Petition to Terminate Restrictions on Transfer to “High Population” Servers

[Airget]

6/64 Servers are being temporarily restricted because players are choosing to over-bloat said servers rather than spread out. I see no issue here.

[ExKage]

@Veritas-Ancora: Please consider the fact that perhaps your venue is not unlimited. I commend your community. That's highly impressive. You can't overpack people onto a server. There's soft limits and then there are hard limits. We were all (Balmung, Gilgamesh, Mandragora, Chocobo, and Bahamut) hitting the soft limits, while some are starting to. We're now at the hard limit which I am honestly surprised it took this -long-. We could not keep jamming together. They've finally got more space to do more with the NA data centers. It's honestly time.

I'm here and I'm queer! Right? Please consider that either a) your chosen venue is now not big enough for your group or b) creating a second chapter to accommodate the needs of those who need you. This is the same mentality I am considering for those who much prefer RP in the game. Roleplay has always been secondary to me and so I am just waiting to see if my friends will leave Balmung or not if it is better for the community with the incentives people have for leaving. As it is already stated in another thread, they're starting to come together to discuss what is best for the future roleplayers. I think it would also be the best case scenario and in the best interests of your large community to consider the best alternatives. I don't think have a second chapter, a brother/sister chapter to your group on another server is a bad idea.

[ReplicaX]

100% against this petition and the OP is not considering the ill effects their proposal has on entire player base, due to player caused issues to begin with. Also anyone stating these servers do not effect the health and stability of their data centers is misleading and flat out lying. All servers are tied into other functions and tasked role servers on any given data center. High population servers nearing critical limits add even more stress.

Since ARR release, players and their friends should have branched out across multiple servers, creating their own communities from the ground up. Especially when both servers were hitting critical limits and SE started implementing restrictions, which have been continuing since implementation.

I am glad a few players within these servers have spoke up and are looking into alternate methods. This is truly what needs to happen. These players are looking at the overall picture and health of not only their own communities but others as well.

[Zojha]

Competition is normally considered a good thing as monopolies are pretty terrible for consumers but over supply is terrible for produces as it wipes and the markets.

Business is not sustainable if you're producing below the marginal cost of production for extended periods, that's a market fact. But what is the marginal cost of production in eorzea? Only the time it takes to gather the ingredients and process them plus flight and repair provisions. The latter two can be assigned a value easily, but how do you value time? You can only go by opportunity cost.

That's rather subjective. Imagine someone genuinely enjoys gathering items and crafting something with it. His opportunity cost for doing so is small or even negative, because the value for the time spend gathering and crafting is high, so he can sustain business for as long as the price doesn't fall below the cost for flight and repairs. But someone who would get more enjoyment out of doing other things would quit the market, because for him the opportunity cost is too large.

Unlike in real markets however, said producer can just re-enter the market when the price goes back up, as his facilities have no maintenance cost he needs to cover. Which is also why an aggressive undercutting strategy can have no lasting benefits in the form of market monopoly - Nobody ever needs to close business from a lack of profit, people only choose to because they can't be arsed for that price.

And as such, more competition is only beneficial. But that's unrelated to the topic, so... /huh. The market on Balmung is a helluva lot healthier than most servers.

[Mychael612]

Guys. During Heavensward launch, I never had a queue that last more than 15-20 minutes. And I played religiously though early access and launch. So, I'm not too sure what was wrong for those who said their queues were horrendous.

The issue here is that they've locked down these servers with absolutely no incentive for people to leave. Sure, they upper the caps on gil. But they are essentially telling me that if I want to continue to grow my FC, I need my entire FC to pay $18 to transfer to a low pop server. I call bullshit. They want to cap a server, fine. But then I need them to let me move my entire FC (players, house, workshop, and all) for free.

[Mychael612]

Players are over-bloating said servers because there are established communities here that have been given no viable alternatives for moving.

[Oaken]

As an RPer and fellow Balmung player, I just wanted to state something to non-RPers for the record.

Please do not assume all or most RPers agree with this "petition". Currently, the majority of our community is actually in the middle of having talks about lower pop servers to establish another RP base in (specifically talks about if and when). This might be obvious information to some of you, but to those who have a tendency to cast a net far too wide, I don't want you to be under the impression that all of us throw temper tantrums of this nature. Careful, thought out, and mature steps are being taken to address the concerns this new policy has brought to light.

We're not all misguided, entitled fanatics like the OP.

Thank you.

I will overlook the immature personal attack in your response and address its substance. This is a courtesy rarely afforded on the interwebs. You're welcome.

In reality, the RP community is split in its reaction to the restriction. It falls within a few camps: (1) the indifferent and "wait and see" camp (60% of people); (2) the "let's try for 30th time to do something that has failed every time - create sustainable RP communities on other servers that are something greater than a 20-50 person clique" (20% of people); and (3) the "let's take action to restore the status quo that has worked for over 2 years camp" (20% of people).

I think people are predisposed to either support or oppose the restriction depending on how much they value community. Many believe that community in a MMORPG is essential, and SE has prohibited the community on high population servers from growing. The efforts of RPers to create a viable alternative RP server that is larger than a small clique will likely fail due to disorganization, conflicting personal interests, and a variety of other factors - like it has countless times before.

Most who support the restrictions value playing in pre-established groups and may not care very much about the community at large. They don't realize that the community itself is important to ensuring the long-term health of their groups.

I apologize for being unable to address each and every post in this thread due to time constraints. However, the majority of critical responses are best addressed by pointing out the following:

SE could remedy the supposed over-population problem through a variety of different means that would not potentially harm the communities on high population servers, or at least disclose the date when the restriction will be lifted [see OP for ideas].

[eschaton]

Guys. During Heavensward launch, I never had a queue that last more than 15-20 minutes. And I played religiously though early access and launch. So, I'm not too sure what was wrong for those who said their queues were horrendous.

The issue here is that they've locked down these servers with absolutely no incentive for people to leave. Sure, they upper the caps on gil. But they are essentially telling me that if I want to continue to grow my FC, I need my entire FC to pay $18 to transfer to a low pop server. I call bullshit. They want to cap a server, fine. But then I need them to let me move my entire FC (players, house, workshop, and all) for free.

Don't forget to add "and after they physically moved the server to the other side of the continent" as well. Minor detail there.

[ExKage]

Guys. During Heavensward launch, I never had a queue that last more than 15-20 minutes. And I played religiously though early access and launch. So, I'm not too sure what was wrong for those who said their queues were horrendous.

I'd had hours long tries. :| It was more of a guessing game the first few days as to whether or not I was actually getting in. Many hours of frustration as I kept getting timed out while my roommate didn't have that issue even though I had switched ethernet cables, restarted my computer many times, and re-installed. As time went on the queues stabilized but there was a few days of a ton of frustration.

The issue here is that they've locked down these servers with absolutely no incentive for people to leave. Sure, they upper the caps on gil. But they are essentially telling me that if I want to continue to grow my FC, I need my entire FC to pay $18 to transfer to a low pop server. I call bullshit. They want to cap a server, fine. But then I need them to let me move my entire FC (players, house, workshop, and all) for free.

If you don't, perhaps others will. They're going to make the transfer free to leave for certain worlds. Whether or not you accept these, it's up to you. I highly doubt they will let you keep your actual plot and workshop as they are so I think asking for different incentives is not out of the question.

Bonuses
*Transfers to designated Worlds will be free of charge.
*EXP bonuses will be applied to designated Worlds (up to level 60).
*Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on designated Worlds.
*EXP bonuses will be applied to newly established Worlds (up to level 60).
*Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on newly established Worlds.
*For players who own personal housing, we are planning a number of provisions including a reimbursement for the full price of the estate, and compensation for the cost of furnishings which we will add in subsequent updates moving forward. We also plan to accommodate free companies members that plan to move together with or without a free company estate.

SE could remedy the supposed over-population problem through a variety of different means that would not potentially harm the communities on high population servers, or at least disclose the date when the restriction will be lifted [see OP for ideas].

Just take it as is. It's not indefinite unless the players make it out to be. They will be lifted when the populations are not as high as they are now.

For the record, I am not signing this petition as I think the lock was a long time coming. Do I dislike the lock? Yes, but I think they're right in trying to get people to move to less congested worlds. If you need better incentives, call for them.

[Zojha]

I'm gonna see if you can figure this out.

It's the standard DPS queue.

Coincidence?