World Transfers before Heavensward?

[Dsherman]

There are a number of worlds that are a little over-crowded in the NA/EU data center groups. Such over-crowding does not seem to be causing server crashes at all, but it does make it such that the game server software can't do all the stuff it should be doing. There is just too much especially if a large group all goes to the same place to fight something (like Odin, Behemoth, or a S Rank Hunt monster). It also creates a lot more congestion problems when something new comes along such as what happened with Gold Saucer the day it was introduced on some of these over-crowded world. And then there is the problem of no available plots for housing on these over-crowded worlds.

A lot of the over-crowding problems were created way back at ARR launch when there just were not enough servers for all the people that wanted to play, and it was made worse on the Legacy Servers by a merge that had been done in V1.0 back in March of 2012. I believe many people who had played V1.0 on servers that went to the Japanese Data Center in V2.0 but live in North America ended up transferring to Ragnarok because it was the only one available at the time they tried.

And now I have seen things that make me believe that they will be moving the Chaos Data Center group from the Data Center in North America (Montreal I think) to a new location in Europe. This could be a bit of a problem for people that got on these worlds that were recommended for people in Europe, but who live in North America.

It seems to me SE should be considering putting together some kind of World Transfer program to relieve some of these problems. However, they have made it extremely difficult for themselves to do it because of the design of Free Companies and Housing in particular (both Personal and FC housing). People do not want to transfer if it means having to give up all the stuff they have earned in the Free Company, and built into both FC and personal housing. And of course, there is the additional issue of people not wanting to be separated from all of their friends. The currently available World Transfer process does nothing to help with these problems. And it's made even more unable to help by the fact that SE charges for that service ($18 for a player in the USA).

So I would like to know if SE is considering any kind of special world transfer service before the release of Heavensward to relieve some of these problems. It would need to address the possibility of moving an entire FC, as well as all housing (both FC and personal) of players involved, and it would need to be voluntary and free of any charges. It may also need to include additional incentive(s) to go in order to get people to actually move.

Yes, I know... the most likely answer from SE is a big thumbs down on the whole thing. But that doesn't do much to help.

[GenJoe]

I really doubt they would even consider FREE anything. At this point, SE is looking like an even bigger money hog than Actizzard.. Nothing is ever free, and the transfer is incredibly limited. What with the 1 million gil limit and all.. On Jenova, there is actually an importer who keeps going back and forth between servers to sell stuff and make money.. Does SE have such a vested interest in keeping the money flowing from fees originating from these people exploiting the system? It seems so. For only a few hundred dollars, they're stiffing the entire player base.

Seriously, we pay extra to have more than 1 active character per account? We also pay extra for retainers if you want more than two?? What's next? a paid muling service to transfer items between characters on same account? I wouldn't be surprised if they made us pay extra to cut in front of queue

[HulveinBlitz]

Well they could be kind and ease restrictions on what you can carry etc, for those moving to EU servers, since they'll be moving the servers to the EU.

However, if they want money.. they won't since they KNOW, people will move over once the move has happened.

[Lillia]

They actually did free transfers before and even did the free PS3 -> PS4 upgrade so it's probably completely possible to at least do a free transfer to certain lower populated servers but... switching FC and room content along with that, sounds a little difficult... If it's just a personal house it could be a little easier but possibly just as difficult as situations like; the plot used for the transferred player in their past server is the plot that could be taken by another player in the server they just moved to.

I don't work with coding at all but it sounds like it'd be a little complicated to make sure that didn't overwrite another persons house in a new server as well as keep the possibility of the arriving player finding a new house that is the same size with all their housing items still intact until then. :x

Same with FC housing because personal rooming is linked it slightly questions what would happen if the whole FC was moved but not a few couple of players who may have a personal room in that FC. o-O

But the idea itself could totally work out, SE could probably still do free transfers to lower populations.

[GenJoe]

Well they could be kind and ease restrictions on what you can carry etc, for those moving to EU servers, since they'll be moving the servers to the EU.

However, if they want money.. they won't since they KNOW, people will move over once the move has happened.

Yep.. When people are already paying extra monthly fee in the range of $5-$10 for an IP rerouting service to combat the rubber banding issues.. the $20 to change servers won't be a hindrance.. The issue is regarding the people who do not like to pay for anything extra other than the bare minimum subscription though.. They'll just have to suffer because SE won't let them get out of the servers.



AT LIMIT:

Would the EU servers be really that bad? I know players play on JP servers so.. it makes me think the distance maybe.. just maybe won't affect much after they steam out all the kinks of course. :x

No, the lag will probably be tolerable.. That's the thing though.. "tolerable" for how long, it'll depend on the individual and how much incentive SE can roll out to keep the people playing despite the issues.. I just don't see why SE's so hell bent on making every QoL decision difficult for the masses.

[Lillia]

Yep.. When people are already paying extra monthly fee in the range of $5-$10 for an IP rerouting service to combat the rubber banding issues.. the $20 to change servers won't be a hindrance.. The issue is regarding the people who do not like to pay for anything extra other than the bare minimum subscription though.. They'll just have to suffer because SE won't let them get out of the servers.

Would the EU servers be really that bad? I know players play on JP servers so.. it makes me think the distance maybe.. just maybe won't affect much after they steam out all the kinks of course. :x