Against "Simultaneous Logout Measures"

[Crysten]

But if the situation today is untenable in Balmung, it's SE's fault though, so...

It's SE's fault the entirety of the RP playerbase wanted to congregate on a single server?

The playerbase is just as much to blame here.

While not ideal for established communities, SE have decided that transfers are the only feasible solution since it appears that for whatever reason they can't do anything to address server capacity.

They've offered their solution and it's hardly their fault if people are being stubborn about it as a result.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It's SE's fault the entirety of the RP playerbase wanted to congregate on a single server?

The playerbase is just as much to blame here.

While not ideal for established communities, SE have decided that transfers are the only feasible solution since it appears that for whatever reason they can't do anything to address server capacity.

They've offered their solution and it's hardly their fault if people are being stubborn about it as a result.

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

[Celef]

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

Bourne makes a point here.
Although people should not rush to overpopulated server to whine after, SE should not have open the gates to those willing to pay. A closed server need to be closed

[Paladinleeds]

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

Bourne makes a point here.
Although people should not rush to overpopulated server to whine after, SE should not have open the gates to those willing to pay. A closed server need to be closed

I don't blame the players so much as I blame the cultural differences. In America/Europe we see transfers to a closed server as "We can get in, for a price", whereas the Japanese (I believe) see that as "Server is full, we should go elsewhere". I will definitely shift some blame onto SE for a huge lack of research into our culture, but let's be fair, this was this way because of cultural differences most likely.

Or, you know, they could improve the hardware of the servers so that it could handle more players being on the server at once. It's not "literally the only way to fix" anything.

Given the stuff SE say when we ask for certain things, and always being blamed on limitations (like for the longest time they used "PS3 limitations" as the excuse), I have reason to believe their code base is absolute garbage and wouldn't be surprised if they didn't code it to be scalable. Fixing that would be no small feat that I can assure you.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I don't blame the players so much as I blame the cultural differences. In America/Europe we see transfers to a closed server as "We can get in, for a price", whereas the Japanese (I believe) see that as "Server is full, we should go elsewhere". I will definitely shift some blame onto SE for a huge lack of research into our culture, but let's be fair, this was this way because of cultural differences most likely.

You have to look at it from the perspective of someone brand new to the game though. I joined about three months after Heavensward launched when a longtime friend of mine kept posting screenshots on her facebook. When I asked her about it, she sold me on Balmung being the roleplay server, which at the time, was the only one available. I had no idea what servers were overpopulated or anything beyond my friends are all on Balmung and it's the roleplay server. In fact, I initially thought it'd be odd RPing in-game since I was used to forum style writing. Factor all that in, plus the much larger community, and Balmung just seemed too appealing, especially for someone who hadn't touched an MMO in nearly ten years. Compare this to a friend I raid with who originally was on Mateus. He transferred off because, in his words, "I was basically playing a single player game." The exceptionally small population demoralized him enough he even took a break, though not only because he disliked the server. Once he moved to Balmung, he couldn't stop gushing over how alive it felt seeing so many people.

This is why I fault SE. Cultural differences and/or greed aside, they did absolutely nothing to incentivize smaller servers-- servers inundated with RMT tells and low populations. When people asked about what servers they ought to transfer onto, they heard about the sheer activity Balmung and Gilgamesh offered and were understandably intrigued. Why wouldn't they be? Does this appeal to everyone? Of course not. Plenty prefer smaller worlds, but you certainly cannot fault people who do. It took four years for SE to even bother with the incentives we have now, which are only really great if you're making a new character.

I know you didn't outright disagree, but I needed a step up for my soapbox

Balmung has been well advertised as full for the longest time (when has a new player ever been able to get on there, honest question) and despite this people transfered anyway, warning signs be damned. Why would you then turn around and moan that you can't log into a server which was already under massive pressure?

Again, playerbase is just as much to blame as SE.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying SE is faultless, I'm saying both parties are equally to blame. To suggest otherwise is stupid.

*points above*

And no, it actually hasn't. I joined knowing Balmung was a large server you had to pay to transfer into it. I never once thought that was anything more than an incentive to get people onto smaller servers. The idea being, "you can go server x if you pay more money or you can go to server y for free!" Funny thing is, I didn't even think Balmung was anywhere near as massive as it was because roleplay is a niche hobby. So I went in assuming it was just one of many more populated servers.

Anywho, I'm not complaining about queues. They're annoying, but I'll deal with them over transferring to another server where I'll lose my house and have no guarantee of getting another. Likewise, I know you aren't absolve SE of blame, but I disagree the players have much if any fault here. As a world wide company, SE should research the cultural differences and recognize their server limits long before this mess occurs. They shouldn't be crossing their fingers and hoping the players fix their problems for them, especially while still collecting their transfer money.

[Kallera]

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

I'm in a roleplay community on Excalibur, I still think this might affect my datacenter, despite Balmung not being there, as Excalibur is a legacy server, and home to a lot of long time players.

We have party finder, don't we? There needs to be a better way to facilitate roleplayers other than shunting them, accounts and all, into one or two servers.

[Driavna]

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

You sure? Because if they did what you mention the cries and complaints will reach epics proportions. Aion tried this to keep factions and server balanced by preventing the creation of any new character and boy the drama at release. The only solution here is acting like a "Tyrant", you create the char a SE pick the server for example, and that's bad for business.

Sure SE is not helping but the main cause of all these problems are the players.

[Rita1989]

It's SE's fault the entirety of the RP playerbase wanted to congregate on a single server?

The playerbase is just as much to blame here.

While not ideal for established communities, SE have decided that transfers are the only feasible solution since it appears that for whatever reason they can't do anything to address server capacity.

They've offered their solution and it's hardly their fault if people are being stubborn about it as a result.

SE is at fault for not locking the server at 3.0 but they were happy to collect their transfer $$.

Now that the server is locked the RP community will split it has already started on Mateus and will continue as long as they don't open up the server again