Let me clear up some mis-information going around about Balmung. Yes it is closed for character creation almost 24/7 now due to it's popularity. If there is a maintenance coming up soon, you can wait until right before or after maintenance to create a character. At this time the server should be open. You just have to make sure you time it right. If you would like to get onto Balmung much quicker though, if you pay the $18 character transfer fee, you should get on Balmung that same day. It does not play by the same rules as the character creation system. About 3 weeks ago I paid to get my wife's character transferred to Balmung and within 5 minutes she was transferred. This is subject to change but I haven't seen anyone have issues with this.

Secondly I'd like to point out that the queue to get into Balmung is not bad at all. Most I have seen was 76, but that was immediately after a server crash so a lot of people were getting back in. It took about 5 mins to get in with 76 in the queue too. So for 99% of the time if you do get a queue to log into Balmung, you're waiting maybe 2 minutes max to get in as it should only be 2-20.

lastly the lag. I haven't experienced a ton of actual server lag. Yes you get server lag every once in awhile, but it is on rare occasion and not a regular thing. Most people i hear complaining have issues on their end and not SE's.

So I hope this clears up any questions people have about Balmung. If you have any more let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. I've been on this server since it was first created, so I am a good source. ^.^