They announced how worlds would be shuffled.

[Vaati_Kigu]

I'm more worried about all the friends I'm about to lose because of this

[Jybril]

Its been out for 5 years, yet for the first 2 at least of those, maybe 3, i dont remember, you were limited to same server only friends. Maybe thats where the difference in opinion comes into play. I made most of my friends before cross world became a thing.

Okay, well 2 or 3 but that is a long time to make and be with your friend.
I'm sorry but just up and leaving friends like that is hard. There are people losing literally
so many friends by this, it's actually kinda sad. You could of made 2 friends, and then they get tossed in the other 2 centers...
Their friends, friend get tossed here and there as well. It's actually really damaging relationships more than you think.

AFK people have very little to do with this. AFK people have an affect on your specific world, not on the entire data center, or more importantly its instance servers.

Kicking AFKers fixes your login queue. It doesn't fix overloaded instance servers.

Oh okay, I apologise. I thought she meant the actual server that you're in, not the Data Center.

[Rymm]

To every person who has tried to minimize the impact this is having on groups of friends being torn apart - please, I'm trying really hard to not get banned from the forums, don't force my hand.

Right now I am on Zalera with my FC and the majority of my static who I love. Our DRG is on Cactuar and we were so happy to find him at the end of Sigmascape and he fits in perfectly. My best friend in-game is from Adamantoise, sometimes he's literally been the reason I've kept playing so that we have a thing to do together and hang out in discord during. I've got people I care for on servers spread across all 3 data centers now and it was bad enough being unable to play with people from Primal but now it's gotten even worse.

If you think this isn't an absolutely awful decision by SE that showed basically no care for the playerbase or the friendships that have formed via this game I don't know what to tell you. If you think ' Oh well, make new friend's I am literally disgusted by you. Seek therapy, you need help.

Sounds like a lot of problems that free server transfers will help with. You could see it in a glass-half-full light as an opportunity to consolidate all of those people you care about onto one central server. You've plenty of months to feel out your network and figure out which friends and friends of friends are going where. Unless, you know, digital realestate is more important to you than those friendships you lauded so enthusiastically. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Killerwing]

I'm really not feeling that great about those coming changes. I'm on Balmung and obviously I like RP...but I also really like to raid.

I'm really afraid as to what will happen to the possibility of doing Savage Raids and Extreme Trials when we'll be on Crystal.
A lot of people do seem to think that the change is basically seperating the RPers and the raiders, and that is a bit concerning. Especially since Balmuing and Mateus are basically going to be moved with all of the low populations servers, which may not necessarily have that many endgame raiders on them.

This is really bothering me because I liked to do endgame raids for the challenge...but also for the glamour, because some of those gear sets in those endgame raids are nice to have for looks, and if you don't raid, you basically have to wait for 6 months for the next alliance raids to come out in the next patch to get the token that will let you upgrade the tomestone gear, and if you wanted the raid gear, well it's worse.

So overall, I'm rather worried. I really don't want to leave Balmung and I also wanna be able to still raid.

[Yuyuka3]

Sounds like a lot of problems that free server transfers will help with. You could see it in a glass-half-full light as an opportunity to consolidate all of those people you care about onto one central server. You've plenty of months to feel out your network and figure out which friends and friends of friends are going where. Unless, you know, digital realestate is more important to you than those friendships you lauded so enthusiastically. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Which friends are going where"
Still implies you will loose friends, which means it's still awful, period.

[Dirwen]

Sounds like a lot of problems that free server transfers will help with. You could see it in a glass-half-full light as an opportunity to consolidate all of those people you care about onto one central server. You've plenty of months to feel out your network and figure out which friends and friends of friends are going where. Unless, you know, digital realestate is more important to you than those friendships you lauded so enthusiastically. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From my experience most people will choose greed over friends. Especially, on a MMO sad as it is. I've seen too much drama in my FF11 days made me jaded.

[Tsukino]

Its hard to not be used to "just making new friends" when as a child you move every 2-4 years. Maybe that's why im not all that upset, I'm used to it. I don't need therapy for my way of thinking any more than you need therapy for yours.

I moved every few years in my childhood, and even continued the pattern myself as an adult for various reasons. But I still don't think "make new friends" is very good advice in general.

However, to address Moro's point, there are a ton of reasons this is being done that have already been mentioned in this thread. It's not as simple as "an absolutely awful decision" and they didn't show no care for your friendships but instead chose technical concerns over them; no care at all would be doing it with zero warning and not offering free transfers and such. Your particular situation sounds complicated and I doubt it can be solved, but I will say that complaining about it won't stop it from happening. It is unfortunate, but your time would be better spent communicating with those friends and trying to find out if there is something that can make the changes less bad for you.

[Roda]

Sounds like a lot of problems that free server transfers will help with. You could see it in a glass-half-full light as an opportunity to consolidate all of those people you care about onto one central server. You've plenty of months to feel out your network and figure out which friends and friends of friends are going where. Unless, you know, digital realestate is more important to you than those friendships you lauded so enthusiastically. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

See, all those friends have connections that you dont have a connection to, and so on. At what point do we cut off people from their friends? Or do we all have to just put the whole population one datacenter?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I moved every few years in my childhood, and even continued the pattern myself as an adult for various reasons. But I still don't think "make new friends" is very good advice in general.

However, to address Moro's point, there are a ton of reasons this is being done that have already been mentioned in this thread. It's not as simple as "an absolutely awful decision" and they didn't show no care for your friendships but instead chose technical concerns over them; no care at all would be doing it with zero warning and not offering free transfers and such. Your particular situation sounds complicated and I doubt it can be solved, but I will say that complaining about it won't stop it from happening. It is unfortunate, but your time would be better spent communicating with those friends and trying to find out if there is something that can make the changes less bad for you.

Oh i;m not complaining. I am just making a statement as to why im not as bothered by all this.

[KaivaC]

Its hard to not be used to "just making new friends" when as a child you move every 2-4 years, before the internet age and cellphones and constant connectivity were a thing. Maybe that's why im not all that upset, I'm used to it. I don't need therapy for my way of thinking any more than you need therapy for yours.

I also spent most of my life moving every 2 to 4 years as a military brat, and as a soldier in my early adult life. That doesn't negate the valid concerns expressed by many here who have legitimate friendships. On a certain level, I understand your point of view because I don't have friends in this game as others do, but their worries are justified because they are being forced to choose between friendships, trusted raid/rp members, and/or both. Even i understand that it's a pretty big deal, and if you can't respect the worries that a lot of people are having, then maybe don't comment directly about it. Just a thought I had browsing through everything I missed.