Adding 2 new worlds to Chaos is a bad idea.

[Johners]

The popularity of any MMO rises and falls based on the content cycle. Even with 6.15 today, we're getting a small amount of content that's mostly cleaning up everything that didn't come in 6.1 proper. More importantly, two new home worlds will add 14,400 housing plots of all sizes for Chaos players if they're willing to move onto them. Plus home world visit and cross-world duty/party finder means you'll always have a health population to play with anyway.

The bigger problem will be the entirely new data centre they're planning to add in Summer 2023 in time for the release of 7.0. Unless Square Enix intend on blocking the ability to create/move characters on all Light/Chaos worlds, how do they expect to populate an entirely new DC with 8 home worlds in time for an expansion release? I'm half expecting them to cancel this actually but if not, they're going to need to really incentivise it.

[Shibi]

...how do they expect to populate an entirely new DC...they're going to need to really incentivise it.

Same as us. Housing will be a draw for some people. But also Million gil on reaching level 30, double XP on everything to 80, million gil+original house back, 15 days free play time.

And of course, you will have the benefit of DC travel to Light and Chaos too.

[Larirawiel]

The bigger problem will be the entirely new data centre they're planning to add in Summer 2023 in time for the release of 7.0. Unless Square Enix intend on blocking the ability to create/move characters on all Light/Chaos worlds, how do they expect to populate an entirely new DC with 8 home worlds in time for an expansion release? I'm half expecting them to cancel this actually but if not, they're going to need to really incentivise it.

It will not be a problem because it worked already in the past. The EU servers contain 50 - 100% more active players than JP servers. And the JP servers are not empty. With 6.18 we will also get datacenter travel. So you will be still able to visit your friends and play with them. Even if they switch the DC. And for many players, new housing plots will be a reason enough to switch.


Cheers