.

Like, twice in one day isn't a random anecdote treated as overarching fact. It's not the first time, either.

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Originally Posted by Gula

People don't understand it, therefore it's geh and an object for easy ridicule.

Speaking as someone from that mentality, it's a product of immaturity and an easy target to gang up on and bully because such and such's cool friend was pointing and laughing first.

Though to this day I have mixed feelings because despite enjoying RP, it makes me cringe when seeing people who paid for a sub+jump potion just to stand around the Quicksands and treat XIV like Second Life.

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I tried Second Life once... It definitely was not what I expected it to be and left there in record time.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Yesterday I was farming MSQ trials for new player bonuses so I could do some Anima stuff, and in both The Chrysalis and Singularity Reactor we had at least one person just monologuing the entire time while sitting down during important mechanics. Doesn't matter if the content is super easy now, they're expected to pull their weight. And whenever I examined them, sure enough, they were roleplayers. I've never seen it on other data centers anywhere nearly as much. I don't care enough to switch data centers, since I'm used to carrying people anyway, but it's still irritating.

Like, twice in one day isn't a random anecdote treated as overarching fact. It's not the first time, either.

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I was on balmung for 4 years, until free transfers off, went to mateus for housing. I don't rp, never have, never will. Didn't know rpers were moving to mateus.

I have over 9000, that's right, nine thousand, completed instances. I have never encountered people rping in a dungeon. My friends have encountered it once. In almost 6 years. Once.

In my almost 15000 hours of playtime, I have only encountered odd public rp twice, on balmung, and that was near bronze lake and the hot springs.

I don't go to the rp hubs as I have no need to, and for the most part I see very little out in the wild.


It's pretty rare I would think, most rpers keep that stuff to preformed parties.

I've been on balmung since its conception, I've never seen PUG rp in dungeons... so I think it must be a fairly rare occurrence. Then with over 9000 above me, lol well done mate, I really think it must be rare. Not saying your experience isn't real just that I'm not confident rp in PUG/DF is even sort of the norm. Maybe it's just very specific contents have it more, never in my own roulette though.

The only time I've heard of RP in dungeons is when the party is pre-formed with no opportunity for randoms to join in. Even that is extremely rare due in part to the instance timer, which limits how long you can be in the dungeon. Anyone who has seriously RP'd before knows RP can take hours of time on a good day and while many people I know have expressed a desire to go into a dungeon (unsync'd mind, and only with fellow RPers who agreed ahead of time) none of them are actually willing to put up with the hassle. No one has time to get to a good point in a dungeon, RP it out, then be kicked out by the timer and have to enter the dungeon /again/ and clear it out /again/.

Every time I hear of people screaming about RP in dungeons I can't help but feel like they ended up with trolls, rather than actual RPers. RPers get harassed enough as it is, most of us wouldn't willingly put ourselves into situations to invite disdain from other players. Hell I don't even RP out of party when I'm out of the housing ward, because I'd rather the ground swallow me whole than having my writing judged by someone with potentially ill intentions. Are there likely a few bad eggs out there stupid enough to do it? Oh I don't doubt it. Are they even 1% of the population? Unlikely.

That said I like Crystal. Yes things are a touch more casual here by virtue of the data center split and the mad, panicked dash many made towards Aether. Which hilariously caused a self-fulfilling prophecy but I digress. However people are generally pretty nice here and I haven't had any major problems that weren't present back before Aether was shattered. Some people are still awful, most people are still good to be around, etc.