The character creation restriction is bad, bad, bad.

[Alahra]

I agree it wouldn't be a bad thing to do, but would it actually help though? Or rather would anyone actually do it? What incentive is there for someone to leave the (very) populated server?

While I don't know how successful this was for them, Blizzard did periodically allow free transfers to less populated worlds throughout WoW's lifespan. I'm not sure if they still do so as I haven't played in awhile, but they did so for several years which suggests at least to some degree that people will transfer. I suspect fewer would do so in FFXIV because of concerns about Housing, though.

[myahele]

Yeah, I'm not sure how successful free transfers to less populated servers will be, but it's better than nothing, I guess.

I do hear of people transferring into Gilgamesh in hopes to get into the raiding scene better, only to find out they don't like it and some even return to their old server.

People not satisfied with Gilgamesh/Balmung or whatever over-populated server they're in can then make the switch with much financial sacrifice. It'll also help if they increase the gil limit to transfer

[Atoli]

I suspect fewer would do so in FFXIV because of concerns about Housing, though.

The people who actually own housing beyond a FC room are incredibly few compared to the server population though. I can imagine some people actually would want to transfer because of housing, since low-pop servers still have free plots.

[Alahra]

The people who actually own housing beyond a FC room are incredibly few compared to the server population though. I can imagine some people actually would want to transfer because of housing, since low-pop servers still have free plots.

That's also true. I do think they're going to have to do something about the huge anchor servers in the long run, and I think offering free transfers to other worlds might have some effect. They definitely can't do mergers without significant changes to Housing infrastructure, at any rate, so something like this might be at least a small step they could take to make some changes.

[Stormrider]

I wouldn't. Balmung is an overhyped terribad server.

Yeah everyone stay away. We are all miserable speed runners and market board gougers. When we see a dead person in a zone we just laugh and take out our fat chocobos so they know they were walked over.

Oh and we have alot of OLD MMO players so we also complain about back in my day. You had to wait two days for a party as a dark and summoner and it took you 45 mins to get to a spot and it was uphill all the way and you had to fend off the hordes of mobs. When they killed you they took a whole level away to show you who was boss. fun times

On a somewhat serious note addressing the op. They should maybe make something that attaches to the recruit a friend that has paid X amount of time up front. It seems the only decent thing if you sign up and pay for X amount of months you should be able to play with the recruiter account.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

There should honestly probably be some kind of World Pass system, like FFXI had originally. Initially on that game, you couldn't pick a specific server unless someone gave you a special code (retrieved from an NPC, I think, but it's been a very long time), which would then direct your character to their server at creation.

They could do something similar here and allow someone to give a code to a friend or something, so they can bypass the restriction.

This worked in FFXI due to the lack of social media. Nowadays, such a system would accomplish nothing. Between twitch streamers, forums, reddit and twitter, the password would be passed around so much, everyone would know it.

And locking heavily populated servers only hurts Square. How likely would friends of yours be to play the game if they had no way of playing with you? This actually happened to me during BnS' launcher, and I know if I couldn't have gotten on the same server as my group. I just wouldn't have played, period.

There needs to be incentives to play on less populated servers instead of trying to bar people from the larger ones.

[Alahra]

This worked in FFXI due to the lack of social media. Nowadays, such a system would accomplish nothing. Between twitch streamers, forums, reddit and twitter, the password would be passed around so much, everyone would know it.

It was a one time code, so passing it around would have no real benefit. The code itself cost gil, as well, so you couldn't get an infinite number of them. It wasn't a huge sum, but especially early on in the game's life, it was significant. And if gil wouldn't work, some sort of limitation based on time (like one code per day or one per week, or whatever) would work, too.

[Andrea]

They either restrict people and enable you to log in when you want.

Or they can let people go wherever they want and have people deal with login queues whenever their server gets to full. And if you played Blade and soul last week you should have fun memories of queues. (if you didn't play BnS picture 1hr+ queues at peak time before being allowed to play FFXIV.)

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.