When will NA get more shards?

[NanaWiloh]

There's many reports from new players saying that isn't the case. They're unable to make characters.

If character creation is locked then it is locked for all players new and old.

[PondHollow]

It is really silly that because a lot of people are on, a 'preferred' server is not permitting new character creation.

However, it is par for Square Enix's abysmal customer service.

[CazzT]

I dunno probably because NA isnt the center of the known universe and JP takes care of it's own before others. Seeing that it's a JP company I'm sure they are more inclined to take care of there costumer base first.

If you offer your services in multiple locations, it's common business practice to provide equal level of service to all locations. This isn't a citizenship thing, it's a game.

[Tempest222]

It is definitely a bad thing for new players that characters cannot be created during peak hours on the NA data centers, but it would also not be great for SE to add new worlds right now that would end up being almost deserted once the new expansion hype dies down. I’m sure they are planning for what the projected stable population of these data centers will be after the next few weeks and on rather than potentially overreacting to temporary fullness over the next few days.

[JWag12787]

If you offer your services in multiple locations, it's common business practice to provide equal level of service to all locations. This isn't a citizenship thing, it's a game.

Business practice would be supply and demand, if the demand is there, supply it. I agree the queues and registration currently is bad, but often times, it isn't, so is it worth making new shards that will be hallow and empty after the rush of Shadowbringers completes?

[CazzT]

Business practice would be supply and demand, if the demand is there, supply it. I agree the queues and registration currently is bad, but often times, it isn't, so is it worth making new shards that will be hallow and empty after the rush of Shadowbringers completes?

Supply and demand doesn't apply the same way for online gaming. You don't run the game on a toaster just because you have less players in that area of the world. Hence, equal level of service.

As for the servers being ghost towns after the initial population spike of a new expansion? A legit concern. Though at this point, I've seen queue times often enough, throughout the day, and have heard of it from people on other servers and data centers, that I think it's safe to say we can add at least one server to each data center (or a new data center altogether). Still, we don't have the full numbers. Maybe it's just a matter of increasing the allowed number of players on each server, though? Too many variables in play and not enough info available.

Something needs to be done, though.

[JWag12787]

They also are not run evenly. Japan has more shards than NA, and EU has less shards than the other two. So, the demand for servers does play an impact, which is why they launched new EU servers as well.


They have increased how many are allowed on at a time, and the queues dropped significantly after that. Hopefully they are sitting, discussing "how can we offer character creation on servers" kinda meetings.

[CazzT]

They also are not run evenly. Japan has more shards than NA, and EU has less shards than the other two. So, the demand for servers does play an impact, which is why they launched new EU servers as well.


They have increased how many are allowed on at a time, and the queues dropped significantly after that. Hopefully they are sitting, discussing "how can we offer character creation on servers" kinda meetings.

I see what you mean with supply and demand now. Yes, in that regard you don't run more servers than you need to. I didn't read your initial reply that way because it just seems common sense to me.

And yes, hopefully they are. hopefully they are short meetings that are only looking to decide "how many" not "should we". hehe

[Avidria]

You're getting really mad when it not only doesn't affect you, but is easily remedied. The servers aren't full, they're just under strain right now from increased traffic. And if new people want to play so bad, they can make their characters at non-peak times. Wake up early before work or school, load in the saved character appearance data, pick a server, start it, then just shut the game off. It'll skip the opening cutscene and you'll be able to start playing for real later.

Here to agree with OP that this is absolutely and completely ridiculous. You should not have to wait until "non-peak" times to make a character, ever. This is the only MMO I've played in more than a decade where this has ever been a problem I've experienced.

Frankly it's baffling that anyone would defend this being how things work here.

[Arixtotle]

They also are not run evenly. Japan has more shards than NA, and EU has less shards than the other two. So, the demand for servers does play an impact, which is why they launched new EU servers as well.


They have increased how many are allowed on at a time, and the queues dropped significantly after that. Hopefully they are sitting, discussing "how can we offer character creation on servers" kinda meetings.

Thing is, the demand is there. There are about the same amount of actives on the JP and NA data centers. And yet JP has 32 servers to NA 24. Now I can understand that the market is different. NA likes fuller servers and we yell doom and gloom if servers are empty. But three more servers won't have a bad impact in the long run. Especially with the world visit system now. They were able to see the demand in EU, which had on average 21k actives per shard, now they need to see the demand in NA since there were already 19k active accounts on average per server before ShB launch.

Note: These numbers come from unofficial player census records based on Lodestone data and are not hard numbers. Japanese Source