Making a brand new character on a congested server

[Olivia0x25]

Why are people being forced to have to make a new character on a realm they do not wish to be on?

I can see if they are making an alternate character, but for the VERY first time? My friend just bought the game and one of the expansions and never even played before and he's been trying to create a character for 2 days now on Behemoth so he can play with me, and he can't because the server is congested.

He still has not made a character, and is slowly regretting his decision of purchasing the game due to the fact that he may not be able to ever make a character on Behemoth. He does NOT want to be limited by cross-realm restrictions. He wants to be able to join the same FC, see me in world, party with me, and do everything like he would normally do on any other game.

However, due to the fact that my server is now considered a congested server, he can't even make it past the character creation screen.

It's very unfair to leave this decision with me to decide now whether or not I leave MY friends that I've made just to play this game with another friend, or try to convince my entire FC to transfer, or start over to play with this friend.


I've even tried staying logged off just in case there would be a moment in time just to see if he'll be able to make a character, which is effecting MY ability to have fun playing shadowbringers seeing I'm just trying my best to get my friend to be able to play with me.

There should be some sort of system or allowance for a new player with a fresh account, or at least recruit a friend to allow my friend to be able to play on the same server as me.


Being locked out due to a forced system put in place is not a way to solve server congestion. It's just forcing more issues, seeing if he does give up, he will either look for a refund, play on a server he doesn't want to be on, or have to pay in the future to actually transfer over.

[MistakeNot]

A Congested server is labeled that way because there are too many people on it. Character creation is impossible on congested servers because otherwise people would just make them even more overpopulated. (Oh, and your friend can stop trying to create a character there - it is not possible while the server is congested, and there will be an announcement on the lodestone with a link from the launcher whenever there is a change in server status.)

Alts would actually be less of a problem (as another person pointed out in another thread, annoyed that he could not make an alt on a congested server) since a player can only play one character at a time.


For the time being he can create his character on some other server in the same datacentre and then either of you can make use of the world vist system and/or cross-world party finder to play together even so.
If that is not good enough - wait until your server stops being congested in some indeterminate future.

Other than that you can rant about how some bosses at SE won't spend money on additional servers. The people actually responsible for the budget is most unlikely to ever read what you write, so don't expect it to actually help in any way

[Olivia0x25]

And what about after? Is he then going to have to pay to transfer his character to my server after its finally allowed? Thats not fair for him seeing he didnt chose to play on the server he is being forced to play on.

[Cheebs]

You don't need to be on the same home server to play together anymore these days.

However, what generally works for playing on congested servers is trying to make a new character either early morning or late at night when most players have logged off.
It doesn't always work as such, but it's worth a shot.

Though honestly, why not use the world visit system to join the less congested one yourself as well and not be barred by the queues? I get that the FC restriction is a bit of a pain but it beats not playing at all I would say.

[HyoMinPark]

However, what generally works for playing on congested servers is trying to make a new character either early morning or late at night when most players have logged off.
It doesn't always work as such, but it's worth a shot.

For servers labeled as congested, you cannot make a character at all until their status is returned to standard. There are three status for each world: Congested, Standard, and Preferred. Congested are closed to all character creation until a Lodestone announcement says otherwise.

[Kurando]

Why are people being forced to have to make a new character on a realm they do not wish to be on?.

Why do players need to populate specific worlds over others? If you can answer that then you know SE has very little choice but to implement population balancing measures. Besides it's expansion time, most worlds are going to have much higher activity than usual thus causing congestion. Either your friend waits for Behemoth to become open again or they make do with another world for the time being, the players have to compromise somewhere, SE can only do so much. New players are not more valuable than alts, besides alts suffer from the very same creation restrictions anyway...

[Cheebs]

For servers labeled as congested, you cannot make a character at all until their status is returned to standard. There are three status for each world: Congested, Standard, and Preferred. Congested are closed to all character creation until a Lodestone announcement says otherwise.

Really? I recall this working in the past for busy servers.
But perhaps I was wrong.

[MistakeNot]

Really? I recall this working in the past for busy servers.
But perhaps I was wrong.

There are two different types of character creation locks.
One is temporary and can happen on any server. This can change many times per day and prevents character creation on servers which are too busy right then. This type can often be bypassed by doing the character creation during off-peak hours. This type does not prevent character transfers to the server.
The other one is when a server is declared Congested. For as long as the server has that status no character creation is possible on that server, nor can one transfer a character to the server.

[Sarevok_Thordin]

I don't think Behemoth is getting uncongested anytime soon, they want Crystal to get populated first.

[Redgate]

There is literally not a single world uncongested on Primal. At least your friend can actually MAKE a character on Crystal.