Square: You need to open servers before this community is slowly choked

[TensaiSogetsu]

Ironically, if the community chokes to death, the servers will open :P

[CaTi]

Quite frankly you've all had the option to move for quite a while with some little incentives on top for going to preferred worlds. If you wished to stay on your server. Great. More power to ya. But you made the decision in that moment that your assets, friends, roots, whatevers were more important to you than shrinking the server population. You can't have your cake and eat it sorry. If the player drop off is that bothersome. Move. If loss of housing/friends/community is that bothersome. Don't move.
The overcrowding was a player mediated problem (SE partially too with the paid transfer bypass). It will require players to actually do something to fix.

[Reinha]

I think many players from Balmung and Gilgamesh fall into the line of thinking that if enough people transfer away, the community will never recover. They are used to the phenomenon that new blood comes to the server only after thorough research and a paid transfer, and if the server is no longer bustling and overfilled then the appeal is lost and those paid transfers will cease. But that is not the only way to gain new players. In the past months we have seen a completely new server growing so much that it becomes locked, new rp communities being established and low pop servers growing to a very healthy size because of population balancing incentives. Dead servers will never be a thing anymore.

If Gilgamesh and Balmung keep losing population, it may seem alarming because high population was their identity, but preferred server bonuses and friends joining the game will keep every server alive and well. All that will be lost is status and exclusion. This talk of "choking" or "dying" is only fearmongering.

[Raikki]

If Gilgamesh and Balmung keep losing population, it may seem alarming because high population was their identity, but preferred server bonuses and friends joining the game will keep every server alive and well. All that will be lost is status and exclusion. This talk of "choking" or "dying" is only fearmongering.

Any community needs some supply of new blood to thrive, regardless of population. It's shit that nobody on here can invite friends to come join them. It's shit that nobody already on here can even make a new alt here. It's shit that preexisting communities and friendships are being fractured by transfers.

I would argue that the preferred world bonuses and the unhappiness with Stormblood launch queues were already likely enough to address the issue. The lockdown and closing of inbound transfers went too far. At the very least there is no justifiable reason those measures could not have been tried by themselves prior to taking the more drastic step of closing inbound transfers completely. The only excuse is that they messed up and didn't plan properly for the expansion rush and threw everything they could at the issue in a panic, players be damned.

[Joven]

What if SE allows players to move their houses as well when they transfer servers? That seems to be one of the major factors for people to not want to move. It could work like moving your house from one ward to another. SE already said they were going to add more wards, so why not hold back a little before releasing them to the public and let players willing to relocate get first dibs on plots?

[Lazaruz]

so why not hold back a little before releasing them to the public and let players willing to relocate get first dibs on plots?

Let me preface this that I'm well aware that this would probably highly fuck up the release of plots (as they could honestly all be grabbed before they're opened to the public), but speaking someone who's been kinda toying with the idea of moving servers (granted Odin is no longer considered congested but, details) and hoping against hope to get a good plot eventually, I can honestly see this as a strong enough incentive to make me move if the time comes, especially if one were to maybe add that on top of everything else that's being offered for moving from Congested to Preffered

[Zsolen]

Lower pop servers are annoyed enough with transfers buying up houses, just as they are earning enough gil themselves. I consider that fair game, but if you block the natives* and long-time members of a server from getting a house at all, there will be a lot of angry people on that server and rightfully so.

*used because of a lack of a better word

[Joven]

Lower pop servers are annoyed enough with transfers buying up houses, just as they are earning enough gil themselves. I consider that fair game, but if you block the natives* and long-time members of a server from getting a house at all, there will be a lot of angry people on that server and rightfully so.

*used because of a lack of a better word

While I can agree that housing disappearing too fast is annoying (I didn't get a house until I came back after nearly 3 years, and even that was luck), I don't think it would be too far of a stretch if they limited the number of people per ward that could transfer per server. Either way, it's just a suggestion.

[DeaconMoore]

What if SE allows players to move their houses as well when they transfer servers? That seems to be one of the major factors for people to not want to move. It could work like moving your house from one ward to another. SE already said they were going to add more wards, so why not hold back a little before releasing them to the public and let players willing to relocate get first dibs on plots?

Considering the lack of available housing on any server and the fact that overcrowding is why the server is locked in the first place, I don't think housing is what's keeping most of them from moving. They would've had a better shot to get a house of their own if they had moved after all.

[Joven]

Considering the lack of available housing on any server and the fact that overcrowding is why the server is locked in the first place, I don't think housing is what's keeping most of them from moving. They would've had a better shot to get a house of their own if they had moved after all.

I was referring to people who already have a house to be able to take it with them, not letting any player that transfers get a free house.