How is Crystal data center?

I’m on primal at the moment and I’ve been considering transferring to Crystal to get closer to the RP scene.
When the split first happened everyone was complaining about bad que times. But not a lot of discussion nowadays.

Also are any of the non congested servers into RP at all? Since Balmung and Mateus are hard to get into

From my experience, most of the servers have RP. Some you have to look for, others you can walk into the adventurer's guild. (beware! XD)
Remember, world visit is a thing, so even if you can't find any on your server, you can always visit Balmung and Mateus to join their RP as well.


In my experience, there is always something going on. I just wish people would utilize Lodestone more to promote their events so I can search for them better.

How are duty que times?

Tank/Healer pretty quick.
DPS - depends on the time of day. I've had times where its instant need for DPS, and others where I'm off doing fairy quests, crafting, or some misc in between.

Queue times are fine. Did take a bit of time to try and queue for Nier this morning but it was really early so i switched to Aether and got the duty relatively fast with another alt but over all I have no trouble doing content on Crystal. I have a number of level 80 alts on Balmung. Both Balmung and Mateus are locked but with world transfer you can visit either sever. I don't know about the role play on other servers in the data center.

You might want to consider housing availability on other servers in the data center if that is something you want. Balmung was completely sold out in all districts this morning when I checked with a friend who would like to buy a house. That I might add includes all the new wards. Pretty sad when new housing is sold out even before offering it up for private sales.

Edit: BTW both Balmung and Mateus are locked to new characters at the moment.

I generally play DPS and queue times are usually in the 10 minute to 20 minute range, so not instant but not bad if you've got other stuff to take care of in the background like Beast Tribes, Gathering, Challenge Logs or whatever.

Healers and Tanks are always in need on Crystal. Balmung and Mateus? Wouldn't hold your breath on those being open anytime soon. Just bite the bullet and transfer and visit those two. More importantly, the people here are very nice! :D

Doing anything endgame is harder then other servers as the raid scene here has been neutered. The general overall skill here is lower as compared to when I was on Aether as well.

If you can, shoot for Balmung. If you want a house, shoot anywhere but Balmung and Mateus.

I've met some of the nicest and most considerate players on Balmung, and with a character on Ultros (and witnessing the sham they call RP) trust me, it'll be a whole world different and better for it. As for world visit, it's also instant. I have never had to wait to get on Mateus or Balmung. Logging in, the strongest walls will happen on expansion launch. At most a queue of like 10-29 people on a Saturday night.

You can do everything you can on Aether or on Primal. You just need patience. A lot of patience especially if you pug for endgame stuff.

Not sure if this helps or not........

I am not really into the raiding scene, so I cannot comment on that unfortunately, however I can attest to most everyone I have encountered from Crystal has been very nice, and the overall experience has been pleasant:)

Aether might be the better option if you're into raiding. But I would look into finding or putting together a static raid team over joining random parties.
As for the casual player I think it would be safe to say there is not many differences across data centres, it is very miniscule in difference I would say.
Although we have our glorious Balmung and Mateus :p

You can still raid here but most of our raiding scene jumped ship with the server changes and we haven't quite been able to recover since. Party finder is still active however and so long as you have patience you'll be able to do pretty much anything you could on both Aether and Primal. Personally speaking having played on both Aether and Crystal the people here tend to be more laid back and nicer.

As for RP just pick a server that seems nice and world visit for the rest. The RP scene isn't restricted to any single server anymore so you can be on Goblin, which is small but does have an RP scene, and still hop over to Mateus or Balmung to join in on their events.

If you're mostly after RP, it's fine. Though I left recently because the amount of players who were into a broader range of activities dwindled significantly after the server move. You're also highly unlikely to be able to get a house on either Balmung or Mateus. I did also encounter a hefty amount of players prone to drama and flaky, unreliable behaviour during the years that I played there. It was the ping that drove me away more than anything though.

Crystal is fine unless you prefer to raid late-night.

Statics that want to start around midnight-ish EST are basically impossible to find and party finder for EX trials / Savage is sleepy at night as well.


the amount of bad in roulettes and party finder are pretty much what you'll find elsewhere, though. I've had as many garbage runs on Aether as I have on Crystal, theres just more people at each end on Aether.

Balmung has been great for RP, I moved here from Gilgamesh aaages ago. But as folks are saying world visit is such a huge benefit to RP. Then add crossworld linkshells and fellowships, which RP communities are using, it's easier to keep in touch with the community as a whole. There's also Discords for the Crystal data centre dedicated to RP as well as a service that advertises RP social events happening each day in a week. Balmung and Mateus are the bigger RP servers, but I've RP'd with people from Malboro and Goblin. There's loads of RP fellowships out there too and many you can join at once.

The data centre itself, in terms of the quality of people, I've not noticed a difference when Balmung moved from Aether to Crystal, most people I come across are nice enough.

I think if you're RPing on Balmung you're less likely to encounter trolls simply because the majority of people there are RPers, those who aren't don't tend to be a-holes about it and it has been the unofficial RP server since before 2.0 was launched so it has meant people who don't like RPers for the most part have long since left. I don't know what Mateus is like for it in comparison.

Also, due to the population of places like Balmung and Mateus, queue times aren't all that bad in my experience, but I play all 3 roles, so the experience is lesser in 2 of the roles.

I really like Crystal personally. I've been on Malboro for 3+ years and it's great.

The raid scene isn't as strong as it once was but will continue to grow slowly. If you have friends or an FC you can still savage raid fine and I see pug groups up all the time. Ex trials are fine as well. I also notice that on Crystal, prog parties seem to stick together longer than what I've experienced on primal for example. Meaning that after a wipe or two, the party just isn't going to disband which can be annoying.

The hunt scene is also great on Crystal. Malboro has a great hunt community and Crystal overall is really good.

I don't RP but I always here good things and I have a few friends who do and they enjoy it.

Also, if housing is your thing, you're more likely to find housing on Crystal which is really nice and can also play into your RP goals.

I like Crystal I've been in Malboro since the start of 2.0 and been there ever since. Malboro has really good hunt train to it if into hunts. I never have much for problems with raids. Crystal also has a huge RP community if into that.

I was on Gilgamesh in 2.0 and moved to Zalera when is was created before it was moved to Crystal in the split.

I like that the community often has some chill RP experiences going on you can participate in without too much need to find specific people.

I will say it has been hard for me to find any active and persistent IC RP in Linkshells or Fellowships though.

It's great since I'm here. :)

After a series of FCs that severely didn't suit me this expansion, I've actually transfered through every single data server since SB came out, in one cases onto two different realms...

My experience has been that all the datacenters are about the same. But the Crystal folks do have a slight chip on their shoulders... All the "OMG they're just RPers that suck" has led to me finding just a few more people in DF there than elsewhere that feel they need to 'prove something' and bring a little more 'this is serious business' attitude to the groups. It's the only datacenter I left because the FCs I tried were all way more 'hardcore' than they claimed...

But as I said at the outset, the difference is actually extremely small... As I found once I left Crystal.

From what I have experienced since the split... not a whole lot has changed since we were all Aether. My server has grown and we're a pretty relaxed group I would say. NN isn't necessarily a global chat, we do help new players if they have questions or issues. Contrary to what people say we do have raiding statics and get clears like everyone else. On my server you don't see tons of RP, but it's there if you know where to ask.

The only thing is Mateus sometimes takes raiding/clears super seriously; which many of us find amusing in an odd way. Think of Crystal not necessarily as the RP data center, but the more casual/laid back one.

Personally, I find RP detestable, and think you're all a bunch of weirdos. That being said, RP on Mateus is (unfortunately) strong. There's damn near always something going on, regardless of the time of day. And little... "events", occur with some regularity. If you'd prefer not to be drowned in a clusterf-- bunch of text I'd avoid the Adventurer's Guild in Uldah. Don't normally see people giving the RPers crap, unless they're Erping in /say or /shout or Satan forbid NN. 'bout every month or so you'll see the old timers go on about how the server was better when it was dead and everyone knew each other. (I'm one of those people). If you're into raiding, the Cross world stuff made that easy, but like someone already said, midnightish things start to slow down. And yes, some of the people here are serious about raiding, and yes, some will throw a fit if you suck at the game. Housing is.. probably the same as every other server? I think we might have some smalls left, but that'd probably be it. Anyway, just pick a server and visit whichever one you want.