Current Plans for World Transfers

[Nix]

All we can do is speculate at this point. I hope SE will post actual details within weeks. SE posted earlier that they wanted us to know launch servers during Phase 3 so we could meet up with friends in-game and plan our migrations.

For sure! I wish what I was saying was gospel haha, I think if things did go as stated in my previous post then there's be no reason for people to be separated from friends. I'm feelin Jilly Bean's anxiousness on the whole thing too; I've got a bunch of friends that I'd like to meet up with, the game ain't worth playing wihout them!

Hopefully we hear something soon, Arkham!

Have a wonderful day

[Keku]

From what I'm seeing of their posts; it's going to be much smoother than it was the last time round.

People that don't go through the transfer process will all be stashed on the same server, this will open lots of room for people to pick where they want to go without having to spam refresh on the pages because every server is already listed as 'full'.

In my mind, the way I see it being done is:

At the start, every server has 0 people - people then apply to where they want to go and fill them up gradually. Those that don't use the transfer will all be put on 'Server_X' together so that they still have a place but didn't have to pick it.

In 1.0 it was more like - Every server is full until a few people moved to the open Ragnarok then say 5 slots would open up here and there before the server reached full capacity.

Anyone, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the gist I got from the dev posts^^;

Sorry, no this isn't correct. If you do absolutely nothing, you won't be placed in a random world. Everyone that was on that world, who also did not transfer, will be moved to the same place together.

However, just to reiterate, don't worry - we will announce the full details when they are all finalized. I know you're all anxious and we're keenly aware of it being a very important point for everyone!

What I am getting out of this is those that do nothing will remain in the same world grouping. So I am kinda guessing each server will stay "as is" but not since they will be new servers but the same people that there was on the old server they were all on together, people who move will be on the server of their choice. (excluding new player servers unless starting over)

I also could be wrong, but it's what it sounds like in that clarification, I don't think it will be all one server because it would be overflown with all those who do not move, I am guessing divided based on their previous server and people choosing a server would then add to these existing amounts.

[ArkhamNative]

...

I was thinking that it would be that all Balmung characters will default to New Balmung, all Gungnir characters will default to New Gungnir, etc.

I don't think there will be problems with full worlds. SE is adding worlds this time, not consolidating them 2:1, and many people will be moving off of their old world to one in their region. Plus ARR worlds may be capable of holding many more characters than v1 worlds, just because v1 was kinda really broken that way.

[JillyBean]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for posting their thoughts and information. I really appreciate other perspectives, especially since I didn't experience the 1.0 merge (my character existed, but was merged without my knowledge, as I didn't play from Oct 2010 - May 2012).

Here's hoping we get some clear answers on this subject soon!

[Nix]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for posting their thoughts and information. I really appreciate other perspectives, especially since I didn't experience the 1.0 merge (my character existed, but was merged without my knowledge, as I didn't play from Oct 2010 - May 2012).

Here's hoping we get some clear answers on this subject soon!

Fo sho!

Offtopic, but I'd like to take this time to let you know that every time I see you post I start craving jellybeenz. I'm gonna have to get another of those crazy-huge jars of jelly-belly from CostCo now >< haha

[JillyBean]

Well, here's our latest tidbit of information. It answers one question, opens others (for me at least!)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rld#post998027

Q12: I would like to know about the World names that will be ready at launch and also which of those Worlds will be prepared for legacy/new players.

A12: The Worlds used in version 1.0 (a.k.a Legacy Worlds) will remain as is. Also, those Worlds will have the "Legacy" tag at the end of the World name. As far as Worlds for new players, it will be announced via the Developers' Blog so please stay tuned!

Also this post is of note for this subject as well:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...fer#post997996

Q6: Will we be able to carry over our friend list/linkshell from 1.0?

A6: As far as the linkshell goes, you will generally be able to carry it over. However, if the linkshell leader chooses to go to a different World with the World Transfer, the linkshell will be disbanded. On the other hand, the friend list in 1.0 was more of a bookmark than a friend list. In ARR, the features of the friend list have changed. Unlike 1.0, the other player will have to accept the friend invite. When you first start ARR, a mass friend invite will be sent to the players on your friend list and if the other player accepts the invite, they will be added to your friend list.

I bolded the part in the second quote with regard to my new question that has come up with the news in Q12.

My question now is:

Does this mean that if we don't choose to go to a new world with the World Transfer, will our character remain on our original server (in my case, Sargatanas), or will it be moved "with all other people who did nothing" to a different server.

If you think this seems obvious and I'm silly for asking, well, consider this. What if a lot of people request to move to Sargatanas and they decide to move the "do nothing" people to a different World to accommodate those requests (since it's easy to move people who made no request to begin with).

For example:

Will we know exactly what world our character will go to/stay on if we "do nothing"?
What if they announce that Sargatanas is a NA-East coast server. Well that's just where I'd want to be. My strategy could be to "do nothing" (if I knew exactly what that would result in). If I "do nothing" and do not apply for or make a world transfer, will my character remain on Sargatanas by default?

Knowing the names of the servers (and even their newly designated regions/locations) isn't enough information to make a decision. If my best option is to "do nothing" (and remain on Sargatanas if it ends up being NA-East Coast) then that's what I would want to do. I don't want to request to move to a world if the world I'll end up on by default is exactly what I'd choose anyway.

Also, at what point (Phase 4? Early Access? Launch Day?) is our final server destination determined? At one of these points, we're locked in to a server. We need to know at which point that occurs.

In addition, for the sake of getting this all out here on this thread that hopefully the OP/Forum Mod will return to reply on, here are mine and my LS-leaders posts from the Live Letter question thread that didn't get answered exactly:

I'm extremely interested in knowing how and when we will be picking servers. Could you show us an example of this process? A large number of my friends and I are really confused as to how we should go about our planning at the moment and we don't want all the information to come out with only a few days to organise ourselves.

- Will we be able to test multiple server regions before making our decision?
- Will we be able to transfer our characters in the future, if we feel we made the wrong choice?
- Will we be able to play with our friends from other worlds in instanced content (ie, can we specifically pick who we want to play with if we are all on at the same time)?
- Will there be any servers specifically labelled as 'international' for those of us from 1.0 servers to congregate on and avoid being split up?
- How are you planning to encourage people to play during the inevitable 'quiet hours' on regional servers?

All my questions are kind of based around that. I trust you guys to make a great game, I just want to play it with the friends I have made in 1.0 (from multiple regions of the world) and the rest of my friends from my site (who are also from around the world).

In addition to my dear friend's excellent questions regarding the future of server selection in relation to our 1.0/Legacy characters:

• Is there a chance that servers will become "full" and we could be locked out of a server previously agreed upon among our friends, allowing well organized friends and linkshells to actually get separated, despite all planning efforts? What measures will be put in place to make sure that this will not happen?
  
  
• Will server selection take place in advance of early-access/launch (with an "application process") as is hinted in this thread? http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...orld-Transfers
  
  
• Will 1.0 or Legacy characters have a first server choice or some type of priority to select from the worlds/servers that are reserved for existing/imported characters (not "new character servers")?

I'm just putting all this out here in one place so that when they do come to us with further details, that they will know exactly the kinds of information I/we are looking for. (maybe we can avoid or minimize the recent forum frenzy of questions regarding every single detail about pre-order/CE, PC/PS3).

<3 you all, thanks for listening!

[JillyBean]

Wanted to add Reinheart's translation of the Live Letter chat surrounding the official Q/A that got posted:

f; ok next, can you please tell us the server names at launch and which ones are for legacy and not?
y; The previous XIV worlds were based on item names, but we’ll continue to use those, so for those previous players they will familiar names.
y; and at the end of the world name it will have Legacy in parentheses, so it’s easy to distinguish
y; starting phase 3 there will be a lot more servers, project manager M want’s to mention this through the blog post. So I can’t say it from my mouth.
f; so we’re waiting on M
y; yes waiting on M
f; not sure if that’s going to be soon
y; i think it’s alright being soon
f; alright then soon, it will be mentioned in the blog so please look out for it.