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

[jackass1203]

I was mostly playing off the last post in the thread.

But there is seriously someone from one of the high-population servers complaining about this nearly every day, ignoring all of the information provided by SE and other players on why the situation is the way it is and how just waiting for them to "open it back up" is not likely as long as everyone remains stubborn. If Adamantoise were designated as high population, given all the information out there (including housing and logon queue horror stories) already, I wouldn't hesitate to move for free, with incentives.

The only thing I can get about the constant complaints on opening Balmung is that they could care less about crashing down the datacenter as long as they get what they want. Just open it up and then they can bring in their friends and increase the queue to make it take days to get in.

[Oscura]

I was mostly playing off the last post in the thread.

But there is seriously someone from one of the high-population servers complaining about this nearly every day, ignoring all of the information provided by SE and other players on why the situation is the way it is and how just waiting for them to "open it back up" is not likely as long as everyone remains stubborn. If Adamantoise were designated as high population, given all the information out there (including housing and logon queue horror stories) already, I wouldn't hesitate to move for free, with incentives.

I mean it's undeniable that Gilgamesh, and especially Balmung have been congested or are congested. As for housing and login queue horror stories, Gilgamesh hasn't had a login queue for months minus the Shirogane launch and Shirogane was about as bad here as everywhere else. As for moving for free with incentive, the fact of the matter is that Square Enix shot themselves in the foot in that regard. The number one thing that will always tie a player to a server, aside from friends or a free company, is a player owned house. Yoshi P has gone on record he wants housing to feel "special," "unique" and "rare." Meaning that realistically, housing will always be as big of a pain and cause as much drama as it does indefinitely. This means that anyone who has a house will never see a true incentive unless offered to bring that house with them.

I'm sure that many players would change their tune entirely, if they could keep their house, now with cross-server friend's list, and now the probable FC/Linkshells/etc to follow suit are coming.

You figure, for every house in a ward and subdivision there is realistically a person who does not want to hop servers. For every house in every housing area, for every ward. That is a lot of players who will stubbornly never move, and they have a good reason to. Square Enix already screwed them with how bad housing already is, but now Square Enix is telling them to simply jump ship and go through it all again?

I'm sure in a server with lots of roleplayers like Balmung this is definitely even more important.

[LaylaTsarra]

I was mostly playing off the last post in the thread.

But there is seriously someone from one of the high-population servers complaining about this nearly every day, ignoring all of the information provided by SE and other players on why the situation is the way it is and how just waiting for them to "open it back up" is not likely as long as everyone remains stubborn..

The preferred server status is working for many less populated worlds. SE has figured out a way to balance what was becoming a chronic problem in my view when many left because of small party finder listings and trying to find others to raid with. They aren't about to open up closed servers to satisfy the want of some. Cross server PF has also done wonders to keep people happy where they are.

[Skivvy]

The only thing I can get about the constant complaints on opening Balmung is that they could care less about crashing down the datacenter as long as they get what they want. Just open it up and then they can bring in their friends and increase the queue to make it take days to get in.

You make it sound as if wanting to play with friends is a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned, the blame should fall squarely on SE. They could have been more proactive in their attempts to limit server size. They allowed paid transfers as a way to circumvent the initial server lock that was in place. This was going on just until fairly recent. Perhaps they should have also started the incentivized / free transfers far earlier. Maybe they could also somehow buff up their servers/datacenters so that they no longer feel as if they are made out of sticks and mud.

It's an odd thing that people are so quick to blame players just for wanting to play on a specific server with friends instead of placing the blame on the people who designed the system in the first place.

[jackass1203]

You make it sound as if wanting to play with friends is a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned, the blame should fall squarely on SE. They could have been more proactive in their attempts to limit server size. They allowed paid transfers as a way to circumvent the initial server lock that was in place. This was going on just until fairly recent. Perhaps they should have also started the incentivized / free transfers far earlier. Maybe they could also somehow buff up their servers/datacenters so that they no longer feel as if they are made out of sticks and mud.

It's an odd thing that people are so quick to blame players just for wanting to play on a specific server with friends instead of placing the blame on the people who designed the system in the first place.

There's nothing wrong with playing with friends that's what the cross-realm friend list is for to be able to play with them. Sadly enough questing with friends doesn't always work out especially when there's an instanced part. Because of that it's probably best to just worry about the grouping to do df with friends.
Also, if players really want to play with their friends then they'd go to a realm that they can all play instead of just telling the other guy to go to the over populated realm that's closed down. It works both ways.

[SaitoHikari]

One of my friends that has an alt on Balmung said last week that he needed to repair his gear before raid, and he couldn't zone out of his FC house to do so for a minute or two because it was too congested outside. Eventually he had to teleport to some out of the way settlement like the one in Outer La Noscea.

Balmung is clearly not ready to be re-opened if that is still happening.

[Skivvy]

There's nothing wrong with playing with friends that's what the cross-realm friend list is for to be able to play with them. Sadly enough questing with friends doesn't always work out especially when there's an instanced part. Because of that it's probably best to just worry about the grouping to do df with friends.
Also, if players really want to play with their friends then they'd go to a realm that they can all play instead of just telling the other guy to go to the over populated realm that's closed down. It works both ways.

Obviously everyone plays differently, but simply talking to friends via /tell or running instances with them isn't quite the same as just BSing with them "in person". A huge portion of my time in game is just spent being stupid with friends in town, BSing, or running around and other things that can't be done when not on the same server. It would be amazing if SE could figure out a way to create a megaserver, like in GW2, but I don't see that happening any time soon. The cross-world DF and /tells system is definitely a huge step in the right direction, but it's still lacking.

Of course people have the option to move to a new server if they want to play with friends, but that does not address the underlying issue that only SE can resolve.

One of my friends that has an alt on Balmung said last week that he needed to repair his gear before raid, and he couldn't zone out of his FC house to do so for a minute or two because it was too congested outside. Eventually he had to teleport to some out of the way settlement like the one in Outer La Noscea.

Balmung is clearly not ready to be re-opened if that is still happening.

We do still on occasion get the message saying we can't enter our house/apartment, but you normally get in on the next try. It was an absolute nightmare on SB launch with people hiding out in their homes to avoid the AFK timer. lol. But yeah, with the current server/datacenter situation, I would agree that Balmung needs to stay locked.

[jackass1203]

Obviously everyone plays differently, but simply talking to friends via /tell or running instances with them isn't quite the same as just BSing with them "in person". A huge portion of my time in game is just spent being stupid with friends in town, BSing, or running around and other things that can't be done when not on the same server. It would be amazing if SE could figure out a way to create a megaserver, like in GW2, but I don't see that happening any time soon. The cross-world DF and /tells system is definitely a huge step in the right direction, but it's still lacking.

Of course people have the option to move to a new server if they want to play with friends, but that does not address the underlying issue that only SE can resolve.

One of the things they do and I hope they do is allow cross realm phasing similar to what WoW has which you can play on the field with your friends. Not sure how that'd work in cities but at least out in the open field they should allow that.

This 1000 limit is really annoying.

[Tillie]

Balmung refugee now on Mateus here--and one who adamantly refused to transfer off with my main. I boosted an alt of mine to 60 and bought a quest skip potion--then, with that alt, I transferred to Mateus to test the waters.

I fell in love. While many would disagree and say they regretted moving off of Balmung--the only immediate "regret" I had was the post-move panic. 'Oh my god,' I thought, 'I just moved a boosted alt off of the most exclusive server in the game'. That was quickly waived as I found the Mateus Official RP community--a group of players who had taken the initiative to pull it all together despite not having resources from SE. Now? I have officially transferred everything off of Balmung, without any regrets. The people who mattered to me have already been added to my friends list. I have found a new community, and it is frankly better than the Balmung community ever was--IMO.

Some things I will say as someone who successfully rode the train off Balmung:

1) It should have never come to this. It was incredibly irresponsible of SE to watch the numbers inflate while those 18$ transfers came rolling in for so long. Say whatever you want about the players. At the end of the day, it is not the players' fault for seeing a popular server and wanting to hop on the hype train. Period.

2) They should have made an official RP server. There is no excuse worthy enough to not have one. Our community is big enough to have multiple RP servers, this game already has dozens upon dozens of servers with no tag other than location. Period.

3) Those of you still on Balmung who are now upset: You were given the chance to leave with no penalty, no gil cap, no fee, and with perks and you blew it. Everyone was. The incentive program is still running but now with less options to choose from. I was willing to stick my nose out and at least give it a try, and ended up falling in love with my destination. Not saying everyone will have the same experience... but it is worth the try. Expanding my horizons was worth it for me. If you're not sure, don't go gung-ho and transfer your main off. Make an effort. Make an alt. Come see what servers like Mateus or Omega have to offer and make your choice then. Nothing is going to come from stomping your feet and blaming those who were wise enough to take advantage of the free transfers when they had the chance for "splintering" the community.

[Lewtskie]

Some things I will say as someone who successfully rode the train off Balmung:

1) Both parties can take turns trying to play hot potato with the blame, but it fell on both of them. People transferring knew full well the condition of Balmung, if they were so weak-willed as to be caught up in something so base as "Oh it's so popular!" then that shows their character. People are instinctive, but they're also not stupid. Can't play it like they were all innocent children completely ignorant of the world around them.

2) They have refused to do so because they do not care for the idea of tagging. They respect players enough not to step on their toes in regards to them 'unofficially' tagging a server or more as for this community or that, but they will never support these actions in an official capacity because they simply do not care for such inclusive behavior to breed among the servers.

Edit: They're in there with their bear!