Quote Originally Posted by Barraind View Post
The active population is 30-35% at level cap right now, and it hasnt increased for 6+ months.

If people were coming back, we would see an uptick, which is potentially worrying both for short term stability and for long-term sustainability, especially on the smallest datacenters.

When you go from preferred to congested, but you still have the same number of people having reached Shinryu and then 4.1 content as you did more than half a year ago, its worrying. You're trading off long term investment for a lot of free trial players, with incredibly low retention rates.
That's why I think they should hold off on any new NA servers, at least for now, until Shadowbringers settled. I forgot where I read it, but I think it was on this forum with an interview with Yoshida, where he said that NA players fluctuate like crazy.