Choosing a Server - What to consider

[Risvertasashi]

High pop servers are like big cities: there's a ton of people of all types to socialize and do stuff with, but you have to deal with crowding (hunts, etc) and it is harder to get noticed. Oh, and real estate is at a premium, so good luck buying a nice house.

Low pop servers are like small towns: there's not a lot of people, which can make for a close community but also alienate some folks. It can be harder to find people to do stuff with. But there's little worry of having to deal with crowds, and the real estate is affordable and available.

I'd personally pick a higher population server; it is like having the perks of living in a big city without having to deal with obnoxious neighbors and traffic. But if you may ever want a house, I'd stay away from the highest pop servers (Balmung, Excalibur, Gilgamesh, etc).

Fleur puts it very well here. I like my higher population server but it is very lively and I've had lots of good experiences with the community, lots of friendly people, etc. Market prices are pretty low compared to some small servers and there's lots of market activity, i.e. no worries that no one is selling what you want to buy.

Smaller servers have their own merits too. Hunts can (potentially, only takes 1 person to ruin it) be very civilized, and well, see Fleur's points.

Wherever you settle, good luck and have fun!

[Sectorbob]

I'd personally pick a higher population server; it is like having the perks of living in a big city without having to deal with obnoxious neighbors and traffic. But if you may ever want a house, I'd stay away from the highest pop servers (Balmung, Excalibur, Gilgamesh, etc).

I think I would find the higher population more exciting. I can't say the whole house-thing has really interested me. Maybe you all could shine light as to what is so interesting about it?

[Neuflune]

I think I would find the higher population more exciting. I can't say the whole house-thing has really interested me. Maybe you all could shine light as to what is so interesting about it?

Personally, I only see three reasons to ever want a house:

1) To dress it up and show it off.
2) Chocobo training.
3) Gardening.

That said, you could always join a free company that has a house, instead of buying one for yourself. I lead a small FC and instead of buying my own house, I paid for 75% of a Medium house (the rest came from the other members) and we all work together on it. I also gave them some gil to make their private rooms in the house.

I'd invite you to our server to try out the FC and housing things, but I'm in Carbuncle, a very Japanese server. It works perfectly fine for me and my other friends who have little trouble communicating (and you can just queue E in the Duty Finder anyway to play with English-speakers from servers like Tonberry and Atomos), but language barrier can be a hurdle for most.

[Dijana]

The high pop servers are generally any of the legacy servers- the ones that existed from the 1.0 era (well, kinda, they have different names now). I made alts on other servers before (either just to mess around with or to track down friends I found on the lodestone) and I've always been surprised and disappointed by the lack of people on non legacy servers, seems the only places I would see people would be around main aetherytes, and they're all afk.

There will be more crowding of course, but it's far easier to find people to do stuff with. I don't think judging market prices by server population is particularly easy. Some things are more expensive just because there's more gil on the server, some are cheaper because there's more people to provide them. You will at least have an easier time finding items you want on the boards.

Community wise, I haven't spent a lot of time on other legacy servers, but I find Hyperion to be really good, and I've heard people say (sometimes on various forums, sometimes people that have transferred there) that the server is pretty friendly in comparison to some other servers. With that said if you ever find yourself there, I have a very active and social LS and FC who's main focus is helping newer players learn and catch up, so if you're ever interested send me a tell

[NyarukoW]

If you want a house you'd be advised to stay away from Excalibur and Balmnung, there is so much QQ from there complaining about no lots being available.

[Fleur]

Housing is a fun side thing with some perks. It lets you stable your chocobo to dye it and train it, plus do gardening. However, you can buy a private room in a FC and use their stable if you join one that has a house.

Oh, and about markets, that is another reason I prefer a high pop server. There is much better supply of items on higher pop servers and the prices tend to be lower and items move faster. I personally prefer cheaper market board prices as it makes game-generated gil rewards more useful, but on the flip side, cheaper MB prices makes set costs (repairs, teleports, etc) seem relatively more expensive. And people who make a lot of gil crafting may have a different opinion as well.

MB prices and supply don't only vary by population though, so check out the MB on a specific server if you are curious. For example, I am planning to transfer from my mid pop server to a high pop NA server soon, and found that the MB prices on them are way higher. :/

Also, I think this site is useful for server stat: Lucky Bancho's Character Survey

[Rikkustrife]

Diabolos is one of the more populated servers though. Not as populated as Balmung, but there is always people on, and a variety of people and linkshells.

[Priya]

Do not use xivsoul. The creator disappeared last August. He has since deleted his reddit and twitter accounts as well as xivsoul's developer section. The site is no good.

[Sectorbob]

Great. Thanks guys. (Sorry for waiting to respond for so long - blocked by the post limit)

I think I am going to stick with Diabolos since some of you think it has a higher population. I don't think it is necessary for me to be on the HIGHEST pop server, and I already have logged around 45 hours on this server.

I really appreciate everyone's help and discussion.

[ItaruKarin]

I'm actually wondering where my server stands on the population scales, since I never see mention of it on the forums or Reddit. No love for Ragnarok