[Balmung] Server Issues, safety, and overcrowding

[Dyvid]

Free World Transfers

As for the ESRB, the catch all is ""Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB" - Warns those who intend to play the game online about possible exposure to chat (text, audio, video) or other types of user-generated content (e.g., maps, skins) that have not been considered in the ESRB rating assignment."

[SaitoHikari]

Realistically, what can the devs do? People like to bring up discontinuing incoming transfers while offering free outgoing transfers as a solution, though I wonder even if it were free how many people would actually go? I came to Balmung because it had a huge population. I'm not going back to a smaller server willingly lol

You'd be surprised. Communities change over time. There are probably a significant amount of people in Balmung that have been on the server for a very long time that don't enjoy what the server has turned into, but the main roadblock for them transferring out is the fact that there's a fee for doing so - and getting all of their friends to pay said fee is problematic, and quite frankly not happening.

Balmung has this awkward mythical status that is frankly toxic to the Aether data center as a whole, which is only further cemented by the fact that character creation is so limited. The way the staff is handling it so far is quite frankly poor. If it continues to exist as is, the server is going to continue draining the population of other servers. I imagine the last thing they'd want in the future is for new players to pick a server at random only to not run into much of anyone, and think that it is representative of the health of the game as a whole. Then if they do any research at all, they find out that 30-35% of Aether data center's community is concentrated in one data center that's nigh impossible to join without forking over an additional fee. Of course, people would argue that 'lol who doesn't do their research on what server to join?' Well, a lot of people in this very community don't even attempt to research how to actually play the game effectively, with people falling over themselves on the forum to justify their right to play poorly, so I wouldn't hold new players responsible for that either.

We already did see something like this happen on a smaller but far more easily measurable scale to the raiding community, due to how quickly it happened - as a result of Gordias, many raiders decided Gilgamesh would be the unofficial raiding server and mass transferred, outright killing the raiding community in many underpopulated servers, to the point where running Extreme content was outright impossible to organize in said servers. SE responded by making the failed Raid Finder, before coming up with the cross server PF. Gilgamesh is a highly populated server too, but it somehow manages to exist without the issues that Balmung has.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

I'm okay with Balmung being a cesspool mainly because it keeps those people away from other servers.

[Lexia]

You'd be surprised. Communities change over time. There are probably a significant amount of people in Balmung that have been on the server for a very long time that don't enjoy what the server has turned into, but the main roadblock for them transferring out is the fact that there's a fee for doing so - and getting all of their friends to pay said fee is problematic, and quite frankly not happening.

Well I was placed on Balmung in 2.0 from when played 1.0, I probably would of switch servers at the start but couldn't do to the can't transfer off a legacy to no legacy server. Now this late into the game I will most likely never transfer away from balmung as there too many restrictions. I would lose most my gil and house I have which is most likely one of the rarest things to have in this game (especially if you on balmung).

[ErikMynhier]

You'd be surprised. Communities change over time. There are probably a significant amount of people in Balmung that have been on the server for a very long time that don't enjoy what the server has turned into, but the main roadblock for them transferring out is the fact that there's a fee for doing so - and getting all of their friends to pay said fee is problematic, and quite frankly not happening.

Balmung has this awkward mythical status that is frankly toxic to the Aether data center as a whole, which is only further cemented by the fact that character creation is so limited. The way the staff is handling it so far is quite frankly poor. If it continues to exist as is, the server is going to continue draining the population of other servers. I imagine the last thing they'd want in the future is for new players to pick a server at random only to not run into much of anyone, and think that it is representative of the health of the game as a whole. Then if they do any research at all, they find out that 30-35% of Aether data center's community is concentrated in one data center that's nigh impossible to join without forking over an additional fee. Of course, people would argue that 'lol who doesn't do their research on what server to join?' Well, a lot of people in this very community don't even attempt to research how to actually play the game effectively, with people falling over themselves on the forum to justify their right to play poorly, so I wouldn't hold new players responsible for that either.

We already did see something like this happen on a smaller but far more easily measurable scale to the raiding community, due to how quickly it happened - as a result of Gordias, many raiders decided Gilgamesh would be the unofficial raiding server and mass transferred, outright killing the raiding community in many underpopulated servers, to the point where running Extreme content was outright impossible to organize in said servers. SE responded by making the failed Raid Finder, before coming up with the cross server PF. Gilgamesh is a highly populated server too, but it somehow manages to exist without the issues that Balmung has.

I have to say to this there are a lot of social problems on Balmung. I for one have experienced them myself in the form of people judging me based on my personal beliefs and worse by heresay. That said, like in my earlier post, literally "that's life in the big city [server]". That said I do agree that there needs to be some options because a paywall is a real thing and if the server that never sleeps isn't for you... well its your sub and you should be happy, even if you can't afford a transfer.

I think a good compromise to avoid abuse is a yearly free transfer. That way if you aren't liking where you are you can try another but it will limit RMT guys just hopping from server to server.

For myself I love Balmung despite its issues and would never leave.

[ToasterMan]

Separate servers really should be a thing of the past at this point

[Hyrist]

I have to say to this there are a lot of social problems on Balmung. I for one have experienced them myself in the form of people judging me based on my personal beliefs and worse by heresay. That said, like in my earlier post, literally "that's life in the big city [server]". That said I do agree that there needs to be some options because a paywall is a real thing and if the server that never sleeps isn't for you... well its your sub and you should be happy, even if you can't afford a transfer.

I think a good compromise to avoid abuse is a yearly free transfer. That way if you aren't liking where you are you can try another but it will limit RMT guys just hopping from server to server.

For myself I love Balmung despite its issues and would never leave.

I'm going to have to check the idea that Balmung is especially bad when it comes to social problems. Truth of the matter is, drama is just drama and it occurs everywhere. The 'social problems' are byproducts of having a high, condense population with a unifying concept, such as Roleplaying or Raiding, or PvP. Interpersonal dramas often spill out due to people having interlocking social circles and a natural aversion to encountering more problems.

The fact that Balmung 'seems to' have social issues is, honestly, it is a more social server than most - which I think you and I both agree is a net positive. I think trying to point out social issues on Balmung as an isolated problem is erroneous in comparison to addressing online social problems as a broader scope. That's like saying the forums here are hostile without noticing that pretty much every official gaming forum in an MMO has hostility issues. It's a symptom of a larger problem, and in order to properly address the symptom, we have to acknowledge and work with the larger issues.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

What incentive is there for Balmung players to transfer? Even setting aside the fee, you'll potentially lose gil and your house all to move to another server without a fraction of the population. Although I actually do RP on occasion, it's the sheer social interaction that keeps me on heavily populated servers. The only other one I'd consider is Gilgamesh-- the second larger server. I don't want to be passing through major cities in-game only to scarcely bump into anyone. And what issues does Balmung have over Greg? Both are fairly close in population. The only difference is their respective mentalities. Nevertheless, SE has no real way of forcing people into lower pop servers. If they did close Balmung and Gilgamesh, it restricts people from those servers convincing friends to play.

I have to say to this there are a lot of social problems on Balmung. I for one have experienced them myself in the form of people judging me based on my personal beliefs and worse by heresay.

And on Gilgamesh, you would be judged on your FFlog parses. Larger communities simply attract those kinds of people. Due to its social and RP appeal, Balmung has more than a few from tumblr, which brings in its own... opinions to put things politely. You're always going to have someone judge you for superficial things. It just seems more commonplace on Balmung because the server population is massive compared to one half.

[ErikMynhier]

I'm going to have to check the idea that Balmung is especially bad when it comes to social problems. Truth of the matter is, drama is just drama and it occurs everywhere. The 'social problems' are byproducts of having a high, condense population with a unifying concept, such as Roleplaying or Raiding, or PvP. Interpersonal dramas often spill out due to people having interlocking social circles and a natural aversion to encountering more problems.

The fact that Balmung 'seems to' have social issues is, honestly, it is a more social server than most - which I think you and I both agree is a net positive. I think trying to point out social issues on Balmung as an isolated problem is erroneous in comparison to addressing online social problems as a broader scope. That's like saying the forums here are hostile without noticing that pretty much every official gaming forum in an MMO has hostility issues. It's a symptom of a larger problem, and in order to properly address the symptom, we have to acknowledge and work with the larger issues.

I'm not saying these issues are a Balmung thing, but a big server issue. My metaphor of a big city was suppose to show that drama is a big server issue no matter the name. And yes I do think its a net gain as you say. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

[Aramina]

I'm not saying these issues are a Balmung thing, but a big server issue. My metaphor of a big city was suppose to show that drama is a big server issue no matter the name. And yes I do think its a net gain as you say. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

I believe his/her point was it is NOT a big server/big city issue, it is a people issue. You are just seeing it as more frequent because there are more people.