Coming back after 6 months

[Keydah]

Balmung is locked because everyone on the planet wants to be there apparently. I personally don't understand the fascination with having to be on the biggest, most overrun server, but everyone else does. The server can only let so many characters in. If you try to make your character in the pre-dawn to early morning hours (anywhere from 3-7am, I've seen) you could have some luck. You can, however, also make your characters on another server and transfer them to Balmung - it bypasses the lock.

No, your characters don't share the same last name. You can buy a name change from the Mog Station, though, but you don't need to because you're making new characters. There are no special perks to marriage except the actual eternal bonding ceremony and having a ring that lets you teleport directly to the spouse. Houses and such are still only ownable and accessible (modification wise) by the person who buys them. Not an issue at all for those of us who live with our SOs, though, as we can just place stuff on their computer.