When can I realistically expect to create a character?

[NovaLevossida]

I bought this game to play with my friends, and they're already established, so I'm not going to go the selfish route and demand that they severe friendships and communities to jump to a new server with me. However, since my purchase of the game, I've been unable to play with my friends because a character creation restriction has been put in place. While I was able to make a character on a server where none of my RL friends are, I have no incentive to actually play on there because I wouldn't be sticking with the character, and I don't want to get burned out doing the same new player content twice in a row.

I've been checking back every hour (at least) to refresh the server selection, and I've been checking at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am, 6 am, etc. More servers were available at those times, but not the one that I needed. As the day progresses, less and less servers become available, and I have no hope that something that wasn't available at 3 am is going to become available in prime time in the evening. So, realistically, I can't expect to create a character today, and if 3 am this morning the server was unavailable, it might be again tomorrow.

[Stumbleina]

I know this likely won't help your issue, but I can give you the experience I have had with trying to create characters on my server, Exodus.
Exodus has been closed for character creation since maybe a day after the head start began. After watching all of the "updates" on the character creation restrictions and seeing it taken off the list repeatedly, I began to just not pay attention to them. Exodus was not available to create characters even when it seemed like SE was saying it was.

VERY late last night (about 2am EST) I found that I was finally able to create a character on it. I created the character I had been waiting a week to make, and even deleted excess characters that I knew I would not use and narrowed it down to the 4 characters I knew I wanted to have on the server. This all took me about an hour and a half to do, and it was open for character creation the entire time.

I have been seeing servers pop in and out as far as if you can make characters on it, but this was the first time I had seen Exodus available for it. I have my doubts that when I get home today I would be able to make a new character on it again - I get the feeling that they are watching the number of characters and slowly increasing the number that are allowed on each server, and once they become full again they close them off again. This is all speculation as the communication from SE has been pretty dismal.

Anyway, again - I realize this isn't an answer, but I figured you may be able to glean something from what I've been going through. If you can, try watching later at night, as I saw a lot of servers open up for character creation late last night. I hope you can get on your friends' server soon!

[Steppin]

Same... It's a little frustrating. I've had the game for a good bit now, but I'm not even able to enjoy it. Apparently the server I'm trying to get into had a very short gap for open character creation after the patch, while I was at school Q_Q, but then went straight back to being locked.

[Vinge]

Same here, I know a bunch of people who started on an EU server in Early Access but I've been unable to join then even though I bought the game 5 days ago now.

Just some sort of indication as to a likely timescale would be nice, waiting a few more days is no biggie but if we're potentially talking weeks it would be good to know.

[NovaLevossida]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to keep checking back in repeatedly (and especially in the 1 am - 6 am hours as much as I hate to lose sleep over a game), but it's kind of annoying that it's locking down the PS3. Unless the servers that all of us specifically want to get on become available, I don't think it's going to improve much until next week when they implement an AFK kick timer.

I guess what's particularly insulting about it is when I made a character on a server that I didn't want to play on (and consequently didn't stay on it long as I didn't want to prevent someone who was actually invested in the server from getting on), I got spammed by an RMT / gil-seller within 20 seconds of landing on the server, and frequently after that. So, yeah, there are these jerks taking up server spots making things worse.

[Zozorozo]

You can update the world list every three minutes during character creation. Have seen some people have good luck just clicking refresh.

[NovaLevossida]

You can update the world list every three minutes during character creation. Have seen some people have good luck just clicking refresh.

Yeah, I know about that. I think I've refreshed it nearing 100 times now.

[PsychicKoala]

If it's one of the more populated servers, then it is probably going to be another week.

[NovaLevossida]

If it's one of the more populated servers, then it is probably going to be another week.

Is there any way that I can tell which are more populated than others? Like specific amounts?

The Cactuar server is the one I'm trying to get onto. I have RL friends there and a linkshell / guild already established for an online community that has existed prior to FFXIV's initial creation that I'm a member of.

[AlienWacKo]

Is there any way that I can tell which are more populated than others? Like specific amounts?

The Cactuar server is the one I'm trying to get onto. I have RL friends there and a linkshell / guild already established for an online community that has existed prior to FFXIV's initial creation that I'm a member of.

I've personally seen cactuar open up many times late at night and early morning back when i was trying to create a character on gilgamesh which seemed permantely locked. The times i've seen Cactuer open up for short periods of time WHEN they are not on the locked server lists are around 11pm to 1pm EST time, and then again aroun 3am to 7am EST time. I've even created characters on there before just to delete them. I decided to roll on the fresh new server yesterday myself though, but i don't have any real life friends playing either