Sad and tired

[Doomed_Raven]

I'm on Chaos DC (Phantom) it gets busy at peak times but compared to light DC is generally much more quiet, especially outside peak times. Some other Chaos world's tend to be more active at times even than my world. But I do a lot of content solo and am a newer player so there's stuff to do still (friends don't play this and the one's I've made on here are rarely online).

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

[Shistar]

It's not a bad idea, but I should mention that some people on Dynamis have done this for Aether/Primal/Crystal and more often than not, those alts become their "new main" and their Dynamis character becomes the alt that only gets to live to hold onto a house, lol.

If nothing else though, creating an alt at least allows one to try and reserve their preferred name on another world that may interest them, and if one is willing to split time between characters, having two (or more) isn't so bad and can expand one's circle of players in general. Same reason some people roll alts on different regions entirely, wanting to be a little worldly in their gameplay.

I don't see anything wrong with this this is why I specifically mentioned "if you're not too particular about which character you're playing"! We have users like Miina who play on two characters, one of them being on Dynamis in their case. I juggle a few characters myself too and it personally makes my experience more fun but I also understand people who want to have everything on one character. To each their own, but you never know until you try!

If someone starts doing this and finds out they'd much rather just have their stuff in their new DC, they can either transfer the main or, if they don't want to be homeless, wait until the alt obtains a comparable plot and eventually move into the new character as their new main.

I'm on Chaos DC (Phantom) it gets busy at peak times but compared to light DC is generally much more quiet, especially outside peak times. Some other Chaos world's tend to be more active at times even than my world. But I do a lot of content solo and am a newer player so there's stuff to do still (friends don't play this and the one's I've made on here are rarely online).

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

Phantom is the second smallest world according to XIVCensus, which checks out on why it goes very quiet when it's not peak hours. But Chaos still has a fairly healthy casual community and region-wide PF would immediately make it the more desirable option imo, since quieter DCs have more access to housing and get to sell at more expensive prices. You'll find yourself travelling more often to get your shopping done, though!

There was a strong divide during P9-P12 in my experience. Chaos's savage PF died very hard after the 3rd/4th week in the prog front and Light lasted one or two more before it went mostly quiet as well. After EW, we just didn't recover and everyone went directly to Light to get their savages done.

[Shistar]

I'm not inclined to roll an alt myself anywhere because of how much progress and stuff I would lose access to (including cash shop items), so I'm waiting to transfer somewhere more populated while doing... not much of anything in the meantime because there's no point in building up the FC any further/running content/trying to make friends/etc. Sucks not knowing how many (if any) worlds will open up after 7.4 too, so I could be waiting for nothing and still end up stuck on Dynamis until the next server status update while barely doing anything.

Don't be so defeatist! Making friends is always a worthy endeavor, no matter where they play. In fact, you should probably go ahead and try to make friends in your target world so they can throw you a welcome party when you finally get there! :P
If you're planning on making an FC in your future world, running content and storing items you can turn into your GC is great for a headstart.

Although I would benefit from moving to Light, I have too much on Chaos. If I was in your position, screw the old FC and everything else, I'd just move anywhere else and get going. I am aware it costs money to move twice, but then I wouldn't be paying my sub if I was just waiting for things to happen without knowing if they actually will. I don't mean this in an offensive way at all, but it sounds like you're making yourself more miserable than needed :'D but that's just me, I'd just make the jump and figure it out as I go! It is what I did when I moved to Phantom.

In hindsight maybe I should have moved to Light instead, but I didn't know how things would go with PF back then and now I don't regret it. It was not the perfect option, but I made it work for me and I'm happy with what I have. I have a lovely group of friends, my dream plot and a nice FC going, all in the "not ideal" world. But because I have all of this, it's ideal for me.

In short, if waiting this long is making you so miserable, just move to your second or third best option and go from there. Seriously. Don't make yourself suffer for a stupid game!

[Valence]

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

The split didn't thin anything out much even though there was some more worlds added in the process (Twintania and Spriggan). This was made to accommodate the game growing and a population increasing pretty steep.

The fact that the game has been bleeding players is definitely not helping, but the imbalance is caused mainly by the allowance of DC travel, which isn't as bad on EU compared to NA for example, but it shows more and more on Chaos. This phenomenon will occur no matter the population size of DCs. People tend to congregate to a centralized place and since DC travel is allowed now, they congregate to the DC they have chosen, leaving the other DCs barren.

This wasn't a problem when only world travel was allowed, because PF and DF have always been cross world. This is a problem with DC travel now because PF and DF aren't cross DC which forces people to migrate to do their community centralized content. The main idea behind allow travel is not to merge instances and duties, but to allow people to visit their friends, but what they've done is essentially achieving the former with their lack of foresight.