New player questions

[Kentuckyboy]

My apologies if these are answered elsewhere.

Long time MMO player just started at the suggestion of a friend.
Few questions.

What is a good north american server to play on with decent community etc? My friend plays on Exodus but it has been locked for a week now.

How does the end game play out group wise? Is it more like EQ1 where you are in a guild you develop friends etc or is it group finder ala WOW and RIFT. Grind out marks etc?

What are the group sizes?

Is there housing?

Thanks all!

[Bixby]

Try Exodus at different times of the day. The new character locks are changed (I think) every hour. Early morning (EST) is often the best time to try.

End game is a bit of both. There is a duty finder that groups you with random players from any server in your data center, but you can enter pretty much anything as a full or partial group, too. (The exception is the large raids made up of multiple 8-man groups; you can't yet enter as a full alliance, only as individual 8-man parties.) There is also content that can only be done with people from your server (the current top-end 8-man raids), as well as open-world content that isn't instanced at all (fates and hunts). There's a party finder that lets people list specific content they're looking for members for, to help fill in spots for server-only content. You'll likely end up mixing and matching between running with friends/FC mates, randoms from your server, and randoms from the finder. And if you're into end game raiding, you'll likely end up with a static for the top end raids.

And yes, end game does involve grinding out tokens to fill in spots while you work on getting random drops. It's sort of like the WoW model. The best gear is random drops from the top raids, but there are a few kinds of tokens from various sources to round things out, and BiS gear is often a mish-mash.

Group sizes are 4 for dungeons, a few story mode primals (boss battles with no dungeon or trash leading up to it), and Wolve's Den (just kill 'em arena PvP), 8 for hard/extreme primals, a few storyline dungeons, and Coil (the top raid), 24 for Crystal/Syrcus Tower (3 8-man groups, duty finder easy mode raid) and Frontlines (24 vs 24 vs 24 objective-based PvP).

Currently, there is FC (guild) housing, and you can purchase a private room to set up within your FC house. There's going to be personal housing in the future at some point.

[HEC-]

My friend plays on Exodus but it has been locked for a week now.

No server is permanently locked for such period of time - the New Character Creation status changes dynamically based on the amount of the players in the start up areas and at even most populated servers you should be able to get in no more than 4 to 6 hours. The best time is late night / early morning for the given area time. I was creating a bunch of new characters on my server (EU) last Friday - e.g. the day both Trial and Invite Friend promotions started - and while arrivng home late afternoon I was unable to get into game before 7 pm so I was fully aware that I will not be able to create the character right away and indeed after designing the first one Moogle was closed. I've stayed at the creation screen while playing on another machine and I've tried about every 60 - 90 minutes if I can get in. I was tired so I went to bed before midnight and wake up at 2:20 am and was able to submit first character and create another 2 as well at that time.

[Kentuckyboy]

Thanks for the replies! That makes sense in regards to the lock, I try at the same time each night. Does that mean though if I actually create a character on that server I will always be able to log in or will it lock me out if the server is full?

[Bixby]

Thanks for the replies! That makes sense in regards to the lock, I try at the same time each night. Does that mean though if I actually create a character on that server I will always be able to log in or will it lock me out if the server is full?

If the server's full when you try to log in, you'll be put in a queue. I haven't seen a queue in months, personally.

[Anova]

Yes. Getting on to the server of your choice is the hardest part. Once you have a character on the server though, you seem to go through a separate gate. You may see a few queues during heavier traffic hours, but you won't be locked out in the same way. The queue usually lasts for less than a minute if you see it.

[Kentuckyboy]

Awesome! Thanks all. Now to get my wife properly addicted to the game and all will be well.