Suggestion: Turn Balmung into an Official RP Server

[Dement]

SE is halfway to fixing the Balmung crisis but I doubt their efforts will pan out without additional steps. They're shutting down incoming transfers, offering free server transfers off and upping the gil limits. All of which are good steps in the right direction but until they offer full refunds for housing and unlimited gil transfer with a character, I can't imagine it will be enough.

[Raim]

The mistake you made is assuming people would leave at this point. Tons of people come to Balmung knowing full well its the RP server, but take no part in it. Putting a label on it if anything would just attract even more people if/when it opens back up because it'll be seen as something special and unique.

[Rokke]

Even most people outside of Balmung know it's the RP server without doing any research, and transfer into Balmung has been the only way onto the server for an eternity now. One does not simply end up on Balmung.

Prior to the current perma lock, it was never impossible to create a new character on Balmung. You just needed luck + to have been ready with your new character in char creation before servers went down and and not refresh the server list till the game was back up.


Though, @ topic -
A label on Balmung wouldn't change a thing. Its already locked (new 4.0 roleplayers cannot join) and I doubt every non roleplayer would jump ship just because theres an RP tag next to the server name, freeing up enough space to unlock the server. SE would either have to create a new RP server or slap it on one of the existing non-locked ones to encourage people to move there.

[Ageofwar]

The mistake you made is assuming people would leave at this point.

I think people are making the mistake that Balmung will reopen in a month or 2 after stormblood if everyone just stays put and then its back to business as usual with everybodies friends just transfering in.

^^ I don't think SE are this stupid, I just hope for you SE doesn't resort to worse methods to make the server stable

[Abriael]

We need to NOT label Balmung as the Official RP Server. That's throwing gasoline onto a grease fire with a couple of sticks of uranium for good measure of lethality.

Not really. The overwhelming majority of the RP community is already on Balmung, and will always be. There isn't much gasoline left.

We need RP'ers to acknowledge a new server as the Unofficial RP Server, because Square has stated several times they have no intent of adding labels to their servers, and would prefer the community of players to determine that for themselves. Rather than constantly bothering SE about this like parsers, we just need RP'ers to pick another server and move on. Balmung had its time, and it'll never truly die, but NOW is the time to get in on the ground-level in building a new RP community.

There's been a pretty strong and active campaign to have RP'ers gather on Mateus as our new unofficial RP server. Polls have been taken across various websites and tumblr and what have you. If you really want to support RP and the RP community, it's time to move off of Balmung.

If you think those incredibly low numbers show any concerted intent of the RP community to move to Mateus, I see a lot of naivety there. All Mateus will accomplish is to slightly splinter the RP community, with the overwhelmingly vast majority remaining on Balmung. It's simply gonna be another Gilgamesh, which will die off as soon as the Stormblood push levels out.

At this stage, it would be much easier (although still challenging) to incentivize non-RPers to move off balmung, because the majority of the RP community won't budge after 4 years on one server just because a few people tell them to.

[Vexander]

If you think those incredibly low numbers show any concerted intent of the RP community to move to Mateus, I see a lot of naivety there.

If you think any amount of threads and requests will make SE label Balmung as the official RP server, let alone unlock it again, I see a lot of naivety there.

Balmung is -locked-. It is impossible to get onto Balmung right now. With additions like Red Mage and Samurai, places like Doma opening up, etc... Stormblood is drawing in a lot of new players, many of whom are RP'ers. You CANNOT tell them to just wait for SE to unlock Balmung when there isn't even any evidence it will ever -be- unlocked at this point. Mateus has a growing RP population right now. RP'ers should be nurturing that, not trying to destroy it. As the lowest population server it has room to grow, which is important.

[Velox]

Yes the majority is on Balmung now, but that won't always be true. People are not thinking big picture here. As long as Balmung stays locked, over the course of 2-3 years new RPers are going to eventually migrate and settle into another server. Balmung can only lose population now. This means, at some future point, it will no longer be the unofficial RP server since it will no longer have the largest RP community. Sure the community there will not likely change and remain sedentary, but it will never grow, and thus, the winds of change have already been initiated by SE. All they have to do is keep it locked down indefinitely and the RP community will naturally adapt without even knowing it is (evolution happens over large populations and long time spans).

A new, official RP server is the best thing for the community since it will naturally attract new RPers. Old RPers will either adapt or die out.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You severely overestimate people's willingness to relocate, OP. Plenty have moved here because they fancied the lived in world atmosphere roleplaers provide even if they, themselves, do not partake. Your solution only works for Balmung's population by creating a brand new server, slapping the RP label on it and allow only people from Balmung to transfer literally everything (house and gil) for a certain period of time.

If you think those incredibly low numbers show any concerted intent of the RP community to move to Mateus, I see a lot of naivety there. All Mateus will accomplish is to slightly splinter the RP community, with the overwhelmingly vast majority remaining on Balmung. It's simply gonna be another Gilgamesh, which will die off as soon as the Stormblood push levels out.

At this stage, it would be much easier (although still challenging) to incentivize non-RPers to move off balmung, because the majority of the RP community won't budge after 4 years on one server just because a few people tell them to.

To be fair, people aren't relocating because the devs decided, for whatever silly reason, to lock servers without implementing any of the bonuses they promise will be available by June 16th. Very few people are going to pay $18 and get nothing for a house they potential own when a month later they can move for free, especially if the server receives things like free game time and EXP bonuses.

[Abriael]

If you think any amount of threads and requests will make SE label Balmung as the official RP server, let alone unlock it again, I see a lot of naivety there.

No. And no one ever argued that people will move just because of threads and requests here (just as threads and requests don't make a sizable part of the RP community move to Mateus).

The labeling of the server to a play style they don't really care for alongside tangible incentives possibly will (not what we have now, which is simply a "hey, move off Balmung please, you're not gonna get any actual advantage at all, but it will zero all your social links, thanks for all the fish"), which is included in the OP.

Balmung is -locked-. It is impossible to get onto Balmung right now. With additions like Red Mage and Samurai, places like Doma opening up, etc... Stormblood is drawing in a lot of new players, many of whom are RP'ers. You CANNOT tell them to just wait for SE to unlock Balmung when there isn't even any evidence it will ever -be- unlocked at this point. Mateus has a growing RP population right now. RP'ers should be nurturing that, not trying to destroy it. As the lowest population server it has room to grow, which is important.

Historically, expansions released during this stage of maturity of a game don't bring in enormous amounts of new players. What they do is bringing back a lot of lapsed players, whom are already on Balmung. No one is trying to "destroy" your little RP splinter on Mateus. It'll fade on its own when Stormblood's influx will fade.

[ExKage]

You severely overestimate people's willingness to relocate, OP.

THIIIIIIIIIIS. Especially if you're trying to point at PvErs to relocate. MANY of them own houses, have large FCs etc. They have their networks of who they can raid with. Who they wouldn't want to raid with. A lot of EU PVErs haven't moved even with the increased ping, why do you think it would be easier to convince PVErs as a whole to move?