I agree with you @TheSkavenger ; Only FF does this server lock, other games with the same problem (WoW new expansion popular server) don't lock servers, this might be better for the existing players, favouring them is fine, but they also chose to play on a popular server. This is just another example of a bad solution to a problem.
How is server locking a bad solution in this situation? Is it better that the pre existing player base suffer lag and server crashes because new players want to pile onto the popular server? At least SE tries to take steps to head off that problem, unpopular though it may be to those who feel entitled...
As was stated in the OP . . . other companies have the same issues and allow people to queue, having a hard lock means you have no chance to get in, while a game like WoW you wait like everyone else. This person wants to play with their friends, the MMORPG came company is saying no way, how is that a good idea? They have a problem that has been there for a long time and this is the best way they have come up with to fix it. And large service oriented company would come up with a better way to do this.
Like your last comment there too, so the people who have been playing on that server for a long time and feel they should have access before others, what would you call their feeling? See the problem there skippy?
All day I can't make a character on any server that I want to actually be on. I can't even join a queue, just complete lock out. My friends and the guild I wanted to be in are all on either Balmung and Gilgamesh. I understand these are popular servers, but I just went back to WoW since I can't join my friends in FFXIV (so went to join my two friends still playing WoW)...I hopped on one of the top popular servers (Tichondrius), had a short queue and wasn't locked out from making a character.
I am going to call the bank and get my money back, because I spent a lot of money on FFXIV to find out I can't even join my friends on their servers. I did research after, and FFXIV complete hard locks servers for potentially weeks or months at a time (when I read about that, is when I uninstalled and unsubbed). I had no idea this "feature" or "mechanic" even existed in games or I'd have researched it better. I never played an MMO with a hard lock on a server, and even when WoW is being hard hit at expansion launch...all I do is join a queue and wait.
Very disappointed. And sure I can join another server, but my real life friends aren't on those...so there is no point at all. I play MMOs for my friends and the community, not to play by myself like most people do these days.
you must be new to mmo expansion launches. EVERY mmo gets like this when it drops a new expansion, hell last one WoW dropped I had a 3 hour queue lol
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I was very disappointed in FFXIV also...To me the biggest turn off was that you couldnt even go to other areas other than where your quest was...Every time I tried I'd get the "you cant go there" message, so I left.
This is flatout not true. Only first couple levels until you unlock the Airships travel in the MSQ. Then you can practically go everywhere in any ARR zone.
only expansion areas as Heavensward and Stormblood zones are gated.
I agree with you @TheSkavenger ; Only FF does this server lock, other games with the same problem (WoW new expansion popular server) don't lock servers, this might be better for the existing players, favouring them is fine, but they also chose to play on a popular server. This is just another example of a bad solution to a problem.
How is server locking a bad solution in this situation? Is it better that the pre existing player base suffer lag and server crashes because new players want to pile onto the popular server? At least SE tries to take steps to head off that problem, unpopular though it may be to those who feel entitled...
As was stated in the OP . . . other companies have the same issues and allow people to queue, having a hard lock means you have no chance to get in, while a game like WoW you wait like everyone else. This person wants to play with their friends, the MMORPG came company is saying no way, how is that a good idea? They have a problem that has been there for a long time and this is the best way they have come up with to fix it. And large service oriented company would come up with a better way to do this.
Like your last comment there too, so the people who have been playing on that server for a long time and feel they should have access before others, what would you call their feeling? See the problem there skippy?
People who have been playing (and paying) on a particular server are in fact entitled to priority access over those who want to join now to play with their "friends."
Sounds like Square is servicing their customers just as they should be.
In reading this thread these servers already have long queues, if I'm already on these servers no way would I want the problem made worse.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yea I totally understand this right here.. The game was completely unplayable during early access. However i have heard that savage Raubauhn and Savage Pipen have been fixed.
It's been common practice in Final Fantasy XIV to lock out populated servers to evenly distribute population across all servers. And they're never permanently locked. The reason for the lock is queue times. Should I mention when A Realm Reborn first launched? They didn't lock servers until 2 weeks after launch cause queues got to be 16 hours long and causing many issues such as server crashes, Duty Finder (Dungeon Finder) to crash. Duty Finder is cross server and runs on the data center as a whole, so if Duty Finder goes down, not a whole lot to do for players. Locking servers prevents this from happening due to the influx of players returning to the game due to an expansion launch. Server locks are usually released within the first month of an expansion dropping once congestion dies down.
Also, complaining on a public forum that you're going to do a charge back is probably the dumbest thing I've seen someone due. I don't think anyone cares whether you do a charge back, nor are you going to sway anyone from unsubscribing to the game. If you truly don't like the lockout timers being in place, then post it as feedback on the official game forums or through appropriate channels. The devs likely won't ever see your complaint here on mmorpg.
That being said, to @Renoaku , if you forcefully charge back your purchase through your bank or PayPal, most game companies will ban your account until you can fully reimburse the money you technically 'owe' them. It's the same as if a payment bounces. You subscribe to a game and suddenly that payment is taken back after a week without your knowledge, then you owe money for that months server and thus the account is banned. You have to go through their official channels to try and attempt a refund for your account to not suffer any consequences. That being said, if they refuse to refund you and you still feel upset and like it's not worth it, then yes; risk having your account banned and do a charge back. Chances are, at that point; you no longer care for their game or service and value your money over a game.
Call me an asshole if you want, but this is honestly a pointless thread. Either wait out the lock outs until you can make a character, or refund it. Telling other people you are getting a refund is dumb and no one usually cares.
Side Note: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV are two entirely different games run on entirely different engines and server architectures. Both companies who run them also make different amounts of money from their service. One resides in Japan while the other primarily operates in North America. These are two completely different entities. So stop comparing the two. World of Warcraft may be able to handle an influx of players due to how it's coded, the server architecture, and game engine, but Final Fantasy XIV may not be able to due to how it's coded and run on it's servers. Games don't run the same across the board.
Out of all the reasons to not play this game. Yours is the pettiest.
How is wanting to play with friends petty? I'd be pissed too if this were my situation. But anyway, seems like your friends dropped the ball here not realizing you couldn't create a character on their server. Maybe solo on another server for a bit and transfer later, or make your friends roll alts on your server or something? Honestly a great game if you want to get into it.
It's been common practice in Final Fantasy XIV to lock out populated servers to evenly distribute population across all servers. And they're never permanently locked. The reason for the lock is queue times. Should I mention when A Realm Reborn first launched? They didn't lock servers until 2 weeks after launch cause queues got to be 16 hours long and causing many issues such as server crashes, Duty Finder (Dungeon Finder) to crash. Duty Finder is cross server and runs on the data center as a whole, so if Duty Finder goes down, not a whole lot to do for players. Locking servers prevents this from happening due to the influx of players returning to the game due to an expansion launch. Server locks are usually released within the first month of an expansion dropping once congestion dies down.
Also, complaining on a public forum that you're going to do a charge back is probably the dumbest thing I've seen someone due. I don't think anyone cares whether you do a charge back, nor are you going to sway anyone from unsubscribing to the game. If you truly don't like the lockout timers being in place, then post it as feedback on the official game forums or through appropriate channels. The devs likely won't ever see your complaint here on mmorpg.
That being said, to @Renoaku , if you forcefully charge back your purchase through your bank or PayPal, most game companies will ban your account until you can fully reimburse the money you technically 'owe' them. It's the same as if a payment bounces. You subscribe to a game and suddenly that payment is taken back after a week without your knowledge, then you owe money for that months server and thus the account is banned. You have to go through their official channels to try and attempt a refund for your account to not suffer any consequences. That being said, if they refuse to refund you and you still feel upset and like it's not worth it, then yes; risk having your account banned and do a charge back. Chances are, at that point; you no longer care for their game or service and value your money over a game.
Call me an asshole if you want, but this is honestly a pointless thread. Either wait out the lock outs until you can make a character, or refund it. Telling other people you are getting a refund is dumb and no one usually cares.
Side Note: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV are two entirely different games run on entirely different engines and server architectures. Both companies who run them also make different amounts of money from their service. One resides in Japan while the other primarily operates in North America. These are two completely different entities. So stop comparing the two. World of Warcraft may be able to handle an influx of players due to how it's coded, the server architecture, and game engine, but Final Fantasy XIV may not be able to due to how it's coded and run on it's servers. Games don't run the same across the board.
The big problem SE faces here, was these weren't new players. Sure, there were some, but most were returning players who already had characters on these servers.
The problem is that SE might have an idea of how many players are returning to the new expansion based on sales, but they have no idea how to connect those sales to the character base until people actually registered their purchases, which wasn't available until a week prior to the EA. So adding infrastructure isn't what's needed since they already have enough to support the whole player base. The issue is population balance.....or in this case, lack there of.
So now that they know how imbalanced the servers are, they can't just go buy more servers. It would take more time to implement the upgrades than the issue will be an issue for. Once players start reaching endgame, populations will drop. Once the 1st round of Subs expire into the new expansion, populations will drop. Besides, there may be logical limits, as the poster said above, based on the coding of the game, as to how much population can be in any given zone or instance regardless of server hardware. I can say that my PC has limits to how many players it can render in any given area.
It's a matter of being patient. I hate it as I am on one of these overpopulated servers and I have to initiate my login hours before I will actually be ready to play.
My choices are simple. Neither attractive, but quite simple. I can wait it out and seal with queues, or I can move and risk being stuck in a ghost town in 3 months.
Problem with moving is that for now and until further notice.....probably indefinitely, there is no coming back. If you leave one of these servers, you cannot just transfer back in. They are no longer available for that service.
SE did announce the server lock-outs of the extremely over populated servers awhile ago and offered free transfers off the ultra populated servers. Since you are new understandable you didn't know, but anyone playing the game surly did and they could of told you. Your friends should of told you this.
Those servers are basically at complete capacity, it was either they lock them or they crash worse then they already are.
As others said your SE account will perma ban if you charge back and they will fight the charge back... since you can technically play the game outside overpopulation good chance they will win.
most likely once the servers balance and launch rush ends the restriction will be lifted but that could be awhile.
I've done this a few times after trying out terrible games. They won't win. They will block the account that you charged back, but that's about it. I wouldn't personally care about the account, because if I were doing this, I wouldn't want to play the game again, anyways.
FFXIV is expensive, especially if you buy for multiple platforms - the up front cost of starting up in the game doubles or quadruples in that instance (we're talking $100-200 just to install and play the game on Windows, PS4 and macOS - any combination of the two, or all three). If I were excited about playing the game and did that, and then realized that I couldn't even play with my friends without them transferring or rerolling, I'd charge back immediately.
It takes only a couple of minutes on the phone to get your bank to chargeback. It's not difficult - at all.
And I think your explanation about what a player can "technically" do is pretty terrible. Technically, they don't give anyone a disclaimer that "server choices may be limited based on population." They simply tell you "come play with millions of other players."
If they can be misleading and not make this transparent, then the customer should be able to get their money back without calling the bank when they log in and realize they can't even play a social game with the people they want to socialize with.
I am doing a trial and I'm only at level 13, but I don't think I can do it any longer. It's not fun to play.
It's extremely boring, and I think by the time I was level 3 I stopped reading the quest text altogether - simply to save time and move on as quickly as possible. The UI is terrible and the game makes you click 1,000,000x just to hand in quest items, etc. Have to run all over the world, to disparate zones for different quests - but you run slow AF and the Sprint doesn't really help all that much.
Low level mobs take forever to kill. I'm not even sure my DoTs actually do damage, Lol. The "Fates" are not fun at all. Seem like a bad rip off of a similar mechanic in "Rift."
The game looks fun when I watch twitch streamers run Dungeons or Raids, but I cannot take the leveling experience.
2.5second cast time on spells that do almost no damage is not fun. The GCD is awful, especially at low levels when you have nothing else you can do in that time span.
I also have no idea why they give Arcanists a caster DPS pet before a Tank pet, as well. It's illogical.
Comments
Like your last comment there too, so the people who have been playing on that server for a long time and feel they should have access before others, what would you call their feeling? See the problem there skippy?
you must be new to mmo expansion launches. EVERY mmo gets like this when it drops a new expansion, hell last one WoW dropped I had a 3 hour queue lol
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only expansion areas as Heavensward and Stormblood zones are gated.
Sounds like Square is servicing their customers just as they should be.
In reading this thread these servers already have long queues, if I'm already on these servers no way would I want the problem made worse.
Sometimes life just isn't fair.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Also, complaining on a public forum that you're going to do a charge back is probably the dumbest thing I've seen someone due. I don't think anyone cares whether you do a charge back, nor are you going to sway anyone from unsubscribing to the game. If you truly don't like the lockout timers being in place, then post it as feedback on the official game forums or through appropriate channels. The devs likely won't ever see your complaint here on mmorpg.
That being said, to @Renoaku , if you forcefully charge back your purchase through your bank or PayPal, most game companies will ban your account until you can fully reimburse the money you technically 'owe' them. It's the same as if a payment bounces. You subscribe to a game and suddenly that payment is taken back after a week without your knowledge, then you owe money for that months server and thus the account is banned. You have to go through their official channels to try and attempt a refund for your account to not suffer any consequences. That being said, if they refuse to refund you and you still feel upset and like it's not worth it, then yes; risk having your account banned and do a charge back. Chances are, at that point; you no longer care for their game or service and value your money over a game.
Call me an asshole if you want, but this is honestly a pointless thread. Either wait out the lock outs until you can make a character, or refund it. Telling other people you are getting a refund is dumb and no one usually cares.
Side Note: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV are two entirely different games run on entirely different engines and server architectures. Both companies who run them also make different amounts of money from their service. One resides in Japan while the other primarily operates in North America. These are two completely different entities. So stop comparing the two. World of Warcraft may be able to handle an influx of players due to how it's coded, the server architecture, and game engine, but Final Fantasy XIV may not be able to due to how it's coded and run on it's servers. Games don't run the same across the board.
The problem is that SE might have an idea of how many players are returning to the new expansion based on sales, but they have no idea how to connect those sales to the character base until people actually registered their purchases, which wasn't available until a week prior to the EA. So adding infrastructure isn't what's needed since they already have enough to support the whole player base. The issue is population balance.....or in this case, lack there of.
So now that they know how imbalanced the servers are, they can't just go buy more servers. It would take more time to implement the upgrades than the issue will be an issue for. Once players start reaching endgame, populations will drop. Once the 1st round of Subs expire into the new expansion, populations will drop. Besides, there may be logical limits, as the poster said above, based on the coding of the game, as to how much population can be in any given zone or instance regardless of server hardware. I can say that my PC has limits to how many players it can render in any given area.
It's a matter of being patient. I hate it as I am on one of these overpopulated servers and I have to initiate my login hours before I will actually be ready to play.
My choices are simple. Neither attractive, but quite simple. I can wait it out and seal with queues, or I can move and risk being stuck in a ghost town in 3 months.
Problem with moving is that for now and until further notice.....probably indefinitely, there is no coming back. If you leave one of these servers, you cannot just transfer back in. They are no longer available for that service.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
FFXIV is expensive, especially if you buy for multiple platforms - the up front cost of starting up in the game doubles or quadruples in that instance (we're talking $100-200 just to install and play the game on Windows, PS4 and macOS - any combination of the two, or all three). If I were excited about playing the game and did that, and then realized that I couldn't even play with my friends without them transferring or rerolling, I'd charge back immediately.
It takes only a couple of minutes on the phone to get your bank to chargeback. It's not difficult - at all.
And I think your explanation about what a player can "technically" do is pretty terrible. Technically, they don't give anyone a disclaimer that "server choices may be limited based on population." They simply tell you "come play with millions of other players."
If they can be misleading and not make this transparent, then the customer should be able to get their money back without calling the bank when they log in and realize they can't even play a social game with the people they want to socialize with.
It's extremely boring, and I think by the time I was level 3 I stopped reading the quest text altogether - simply to save time and move on as quickly as possible. The UI is terrible and the game makes you click 1,000,000x just to hand in quest items, etc. Have to run all over the world, to disparate zones for different quests - but you run slow AF and the Sprint doesn't really help all that much.
Low level mobs take forever to kill. I'm not even sure my DoTs actually do damage, Lol. The "Fates" are not fun at all. Seem like a bad rip off of a similar mechanic in "Rift."
The game looks fun when I watch twitch streamers run Dungeons or Raids, but I cannot take the leveling experience.
2.5second cast time on spells that do almost no damage is not fun. The GCD is awful, especially at low levels when you have nothing else you can do in that time span.
I also have no idea why they give Arcanists a caster DPS pet before a Tank pet, as well. It's illogical.