All of Aether closed down

[Enla]

As others have said we just have a /LOT/ of alts here, which don't count in terms of congestion but absolutely show up in the unofficial census data. In terms of single-user activity we are smaller.

[Barraind]

That's false. There's a reason why Aether is locked down. Crystal looks bigger right now because of alts being made.

I'm taking that information directly off the only tool we have for seeing these numbers.

Additionally, bots are still accounts being made and played, and being logged in uses up resources. The active category tracks msq progression (Currently tracks 4.1 msq completion) . For total characters, it doesnt matter if its a level 1 bot, a level 1 alt, or a level 20 sprout, a character existing and logged in to and run around is a character that exists.

The overwhelming majority of bots arent counted in the active category, which still holds closer than expected numbers between Crystal and Aether, and massive differences between NA and JP and EU.

[linay]

Crystal has a higher total population than Aether, and 3800 fewer active players (roughly 10% less).

The active players count should be what counts toward determining whether a world would be restricted, I would think, as a logged out character doesn't use resource other than storage space.

As for being "roughly 10% less," if true, I'm not sure how that works out as Crystal has 3 preferred worlds, and all other worlds are standard aside from Balmung. Does Balmung really have that many active players? Either that, or there is actually not that big of a difference between congested and preferred populations, and Aether just so happens to have crossed the line for all of its worlds. So if a few people would move out of each Aether world, they could all be standard.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The active players count should be what counts toward determining whether a world would be restricted, I would think, as a logged out character doesn't use resource other than storage space.

As for being "roughly 10% less," if true, I'm not sure how that works out as Crystal has 3 preferred worlds, and all other worlds are standard aside from Balmung. Does Balmung really have that many active players? Either that, or there is actually not that big of a difference between congested and preferred populations, and Aether just so happens to have crossed the line for all of its worlds. So if a few people would move out of each Aether world, they could all be standard.

Created characters don't matter, as Balmung can attest. Had the lowest number of created characters when they hardlocked it back in Stormblood.

[linay]

Created characters don't matter, as Balmung can attest. Had the lowest number of created characters when they hardlocked it back in Stormblood.

It might matter if they were all created in a short time span, which would count them as active. But yeah, speaking of Stormblood, Balmung was opened 2 or 3 times throughout the course of the expansion (not counting post-world distribution), and the last time it opened (in late 2018), lasted quite a while I think. That could be attributed to either people leaving Balmung or people being less active until newcomers made it more active again.

[Microbrewed]

There is currently a 22 person queue on Jenova which is in Aether. There is a 20 person queue on Zalera and a 28 person queue on Coeurl. Jenova is classified as congested, Zalera is preferred but temporarily locked for new players, and Coeurl is listed as green standard. Last night there was NO QUEUE on Jenova.

I know a few servers are truly full like Balmung, Giglamesh, and Leviathan, but there are several servers on Aether that should not be artificially listed as congested. The best part of a new MMO or new expansion is playing with your friends and progression during the first month. I'm just speaking for myself and my group of friends but if nothing changes by the end of August we are going to take a break with another game.

[Feronar]

If you are on Aether and want to bring your friends and play with them, transfer your own character to Crystal and have your friend play on Crystal. If you transfer from a congested realm to a preferred realm, you will get 10 gold chocobo feathers, the transfer will be free, and you be able to bring far more gil than you would otherwise. Also, our queues are super short, almost never more than a couple dozen players, and less than a minute long.

If you already have too many connections on Aether, roll an alt on Crystal to play with your friend.

[linay]

There is currently a 22 person queue on Jenova which is in Aether. There is a 20 person queue on Zalera and a 28 person queue on Coeurl. Jenova is classified as congested, Zalera is preferred but temporarily locked for new players, and Coeurl is listed as green standard. Last night there was NO QUEUE on Jenova.

I know a few servers are truly full like Balmung, Giglamesh, and Leviathan, but there are several servers on Aether that should not be artificially listed as congested. The best part of a new MMO or new expansion is playing with your friends and progression during the first month. I'm just speaking for myself and my group of friends but if nothing changes by the end of August we are going to take a break with another game.

I think some of the problem is caused by world visit. You can have a preferred world with many people logged in either from visitor or resident and a standard world with less people logged in currently.

[hynaku]

Malboro sure is congested. When it takes 10 minutes to login at 5am in the morning with queue of 6. In the after noon takes me 10 to 20 minutes to login. They really need to add some new servers. I blame all gold sellers and bots for all this congestion where having.

[Hasrat]

The way I see it, if they can have a dead server like Mateus sitting as vacant as it was for as long as it was, prior to the Balmung lock and pop explosion, then it really shouldn't be a huge ask to toss in some new worlds at this point. Worst case scenario, you end up with a couple "empty" servers, which isn't really anything new for this game. And as things stand, between the balancing incentives and world visit, they may just as likely end up seeming more populated than Mateus was back in the day.