Petition to Lift Balmung Server Lock / Impact of Server Lock on FFXIV RP Community

[Oaken]

With the non-existence of queues on Balmung, no evidence of detrimental levels of excessive population, and the lifting of Gilgamesh’s restriction, the time has come for SE to lift the Balmung server lock.

The Balmung server lock has been detrimental to the vibrancy, health, and long-term viability of the FFXIV RP community. Yoshi P has stated during interviews that SE values the RP community and intends to release features in its support. The RP community is extremely grateful for this support, and unlocking Balmung is the single greatest act SE could do to support the RP community. Unlike PVEers, who can use the cross-world party finder to find others interested in PVE content, roleplayers rely on centralized locations and hubs to find roleplay. This is evidenced by Balmung’s vibrant population and by the fact that most RPers gravitate towards the largest RP community possible, as it provides the greatest frequency, breadth, and diversity of RP. Cross-world play features are not adequate for roleplayers, as in-game roleplay takes place in the same physical location in real time.

Below are several additional arguments in support of lifting the Balmung lock, along with several arguments intended to address common (and fallacious) counterpoints.

Argument in Support 1: Prohibiting transfers to Balmung divides the gaming community and discourages potential subscribers from purchasing the game to play with their friends.

There are no doubt dozens (if not hundreds) of players who recently purchased or considered purchasing FFXIV for the reason of playing with a friend. If friends happen to be located on a high population server where transfers are prohibited, the potential subscriber will be unable to join their friends and likely have little interest in purchasing the game. Prohibiting transferring also creates rifts in pre-established gaming communities, free companies, and contacts. Players are forced to pick and choose between groups to accommodate server transfers. This causes communities to become fragmented and increases the risk that players will grow disinterested in the game as others discontinue playing.

Argument in Support 2: There Is No Evidence That Balmung’s Current Server Population is Excessive or Detrimental.

There has been no evidence that Balmung’s population has caused server instability, or that the extraordinary act of barring all character creation and transfer to the server is necessary to abate any harms. There is no reasonable basis for anyone to conclude that there is a population problem on Balmung at the present time. SE has presented no data or information about the current population level. Some posters are acting like SE has released concrete information that supports its decision. It has not, and in many instances SE has struggled to accurately report data or made inadvertent errors (i.e. – “FFXIV has surpasses 10 Million Players press release”; 1.0; Diadem, etc.). If you want to believe SE has correctly continued to lock the server, you need more information to reasonably conclude that at the present time. For example, it could state: “There are X active accounts on Balmung within the last 30 days. A FFXIV server can presently handle Y active accounts before server instability becomes a critical issue. Over the past 3 months, Z active accounts have transferred from the server. At this rate, the server will likely be unlocked in U months.” It has not released such information.

It is likely that SE may be keeping the server locked based on a metric like total number of characters (without taking into account active accounts). It is likely that SE does not understand the full extent of how the server lock is harming FCs, dividing the FFXIV RP community, and creating stagnation, which will ultimately lead to a loss of subscribers. The point of this thread is to point these issues out to SE and give people impacted by these issues a place to voice their concern.

Argument in Support 3: Prohibiting transfers to Balmung is devastating to the long-term viability and health of FFXIV’s large roleplay community.

Roleplayers depend on the ability to access a centralized, large community of individuals interested in roleplay. The transfer prohibition threatens to further stagnate the Balmung RP community and divide roleplayers among dwindling populations on small servers. Unlike PVE communities, RP communities are far more entrenched in their server communities, and it takes a tremendous amount of work and planning to orechestrate RP activities. Roleplayers are among some of SE’s most loyal and long-term subscribers (and expect considerably less in terms of new content because roleplayers create their own content). If SE does not reverse the prohibition, the FFXIV roleplay community faces a substantial risk of further dwindling populations and disinterest in the game.

If SE believes Balmung’s population is excessive and requires a long-term lock, it should strongly consider designating an official RP server, and providing free transfer sot that server.

Fallacious Argument 1: “Balmung is over populated, and SE will lift the server lock when it decides to.”

This argument is rooted in speculation, circular logic, and is not an argument in the first place. The argument amounts to little more than the following tautological nonsense: "the server is locked because SE says its locked and SE is right because it says its right." This is not valid reasoning or the basis of any respectable opinion. The entire point of this thread (and others like it) is to apprise the development team of the need to unlock the server.

Fallacious Argument 2: “The RP community doesn’t need one server, and can exist on multiple servers.”

The RP community is not large enough to sustain itself in the long-run across multiple servers in the long-term. Servers serve no purpose to the RP community, and their only function is to divide an already small community across a pointless technical barrier. When the RP community is spread out across multiple servers, like-minded RPers are not able to readily communicate with one another, and much of their efforts goes to finding and creating RP, instead of actually RPing. There is a reason why Balmung prospered as a RP hub: RPers require a centralized, organized location to RP. It is not reasonable to expect a segment of the gaming population to be burdened by the task of creating multiple alts, spread across multiple servers, and investing time into leveling those alts to surpass quest-locked content. This is a technical, wasteful facet of the game that causes players to lose interest and segments the community.

Conclusion: These are only a few reasons why the Balmung server lock is detrimental and should be terminated immediately. If SE will not terminate this policy, it should at least disclose more information about the problem, and a firm date when the prohibitions will be lifted, so players can plan and play accordingly.