I finally got my friend to buy the game after much nagging and now Cerberus is down for character creation.
While I understand why this is the case other MMOs who have done this usually have ways to invite friends still. Is there a way to invite friends to the server? I'm guessing not since I've searched and not found it.

If thats the case then I can really see this damaging for other people in my situation. If you want to give a person a first perspective of a game, this is not the best way to do it. He is already quite annoyed by SE and I understand him for it. A lot of good customers will be lost this way unless you can get them on same server I am afraid.