Balmung has been locked half a year. Enough is enough please.

[Vladmiere]

It has been half a year since you locked Balmung and other high congestion servers. Your current plan is not working or is going at such a slow pace you might as well scrap the idea and either open up Balmung again to transfer/new characters or force a split.

We are at a crossroad and the main thinking of Balmung players who even had a notion of moving is what if they regret it and change their mind. Sadly I know of several whom have changed their minds and want to come back. They have quit the game until they can return to the community they left. If you intend to continue with this current path allow a window of opportunity for those who do regret leaving to return back to Balmung with a month or so window.

[BillyKaplan]

Their purpose currently is to make people move out of Balmung. If people don't move out, they can at least keep more people from moving in. And you're basically asking them to reopen it so that the few people who left can come back which is in complete contradiction to their mission statement. We're not like Gilga, where it seems things have settled down or at least warrant another look.

[Theodric]

There's many players - myself included - who departed Balmung after it ended up being locked and do not regret it in the slightest. The server was - and still arguably is - far too full and that was in dire need of addressing. Not only for the sake of the stability of the server itself but for the sake of the stability of the datacentre as a whole. Resources are finite, not infinite. The days of Balmung being allowed to swell unfettered to ridiculous levels in terms of player population are - thankfully - over.

[DamianFatale]

I agree that the lockout is becoming problematic. I hope that the servers can be opened up, and that the reasons for them being locked can go away.

Problems of Balmung in my perspective.

1. No new players anymore. There’s no growth, and no new people running around the zones. It makes me sad. It also makes mentoring almost pointless.

2. Since so many roleplayers are leaving for Mateus, we’re losing our community. I also fear that Mateus now has the ability to grow, and we don’t. It might be the end of us in the future if Mateus looks more enticing for RP. If Mateus gains more role players than us, we might begin to die out, especially if new players interested in RP can’t join Balmung. I think this is why Balmung should open. Then we could divide into two RP servers much more easily. Otherwise all Roleplayers may do another exodus, and just create a new Balmung all over again. That isn’t what the players or the developers want, but some problems just create themselves if there is no action.

3. If we leave, we leave our friends forever. As much as I want to leave, I just can’t bring myself to do that.

[Vladmiere]

But when that plan has been in effect for a half a year that is an insanely long stretch of time for a MMO. The population has barely dipped more then a few hundred if you go by consensus or do weekly /search yourself. If we have around 20k players that have not really dented the population of Balmung. Census shows from months ago Balmung has only dropped 200-300 active players and I wonder if that is more from people growing bored with the game after the Stormblood launch then moving. SE has given Balmung the choice to willingly move out and it has done little. This silly charade needs to end and SE finally takes action or open balmung back up. It is in SE's hand right now and a waste of time to continue sitting on the situation which is going no where.

There's many players - myself included - who departed Balmung after it ended up being locked and do not regret it in the slightest. The server was - and still arguably is - far too full and that was in dire need of addressing. Not only for the sake of the stability of the server itself but for the sake of the stability of the datacentre as a whole. Resources are finite, not infinite. The days of Balmung being allowed to swell unfettered to ridiculous levels in terms of player population are - thankfully - over.

Resources are finite yes but there are options on how to handle this then using a technique that seems 20 years old. There are many games where the character can freely move between servers without restriction like Rift that SE could take a step to use. Letting people jump from server to server but still declare a MAIN server in which is the only server they can trade/own house and so forth could be an option.

[DamianFatale]

But when that plan has been in effect for a half a year that is an insanely long stretch of time for a MMO. The population has barely dipped more then a few hundred if you go by consensus or do weekly /search yourself. If we have around 20k players that has not really dented the population of Balmung. Census shows from months ago Balmung has only dropped 200-300 active players and I wonder if that is more from people growing bored with the game after the Stormblood launch then moving.

I feel like it is MUCH higher than that. Everyone knows a person that left. Our community feels like it was splintered, and it honestly makes some of us a little bit sad.

[Hasrat]

While I don't doubt your concerns are valid, pretty sure SE's concerns are still valid, too, and I think theirs take priority.

[Theodric]

You can't expect to have all the perks of a large server and absolutely none of the drawbacks. It's not rocket science - and one of the best things to have happened as a consequence of Balmung being locked is that not one but two other servers became unofficial role-playing servers in the eyes of the community. I speak, of course, of Mateus and Omega.

I feel like it is MUCH higher than that. Everyone knows a person that left. Our community feels like it was splintered, and it honestly makes some of us a little bit sad.

Nothing is stopping you from adding them to Discord or Skype and making an active effort to keep in touch with them. There's also the cross server friend's list now, too. If they're unwilling to do that then that's a sign they weren't particularly great friends to begin with.

[Rakiria]

Appearently, the server still hasn't emptied out enough to be stable then. I hate to be the negative person but if Balmung doesn't empty out it won't open, it's not about the players enjoying the game more on one server, it's about technical limits, and those seem to have been pushed so far they are deemed more important now.
You all really seem to think of Balmung as the one holy place of all the data centers, especially for roleplayers, and honestly, as a non-Balmung roleplayer, it's so annoying. Of course you can barely find any rp on other servers, because they are all told to go to balmung so everything just gets worse, Balmung grows and so does the reason to go there.
Of course this situation is in no way good. It's long overdue they do something about the congestion, really. This is no fun for any of the players. But Balmung the way it is now, and the way it has been for too long now, needs to be changed, and of all options there are to contintinue on from this point, just reopening and doing nothing is definitely not the right one.

[DamianFatale]

While I don't doubt your concerns are valid, pretty sure SE's concerns are still valid, too, and I think theirs take priority.

I would argue that it’s their clients that take the most priority. Without us XIV would of died, or gone free to play, because of lack of subscriptions.