A humble request to Square Enix: please unlock Gilgamesh.

[IthinkIcanfixit]

I transferred in 2.4 and I can say it was due to the raid community then on my old server. My group at the time was on T12 progression when we lost a member and had to boost a guy through T9 and farm a High Allagan weapon for him and relearn the fights. Some people didn't have enough patience so the group blew up and I was stuck trying to look for a group and either had to regress back to T9 or just stop raiding. I was part of the problem people to balloon Gilgamesh but transferring at the time was the best thing to happen to me as I was able to find a group to do content together with, if I didn't transfer to Gilgamesh the chances of me quitting the game back then would be 100%. As others have said cross server statics have stopped that. Currently it just irks me as I tried to introduce friends to the game but they're unable to play with me.

[Vrankyl]

Which, again, means that people are not being objective. Servers change over time. It's a natural part of any MMO's progression. Up until a few months ago, for instance, Mateus was a very small server. Now? It's a lot bigger and is one of the three main unofficial servers for role-play alongside Balmung and Omega.

Actually Gilgamesh's RP scene has been dying for a long time. As of right now for RP your bets are Balmung, Mateus, and Omega. Though for new players it's actually only the last two, but Gilgamesh hasn't been considered one of the unofficial RP servers for a bit since a lot of the rpers on there packed up and moved to Balmung. The issue with no new blood is what a lot have pointed out, there is no one replacing these people that are leaving and it will collapse economies and there are several locked servers. As of right now Balmung and Gilgamesh are the only locked NA servers, but Japan and EU servers are locked to. I think the best solution is to open up new character creation so new players and those wanting to join and play with friends can get on them, but prevent the flood gates of people wanting to return from doing so.

[Felis]

As of right now Balmung and Gilgamesh are the only locked NA servers, but Japan and EU servers are locked to.

No EU server is locked.
There is no transfer to Omega, but it is open for new created characters

[Vrankyl]

No EU server is locked.
There is no transfer to Omega, but it is open for new created characters

I missed that, which is interesting... Then again the EU population is fairly evenly distributed so there isn't much SE would be able to do there. That said there are 7 Japanese servers designated as congested at the moment, I honestly wonder what the state of their communities and market boards are. Especially since RP isn't really a thing there so there is no RP community to sustain their servers through patch lulls.

[SaitoHikari]

-snip-

Hmmm... That's about Sargatanas level activity, which is still pretty decent. Difference being Sargatanas players in general try to do much of everything.

But yeah, the devs really should open the servers again then. A server being locked due to raider overpopulation and another being locked due to being the RP hub are two entirely different things. One responds to the actual game design (especially the creation of cross-world PF essentially eliminating the need for said server to exist as a raider hub), the other doesn't since there's nothing that can really be designed for them (in a reasonable manner, anyway).

And fact of the matter is, as the game is designed now... Raiders ironically have very little incentive to stay subbed during 'catch-up' patches, so it's understandable why Gilgamesh's population would disappear during odd-numbered patches if raiding is literally the only thing that a good chunk of the population does there.

What's SE going to do besides reopening the server, force everyone to start leveling DoL/DoH jobs?

[Spirlia]

I've never been on Gilgamesh, but some of these testimonies makes my heart ache. I know if Hyperion ever got to be like that, I would hate it too.

The only reason I can see for people to move back to Gilgamesh is to reunite with their friends. I don't think opening the server back up will be as much of a cycle as people think.

[NanaWiloh]

Census pages base their information off Lodestone updates. The numbers they show do not represent a Realms true population. The active number is the number of players on that realm who logged in during that month, a person could log in for 5 minutes and the census would count that as active. Gilgamesh is most likely still locked cause despite what the Census shows its true population is bigger then what SE wants to see.

[Akiyumi]

I agree that gilgamesh needs to be unlocked. Things are really starting to dry up without new players, the server lock is long overdue to be removed.

[ScootPatoot]

I'll keep this brief.

Our economy has crashed.
FCs are dying left and right, and there are no new people to strengthen them.
We have many latent players, but the active ones are leaving, making the environment bleak for those who play socially.
Open Gilgamesh, please.

~ Scoot Patoot

[Lazaruz]

I'll keep this brief.

Our economy has crashed.
FCs are dying left and right, and there are no new people to strengthen them.
We have many latent players, but the active ones are leaving, making the environment bleak for those who play socially.
Open Gilgamesh, please.

~ Scoot Patoot

Once your population isnt in immediate risk of exceeding server capacity, they will.
It's as simple as that, especially since it took SE FAR too long to stop the ability to transfer in, one could make the argument Balmung even went beyond what would be considered stable numbers