Not a single server on primal is available for new characters right now

[LaylaTsarra]

I'll have to try it then, thanks!

Good luck... I've had servers refuse to let me create an alt but they'll free up just be persistent.

Xpac appears to be having a big rush of new people. I think there is also a possibility they'll add new servers given what appears to be a red flag for new people and that certainly will affect their bottom line. They've just recently added two new servers in the EU I believe and it's very possible we may see more additions to other data centers as well.

[Wynn_Storm]

Just noticed too. I'm pretty new to FFXIV and my wife just agreed to play with me. Got her all set up and all the servers are closed besides like 3-4 on crystal, feelsbad.

You can try having her create a charcter late at night.

[LaylaTsarra]

You can try having her create a charcter late at night.

Right after maintenance is also a good time given servers have yet to have people load in although the servers will be packed for early access. If there is any emergency maintenance or other unscheduled one before then I'd jump on as soon as the maintenance is over.

[DevilsDontFly]

I get they're trying to be well prepared, but this might be a bit much. Hopefully everything goes back to normal after the 28th. Finally got a friend to try the game and this might have turned him off again lol.

I have the feeling this is less about "being prepared" and more about SE trying to force new players to populate Crystal. Every time I went to the world status pages, Aether and Primal were all evenly distributed between congested (Gilga/Cactuar/Leviathan), standards with the occasional lock on characters because of people online (Faerie, Sargatanas, Siren, Hyperion, Behemoth) and the others fluctuated between being standards with or without locks. For the last couple of months pretty much all Aether and Primal servers were having lockouts on character creation during peak hours.

Then you look at Crystal and it seems like people there only ever cared about Balmung and Mateus, while Primal and Aether had a better server population balance on them.
Even now as I'm writing this the only congested server on Crystal is Balmung, with plenty of prefferred and standards.
I guess people just didn't like Crystal for some reason, and now SE is basically forcing everybody to either move out of Aether/Primal if they want to play with new player friends, or be stuck on your home server as is.

[Paladinleeds]

I guess people just didn't like Crystal for some reason, and now SE is basically forcing everybody to either move out of Aether/Primal if they want to play with new player friends, or be stuck on your home server as is.

Given the heavy-handed approach SE seem to take, I feel if that were the case, all Aether/Primal servers would be marked as congested. That way you can't even use transfers/wee-hours character creations to get around it.

[DevilsDontFly]

Given the heavy-handed approach SE seem to take, I feel if that were the case, all Aether/Primal servers would be marked as congested. That way you can't even use transfers/wee-hours character creations to get around it.

That's why I said new players. Aether and Primal are on a 24 hours lock for character creation, with 3 servers each allowing transfers. Either way new players will be forced to go to Crystal, and then attempt a transfer afterwards if the game allows it. And I'm assuming that's exactly what happened to a lot of people on Crystal, because a couple of days after they tagged Primal and Aether worlds as congested outside Gilgamesh/Leviathan, some of the Crystal servers that used to have character creation locks during peak hours are no longer having that issue. I guess there's an influx of people transferring out of Crystal at the moment. Which might lead to a perma-lock of Aether/Primal after the Early Access maintenance.

[Kaethra]

Recruit a friend should bypass these restrictions. Friends ought to be able to play together.

[SturmChurro]

I'm glad I got my alt to Gilgamesh (or rather on Aether) during the free transfer period, before the Shadowbringers rush.

[linay]

I don't know if this SE's doing. Maybe people on congested worlds are world visiting standard worlds, causing them to be temporarily locked.

[Derio]

They want new players to go to Crystal thats why. Even though many people moved off crystal when the server move was happening.