New Player trying to join friends but server is not excepting players

[Avalanche23]

I bought this game today and was excited to play with my friends on Gilgamesh but now I can't. Is this something new because of the expansion, I wanted to try a new game but I dont want to be on a server that my friends are not on.

[Caraway]

The more popular servers have character creation restrictions. You can either wait for them to be lowered (often at early morning during the weekdays, and just after maintenance) or play on another server long enough to lose your New Player Sprout (the green leaf next to your name) and then use a Server Transfer service to move over (which ignores restrictions).

[EveK]

I found http://www.world-alerts.com/ to be helpful.

[seekified]

I've been told that the larger worlds are completely closed to new players at peaktime (something like 4 PM to 10 PM) to stop gilsellers making new characters on these worlds. Might be worth a shot to try it at an awkward time of day.

[Vandril]

The ideal time varies a bit depending on the server, but I have never failed to make a character at around 3 AM EST. This is because the number of players logged into the game is severely lowered compared to...any other time of day.

What I recommend is just designing your character, saving the character design (which the character creator allows you to do), and coming up with the name you'll use. Do all this beforehand. Then, wake up at 2-4 AM EST for just the 5 minutes it will take you to log in and create your character on your server with the profile you saved and name you thought up previously.

This is also what I recommend to everyone I recruit to this game. It's annoying, but it works.

[PetiteMalFleur]

I saw your post about the open window last night reflected on the loadstone. Psn was down so there were fewer people on than usual. Other than psn going down you will not find an opportunity to create a new char here.

Lately when I log in before 8 am I have to wait in queue. Gilgamesh is a very busy server and seems to have more people transferring over every day. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw a new character icon here.

OP, with so many people returning to prep for Heavensward you may not see an opportunity for a very long time. Your best bet is to try to get on immediately after maintenance. When the servers come up after Heavensward goes live there's going to be a flood of people trying to log so I doubt you'll have a chance then. Probably your next known opportunity will be whenever they do an emergency maintenance after xpac is live. If the server crashes during non peak hours that's another time you may be able to get on.

[Risvertasashi]

I've been told that the larger worlds are completely closed to new players at peaktime (something like 4 PM to 10 PM) to stop gilsellers making new characters on these worlds. Might be worth a shot to try it at an awkward time of day.

Nah, it's not to stop gil sellers... that's just a side benefit. It's simply the high population

To the OP: Try at like 3 or 4am on monday through thursday. That's usually the best time to get on high pop servers. Also, do not trust the website list on what servers are opened or closed.