Looking for insight on server / worlds.

Hey thanks in advance for the help,

Took a break from XIV in February and came back recently. I've been wasting to much time trying to figure out which server to roll on. The most important thing to me is being on the largest server with an emphasis on NA population and activity during EST evenings to early morning. It seems from census' i did on each server that Balmung has the highest NA prime time playerbase by about 100. Followed by excaliber.

Balmung US prime time Monday - 875 Total 674 US 205 JA
Excal US Prime time Monday - 774 Total 552US 226 JA

Does anyone have unbiased opinions on these servers for longevity or other recommendations? Sorry but not interested in people's personal view that they made friends on such and such server and it's friendly. I'm very scared in all new MMO's of the servers not being able to have enough people to provide the opportunities needed and ghost towns etc. Looking for the highest population specificaly around NA times on a server, Excal did seem to have twice as many shouts in uld for things going on compared to Balmung.

Also I'd like to avoid the unoficial Brazilian server and things like that if possible.
And last will 2.0 come with new servers or server structure or at least an opportunity to xfer again?

Thank you everyone Please help me out with some insight!!!!

longevity? we all change server by 2.0 so it does not really matter anymore where you go I think :)

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

longevity? we all change server by 2.0 so it does not really matter anymore where you go I think :)

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Aye thank you for the reply, it was unclear to me if the new server structure wasn't implemented in March and those are the 2.0 servers just with worldless party added to them in 2.0? Would be good news in the meantime to ease my mind if xfers are in the nearish future. A server in the meantime however?

I think the current servers are staying and they are adding fresh, empty ones for new users (not positive). Eventually, yes server transfers will be able to happen I believe.

The only unbiased thing I can really say is that Balmung was created from Fabul and Besaid. Besaid was the unofficial RP servers, so now Balmung is.

excalibur is a pretty good na population. it was created from 3 of the smaller servers so i would imagine more new player friendly(this is just a guess and not factual). i haven't been on the other servers so i don't know if they are, but i know each of the others were a large server and a smaller one merged.

balmung as mentioned above has the people from the rp server on there. i don't know if you are into rp or not, but if you are that would be the server for you.

ragnarok is the european time zone server so it is a smaller server, but if you are from that side of the world it may be another you can look into.

Thanks for the replies I really appreciate it! I'm US east coast based, I don't RP really myself but I like it going on around me, I did however highlight Balmung purely because it has the largest NA pop at primetime by quite a margin. I'm kind of suprised the highest pop server in this case is also the RP server. Unfortunetly from my experience in other games I feel like RP servers tend to have to many people typing with some kind of drawl and more into doing that then actually doing in game content. On that note I'm asking mostly from a perspective on end game and having as many end game opportunities available as possible (in terms of accomplishing game content). Do either of you from Balmung or Excalibur feel your server gives you on par conditions to accomplish what you see people do on other servers? How wide spread is the RP on Balmung and how does that affect being able to get things in game done if it does at all?

Thanks again!

Not sure what you mean...there are good players and bad players, but that's every server. There is nothing our server can't accomplish though if that's what you mean

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Originally Posted by KaplanHomahru

Not sure what you mean...there are good players and bad players, but that's every server. There is nothing our server can't accomplish though if that's what you mean

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Yea that's what I wanted to know exactly, thank you =)

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Originally Posted by Gwynn

How wide spread is the RP on Balmung and how does that affect being able to get things in game done if it does at all?

Thanks again!

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Unless you go out of your way to find it, you won't even notice it. The most you'll be 'lucky' to bump into is some people just chatting in 'Say' in one of the guild rooms. As far as in 'parties' the most you might see is some people being 'in character' with regard to their personality (pretending to be kitten like, complaining about the weather, etc.) but nothing that has any impact on battles, nor will you feel pressured to join in.

balmung is partially so large because of the way the merge was done. they merged servers and then allowed limited transferring out due to limited space on the other servers. i guess you could say it's probably closer to 30% rpers once you figure not all of the rp server were rpers and the other server was not a rp server. it would be a fun server to be on, but i've met people from multiple servers that i can say i would have fun with.

i don't think you would have issues on any of the servers as far as trying to get end game done since the merge honestly. if you had asked before the merge there would have been many servers we could have warned you to avoid due to low populations.

aye thank you everyone, all the replies were amazingly helpful, vastly exceeded the amount of information I was expecting to get out of this post. I'm happy and appreciate the help, I'll checking tho and welcome anymore input people might have.