Recruit A Friend - Character Creation Restrictions

[Mjollnir]

I managed to recruit a friend today. He used the code and subscribed. Got you some sales S-E, you should thank me.

Except of course he can't play because Sargatanas is closed to new characters. Brilliant.

About a month ago, it took three days before char creation opened and I could make an alt for my daughter to play on. How long will it take now, when you have two active promotions (Recruit and Trial) swelling the population?

Can I suggest that you consider that new players who want to join high population servers (such as Sargatanas) and have a Recruitment Code from a player on that server are given priority over brand new players and trial accounts?

Or perhaps a waiting list that a player can join for a full server, create a character on a low-popn server and then get a free and automatic world transfer as soon as space becomes available.

At the moment, that's one new player at least who's had a crap first night not being able to play the game he's just bought and subscribed to on my recommendation. If he can't get in before tomorrow evening, it'll be really annoying.

And yes, I'm aware the server status is reviewed every few hours; that doesn't really help if you're out at work during the day.

[TheRogueX]

This! Exactly this! What's the point in having a 'Recruit a Friend!' program if I can't recruit them to the server on which I play? This is absolutely stupid and needs to be fixed. Either you let recruitment trump character creation restrictions or you drop character creation restrictions entirely.

I had one friend who lost the entirety of their free month of game time while they tried and tried to catch Sargatanas open for new characters. It's ridiculous.

[Saccharin]

There are restrictions for a reason - it's overpopulated. Allowing anyone to bypass this just creates more issues. Do you want a new player to experience a queue as that's what would happen if they allowed it to swell like that. I remember the queue rage threads on release last year.

[Mjollnir]

There are restrictions for a reason - it's overpopulated. Allowing anyone to bypass this just creates more issues. Do you want a new player to experience a queue as that's what would happen if they allowed it to swell like that. I remember the queue rage threads on release last year.

Perfectly valid point. To be honest I needed to vent; that's what these forums are FOR, right?

I just wish there was precedent. For instance a buffer zone of 1% server pop space where the only new characters allowed on were through this recruitment thing.

[tOnni3]

What a conflict of interest. LOL.

Well done SE !!

[saeedaisspecial]

There are restrictions for a reason - it's overpopulated. Allowing anyone to bypass this just creates more issues. Do you want a new player to experience a queue as that's what would happen if they allowed it to swell like that. I remember the queue rage threads on release last year.

Pretty sure even in XI a world pass allowed you to bypass the restrictions on overpopulated servers.
When a promotion like recruit a friend comes along, making sure the recruiter and recruited are allowed to play together should take priority.

[gamesmart]

As of right now, the best way I can think of avoiding the restrictions is to have your friend create his character either late at night or early in the morning - I had to wait until about 11 PM PST to make my alt on Behemoth. Yes, it sucks having to wait those hours when you guys want to play together, but at least it shows the game's still alive and well.

Giving people who register through the Recruit a Friend system priority wouldn't be such a bad idea either.

[Baneus]

As of right now, the best way I can think of avoiding the restrictions is to have your friend create his character either late at night or early in the morning - I had to wait until about 11 PM PST to make my alt on Behemoth. Yes, it sucks having to wait those hours when you guys want to play together, but at least it shows the game's still alive and well.

Giving people who register through the Recruit a Friend system priority wouldn't be such a bad idea either.

Pretty much. Almost all US players we play with on Behemoth had issues creating their characters during US prime time. Whereas not a single Oceanic player ran into any issues during our prime time.

[Alberel]

There are restrictions for a reason - it's overpopulated. Allowing anyone to bypass this just creates more issues. Do you want a new player to experience a queue as that's what would happen if they allowed it to swell like that. I remember the queue rage threads on release last year.

Pretty sure a new player would prefer a queue to not being able to do anything at all...

Most MMOs don't lock character creation at all and instead offer free transfers away from that server to encourage the population to disperse.

[Airget]

There are restrictions for a reason - it's overpopulated. Allowing anyone to bypass this just creates more issues. Do you want a new player to experience a queue as that's what would happen if they allowed it to swell like that. I remember the queue rage threads on release last year.

Eh honestly they should offer a "world pass" for recruit a friend, it's a bit shortsighted of SE to offer this recruitment option and then fail to guarantee said player from joining same server as their friend, they did the same exact thing with release because only a certain amount of players actually had an opportunity to pick a server to start on where freshly created players had to get lucky or start elsewhere if they wanted to play.