Servers are fracturing communities

[Niwashi]

Have they not hinted at allowing cross-server linkshells and friend lists already as a next step in cross-world tools?

I've heard that, too, but can't remember where. Did they specify when those changes would be coming?

Ideally, we would eventually get to also have cross-world FCs.

Sounds like another reason to push for instanced housing (which we need anyway for availability reasons). Instanced houses reachable from any server in the data center would be a good way to give cross-world FCs (or friends) a non-dungeon place to hang out together.

We don't need the whole open world to be reachable from any server (which would make hunts and giant FATEs a nightmare), but having someplace other than dungeons to actually meet up together with friends would be great.

[Alestorm]

It's just for the launch of the new expansion. Give it about a month and it will likely reopen and you can go where you please.

I almost feel bad for Balmung players since the expansion launch will be hell for them.... then I remember most of them moved; so it was their choice to be on an overcrowded server.

[savageink]

It's just for the launch of the new expansion. Give it about a month and it will likely reopen and you can go where you please.

I almost feel bad for Balmung players since the expansion launch will be hell for them.... then I remember most of them moved; so it was their choice to be on an overcrowded server.

I doubt they will be allowing transfers anytime soon. The incentive program to get people off the servers doesn't even start until launch.

[Moonlite]

It's just for the launch of the new expansion. Give it about a month and it will likely reopen and you can go where you please.

I almost feel bad for Balmung players since the expansion launch will be hell for them.... then I remember most of them moved; so it was their choice to be on an overcrowded server.

And do the math. Balmung has double the amount of players (roughly based on outside numbers) then the locked EU servers. How will they get that many people to move? It was implied till population evens out. Se let this go on to long and housing system screws SE publicly over (nice job!). They can't split the server.

They should have done something before 2.1 to prevent the mass complaining.

Also to the OP you are getting free transfer off Balmung. They should just say where so you can start planning move to be with friends. Cause I am sure this isn't another I need to RP on Balmung with people. My RP peeps can't get on here with me. The current MMO formula isn't broken. The real world has physical limits. Go complain to who ever makes the servers that they aren't creating good enough tech for your MMO.

[Atlas-04]

Cause Balmung needs more players right? You know what also happens in MMOs? Small communities are forced to transfer or wait for server merges when places turn into ghost towns cause everyone went to "The" server to be on.

[AllOuttaEnemies]

Cause Balmung needs more players right? You know what also happens in MMOs? Small communities are forced to transfer or wait for server merges when places turn into ghost towns cause everyone went to "The" server to be on.

That's ultimately what I'm getting at. That the current server formula MMOs are using is flawed and needs to be redesigned. Because at this point transfer or not the player is damned if they do and damned if they don't. That's why I say it's anti-consumer.

[Belhi]

I can see why people would be concerned about this but there is a limit to what SE can actually do about it. Theoretically something like a Mega server might hold solutions but that can hold as many cons for community as it does pros and isn't a minor technical feat to convert to even if the game engine is capable of it.

In short there isn't much they can do to fix it. Just leaving things with transfers as they are will raise only more issues. Sometimes the none of the realistic options are ideal. The best that can be done is for the community to try and adapt to the changes.

[Beatrice]

ಠ_ಠ

But... the devs didn't do this all on purpose? The servers only have so much space and processing power. You say they can fix this but then offer no solutions with a claim of "LoL hire me if you wanna know~" as if you somehow have some magical quick fix that no one else in the world could know about. Even Blizzard has had to lock up servers that were too full. I've seen veteran players from Balmung complain about not only the stability issues with the server itself but the huge queues that happen because the server is overflowing.

[savageink]

Even Blizzard has had to lock up servers that were too full.

And they also implement instances during launches in key areas to soften network spikes. But I've played their stuff during launch of WoD and Legion and the instances were very lagged out. It didn't crash at least, but it was barely playable for the intro map. It's just a band aid for reducing general population to a manageable level. Once the launch was done and active population normalized it was fine and they cut out the instances, but I played wow on a mid pop server just like I do here. Balmung has something like twice the population of the larger to mid sized servers. It's screwed at launch.

[Velthice]

You can transfer onto Excalibur just fine, which is a legacy server. It's just the extremely high pop servers that they locked, and rightfully so. They really should have put the lock on balmung a while ago imo.

Anyway could be worse. They could have just coldly split balmung into two or even three servers and just called it a day.