Dear SE, please unlock Balmung

[Violyre]

But I am paying the extra fee. They've got basically 2 plans:

$12.99 = 1 character per server
$14.99 = 8 characters per server.

Huh, never knew that. Legacy ftw. But FFXI's system was that each extra character was $1. You want six characters? $17/month.

[Blackweaver]

Huh, never knew that. Legacy ftw. But FFXI's system was that each extra character was $1. You want six characters? $17/month.

I'm not a legacy. I was in A Realm Reborn beta. The $12.99 is pretty standard for anyone. If you pay the $14.99 per month or pay for more than 1 month, you are allowed up to 8 characters per server. AH here's a link: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/product/

It's membership tiers. Entry level and standard. I went with standard because I like having multiple characters. It keeps things fresh, and interesting. It's fun to re-experience story, rp entirely new personalities, that sort of stuff.

[NinjaTaru72]

I still think my idea is one of the best.

"accidental death" to a group of like 100-200 of you and your friends alts which would make room lol.

[ExKage]

I still think my idea is one of the best.

"accidental death" to a group of like 100-200 of you and your friends alts which would make room lol.

Wow :/

The best solution? SE works on the infrastructure. No matter if it's bots or AFK people logged in, it won't solve the issue. More and more players will be logging in. More and more players will want to create characters on the world. All the other comments won't fix it. It'll just pop up later.

[Blackweaver]

I still think my idea is one of the best.

"accidental death" to a group of like 100-200 of you and your friends alts which would make room lol.

I don't care if you dislike roleplayers, or me. But making threats like that, is crossing the line. It's not amusing and I hope the mods step in now. Because that was uncalled for.

[MageBlack]

A better solution, rather than open up an already over crowded server, label two or three servers per data center as RP servers. (While they are at it do PvP and PvE dedications) Right now there are no dedications like this to attend to the RP crowd so they hear about one or two servers, period, that are RP and everyone flocks there. Unfortunately at that point, to make it an actual viable option, they would need to provide free transfers (at least off Balmung) to said RP servers so they can start groups or take a group with them. The problem is over crowding of a few servers while others are near empty. This also goes for the Housing issues and lack of availability. Servers like Balmung have no empty plots since an hour after new plots are added while servers like Litch have entire wards empty for the taking.

Just my two gil.

[Blackweaver]

MageBlack, that sounds good. I am sure many roleplayers would do it, as long as there's free transfers to a dedicated roleplay server. My own FC, actually transfered to Balmung from Gilgamesh. I never played on Gilg, but I am happy they are on Balmung. Ideally though, I'd rather they addressed the actual server infrastructure, and deal with all the bots that are more than likely the real issue of why the server is locked down.

[Snugglebutt]

MageBlack, that sounds good. I am sure many roleplayers would do it, as long as there's free transfers to a dedicated roleplay server.

Any server can be a RP server if enough people who want to RP on it move there.

[MageBlack]

MageBlack, that sounds good. I am sure many roleplayers would do it, as long as there's free transfers to a dedicated roleplay server. My own FC, actually transfered to Balmung from Gilgamesh. I never played on Gilg, but I am happy they are on Balmung. Ideally though, I'd rather they addressed the actual server infrastructure, and deal with all the bots that are more than likely the real issue of why the server is locked down.

The problem goes beyond bots and RMT, I'm on Balmung too and in all honesty I have hardly a peep from RMT tells or seeing Bots running around, at least in comparison to a server like Litch. This is entirely BECAUSE it is locked down. which means, if you cant make a character, neither can RMT. Makes managing a blacklist much easier (i have less than 10 names on my blacklist and I could probably get away with removing half of them) as well as them making bots for farming. This is a case where a "solution" also hinders legitimate players, not that lockdown is to solve this but it has that result.

The real problem really can be boiled down to Player mentality. For example shortly after release it was discovered the fastest way to level was FATE's so no one did dungeons and everyone rode the FATE train. Path of least resistance created an influx of people all doing the same thing. It happened again with Hunts and is still happening. All other content gets hurt because players find the best way to do something and EVERYONE does it (figurative everyone, not literal everyone. I avoid hunts). Same thing happened when people found out that the Maelstrom was the "Winning team" in PvP, mass transfers to that company just because it was said they win more ended up almost breaking the PvP queue times and is the reason i switched away from Maelstrom.

It is happening with Balmung for two reasons as far as I can see. First is because it has been labeled the Unofficial RP server and Balmung is what pops up with a quick google search so new players will flock there for this alone. Not to mention those players have their friends and other people who go there, or some go there because they want to have a full server with lots of people to make friends with and group up with, etc.

Again, this is why I think my solution would be the best one for this situation but it will not be something that will happen over night. We can hope this kind of a thing will come along with the actual EU server that will be coming because at that point they will have to offer free transfers to players because there is no way of knowing how many people are on NA servers because it didnt make a difference between NA and EU. At that point all they would need to do is add a (PvP), (PvE), and (RP) next to a few select server names on all data centers and the problem will sort itself out. Will SE actually do this, I honestly couldnt tell you. Is the THE BEST solution? I have no idea, but I have given my reasons for it.

Any server can be a RP server if enough people who want to RP on it move there.

Yes, any server can be an RP server but it helps to actually have that distinction when you are a new player looking at creating a character. Thats really all I'm saying. Do this and it will at least help the different player types get in a server with more like minded players. Especially for the PvP linkshells considering they are GC locked at the moment.

[Blackweaver]

Well speaking from experience MageBlack, as I mentioned earlier. I could be in a wold RP, like was roleplaying in the inn of drybone, and teleport hacking bots were pouring in every few minutes before porting out. That was hurting immersion seeing that type of stuff. So there's still a ton and ton of bots. They just aren't shooting out RMT whispers. Those from what I can tell, are coming from stolen accounts. I made sure when ARR came out, to order an authenticator first thing. Any MMO I play that offers that extra layer of protection, I immediately grab.

And at this point, it would be best to do as you said, slap the server titles on, though pvp I don't think makes much sense since there is no open world pvp in this game. So servers would need only 2 tags: (PvE) and (RP). And given it's unofficial designation, Balmung should get the (RP) tag.