Transfer Restrictions and Roleplayers

[MomomiMomi]

The restrictions remained unenforced until now, should we have expected them at some point? Yes. Should SE have enforced them a long time ago or given us some warning, or both? I think it is pretty fair to say yes to this also. The evening of servers of Balmung's size, could take years, and whether you are an RPer, or support it, for the most part all other types of activities don't need new members coming in to sustain, particularly with upcoming cross world capabilities and what we have now.

Does this not also have nothing to do with this thread? This thread is about asking for a (new) server to be designated as an official RP server.

Anyway, welcome to the official forums. This is everyone's thread. Hope you enjoy your stay.

[artemos7]

Does this not also have nothing to do with this thread? This thread is about asking for a (new) server to be designated as an official RP server.

Anyway, welcome to the official forums. This is everyone's thread. Hope you enjoy your stay.

No, housing wasn't a point brought up as a reason for or against RP servers, and is a problem for all servers rather. You are from behemoth, and while I would value your genuine opinion on the thread's actual subject, cherry-picking and diversionary "What If"s to cloud the topic, isn't helping anything. You have been asked to stop by multiple people, and I would ask you to do the same. As I said, your opinion of an RP-Server, pros and cons, are perfectly welcome, and I respect your rights to staying on topic as far as OF posting. Thank you for the warm welcome.

[CatStarPrime]

Asks the guy who didn't read anything else in the thread. From a technological measure.

Again, by what metric(s)?

You have made an unsupported, and unsupportable claim, and provided neither an explicit and detailed description of said issues, nor any links or other documentation to prove same.

Why are the large populations of Balmung and Gilgamesh problematic, from a technical perspective, from the point of view of current residents?

Anecdotes are not evidence.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

If you joined in january, you wouldnt know lol.

The servers were originally only rated for 5k concurrent connections, and after the launch exploded, they upped it to 7500 to help deal with the unexpected load. If balmung has 26000 active characters, and there is going to be an expansion, expect massive login queues. That is the technical reason, and is stated on the lodestone in the same post regarding the locking and transfers.

[MomomiMomi]

No, housing wasn't a point brought up as a reason for or against RP servers, and is a problem for all servers rather.

...? I didn't mention housing. Neither did you in what I quoted. What you are saying in the thing I quoted has nothing to do with this thread.

So it's a bit hypocritical to say "that's not what this thread is for" and then talk about something that this thread isn't for.

[Aldotsk]

This needs to be a thing. Or at least one house per server.

This and it would have been much more convenient if they ever allowed one account to share one housing so alts can manage the house, stable and garden too.

But this whole housing system has been disaster since 2.1, and they are trying to explain that they are doing their best to accommodate their players.

[LaylaTsarra]

Alts can't even use the mender in the main's house or access anything. I have to run an alt to a close by apartment to mend. Simply ridiculous. Can't even use the FC chest and they are all in the same FC.

[Aldotsk]

Alts can't even use the mender in the main's house or access anything. I have to run an alt to a close by apartment to mend. Simply ridiculous. Can't even use the FC chest and they are all in the same FC.

It's 2017, Seventh Astral Era, 4.0 Expansion, and yet alts can't share main character's apartment/housing and use chest, mender or even food on the table. How is this still not fixed. ._.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

:::Raises skeptical eyebrow:::

By what measure?

I began my sojourn in ARR, on Mateus, a couple of months after launch. Mateus was a ghost town. Tumbleweeds. Winds moaning through empty streets. Seeing the occasional other player, in Ul'dah, after midnight Central Time, was a shock and a pleasure.

I subsequently skipped to Gilgamesh for a few years; retired briefly; and rejoined - heading straight to Balmung, *because* of the high, and wonderfully chaotic, population.

I love being able to hit the streets of Ul'dah at any hour, and find crowds of people in the Quicksand, the Ruby Road Exchange, and the Aetheryte Plaza at Limsa. The "crowd" in the major population centers is what I expect from an MMO. PEOPLE. PEOPLE everywhere, at all hours! And they <gasp> TALK TO EACH OTHER instead of constantly running, running to their next destination.

I find nothing unhealthy about the robust and interaction-heavy population.

Wherefore do ye?

By what measure? By the measure of character creation being all but locked for the longest time and by the devs recent locking of transfers. There's no other metric more relevant. I get that you like having a huge bustle of players all over. But the game code and server hardware have limitations. They are designed to only support so many players on a single server. Throwing more hardware at it only works for so long and only delays the inevitable.

When I say the population isn't healthy, I am not saying that a "robust and interaction-heavy" population is bad so much as I am saying the server's physical hardware and software can only cope with so much before performance degrades. People bypassed the creation locks with transfers which only exacerbated the issue. A healthy population is one in which yes there's lots of people on at all times, but not so many that character creation is all but unavailable or worse... even transfers are locked. The devs didn't lock those servers to encourage people to play on other servers. They did it because there are limits to what each server can accommodate and Balmung and Gilgamesh have, or are about to, reach those limits.

Again, by what metric(s)?

You have made an unsupported, and unsupportable claim, and provided neither an explicit and detailed description of said issues, nor any links or other documentation to prove same.

Why are the large populations of Balmung and Gilgamesh problematic, from a technical perspective, from the point of view of current residents?

Anecdotes are not evidence.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

While I can't give you exact specifics since I don't know the specific information regarding how SE handles the FFXIV servers, I do know enough about MMO design and server hosting to know that there are in fact hard limits to what a game server can accommodate. The devs don't arbitrarily lock character creation or server transfers, they do it for a reason. There's nothing extraordinary about it, just simple common sense and experience with hosting game servers. Balmung and Gilgamesh just have way too many people and the devs had to hard stop people from going to them because just disabling character creation wasn't enough. You may not like that or agree with it but the hardware doesn't care what we like or agree with. The hardware can only handle so much and that's that. And why are servers like Mateus "ghosttowns"? Because people like you keep transferring off of them to Balmung and Gilgamesh. If no one stays on the other servers then none of them can build up healthy populations.

A crowded nightclub is great and healthy... but they still have to abide by the occupancy code for fire safety. MMO servers are not so different.

[ErikMynhier]

The last time housing was added there was a mass rush to log on to Balmung. The que to get in was 10 minutes or more for some and some just get in and as I heard there were massive DCs and the like as people rushed the houses.

That was 10 minutes, with only the section (all be it a large section) of the population logging in all at once to get a house. But an hour later the dust settled, people logged off and it was business as usual.


SB is a whole other ballgame. We aren't talking the section of the current population interested in a house. We aren't talking an hour before it settles. We are talking the entire population + everyone who took a break and is back for launch day. For days.... weeks. It will be madness. I think this lockout period is a good thing honestly.