Do we get warned when a new server will lose its "new" status?

[Iscah]

I've been playing on Materia data centre for a while now and I'm at the point of looking at moving the rest of my characters over there, but has dawned on me that servers often change status during patch maintenance – and patch 6.15 is launching tomorrow.

Would they make an announcement if they plan to end Materia's "new" status? Or is it possible the new world bonuses could be gone tomorrow?

[Shibi]

Isn't the announcement is normally made around the time the patchnotes come out?

But yeah, it's filling up, especially on the biggest 3 servers (which is of course awesome). It's quite possible Sophia especially loses it soon, while Bismarck and Zurvan might keep it a bit longer.

I've been server hopping a lot recently, and Sophia's Limsa is just so packed.

Edit: Interestingly, if they did switch off Sophia, while leaving on Zurvan, then lateral free moves will be in place, I think.

[Iscah]

Isn't the announcement is normally made around the time the patchnotes come out?

That's my concern. If we only learn when the patch notes come out, that's far too little warning to get world transfers organised (and most likely while I'm at work).

Several of my characters have houses or apartments that would need packing up all at once, and I don't really want to do it all tonight if there's actually no possibility of it being switched tomorrow.

I particularly want to move at least some of my characters to Sophia since I know other people who moved there. Name-wise Zurvan sounds cool though.

[Jeeqbit]

It took just over 2 months for the new EU worlds to change to standard worlds.

I've seen a lot of people talk about how dead the Oceania region is and how there have been problems with it, so it might be different. EU was more established in the game when new worlds were made for it, so there weren't the same problems with PF and DF not having enough players yet.

[LaylaTsarra]

If you transfer now even if the status is removed with maintenance you will have 90 days for the buff. Currently it's my understanding that if you made a character there the buff would apply until the server status was changed from new so they would have more than 90 days possibly. A friend on Ravana is currently over 90 days and has her buff.

And I think the Materia servers will do just fine. Hopefully they'll keep the buff a bit longer cause the servers can still use help filling up.

[MistakeNot]

I've been playing on Materia data centre for a while now and I'm at the point of looking at moving the rest of my characters over there, but has dawned on me that servers often change status during patch maintenance – and patch 6.15 is launching tomorrow.

Would they make an announcement if they plan to end Materia's "new" status? Or is it possible the new world bonuses could be gone tomorrow?

There will be an announcement when the status of servers change (which is always during a maintenance), but not a warning before that.

[Jojoya]

There's no advance warning. It's announced in one of the world status notices.

It's possible the status could be removed tomorrow though I really doubt it would be removed yet. Zurvan and Bismarck are still very low pop overall compared to other worlds. Even the other 3 don't have all that high an end game population. Even if their status was changed, it would be far more likely to be switched to Preferred. That would preserve the Road to 80 bonus for all new characters being created.

If I were to guess, I would say they'll probably stay New at least until the new EU worlds get added. They really want to get populations thinned out on the NA and EU worlds.

[Iscah]

If you transfer now even if the status is removed with maintenance you will have 90 days for the buff.

Yes, I know that. The problem is that if it was changing then I need to switch all my characters over tonight or potentially get zero days of buff (and no free transfer).

[Iscah]

Ugh, now I've got myself in the game being all nostalgic over what to do about Aurelie's house if I move her over. Some of the stuff in there is probably valuable, but also I probably won't go through the bother of setting up a new one, and kind of like the idea of just leaving it in place and pretending it's all still there.

[LaylaTsarra]

Yes, I know that. The problem is that if it was changing then I need to switch all my characters over tonight or potentially get zero days of buff (and no free transfer).

I transferred a low level alt from Gilga with enough funds for housing and skipped her. Have 6 roles at 90 which is about all I'm going to do there. A number of my friends transferred as well with a couple making characters and leveling them normally.

Yeah, I don't know you'd lose the free transfer and potentially the buff if you wait so it's risky not to before. Personally I enjoy having characters on different servers and admittedly I have too many of them. Prefer not to admit to too much or they'll send the funny squad after me with butterfly nets.