Hello! Also EU, and although I personally play at more US playtimes, I keep tabs on the EU RP scene so I can encourage my functional human more normal friends to join in with it.
Three points I'll address:
- Paying to get onto Balmung - I legitimately think it's worth it. It's less than the cover fee for an IRL nightclub, and honestly, you only get to enjoy that for one night. You get to enjoy access to the Balmung community indefinitely for a one-time fee, and you can bring a full load of 8 characters at once (assuming you pay the subscription plan that allows you to have 8, lol). If you roleplay there even just once a week, I think you're getting your money's worth, even as an EU timezone player. It's basically a roleplay DLC.
- Gameplay latency - this is a legit concern, and something that we've been warned will get worse for EU players with the new data centre upgrade that's coming up, and not better (likely the physical location of the data centre is further from Europe). So here's my suggestion: keep your current highly levelled character(s) on your current realm. Do your weeklies, your progression, your content enjoyment there, with your existing friends. And then for roleplay, roll a fresh set of characters on a random server, wait the 3-day cooldown period, and then transfer them to Balmung. It'll take you a little while to get them back up to a serviceable level - but honestly, I find I can access most RP events on a level 15 alt with an airship pass. That only takes an hour or two at most if you skip all the cutscenes and basically know how to play the game. More levels are a boon, but not a hard necessity.
- Finding EU roleplayers on Balmung - I'm gonna give the same advice I gave someone else recently: this tumblr, Balmung EU, is a godsend for getting started. They list out the EU-friendly events that take place every week - there's usually at least one a day, sometimes barring reset days. I find once you attend events that suit you both in timezone and RP style, you find other people at those events who you get on with. You add them to your friends' list - and then when you log on even if there's no events happening at that time, there's people on your friends list you can reach out to who are likely to be available. (Events on set days/times are also great for planning your RP around an existing PvE static/FC schedule.)
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!
Three points I'll address:
- Paying to get onto Balmung - I legitimately think it's worth it. It's less than the cover fee for an IRL nightclub, and honestly, you only get to enjoy that for one night. You get to enjoy access to the Balmung community indefinitely for a one-time fee, and you can bring a full load of 8 characters at once (assuming you pay the subscription plan that allows you to have 8, lol). If you roleplay there even just once a week, I think you're getting your money's worth, even as an EU timezone player. It's basically a roleplay DLC.
- Gameplay latency - this is a legit concern, and something that we've been warned will get worse for EU players with the new data centre upgrade that's coming up, and not better (likely the physical location of the data centre is further from Europe). So here's my suggestion: keep your current highly levelled character(s) on your current realm. Do your weeklies, your progression, your content enjoyment there, with your existing friends. And then for roleplay, roll a fresh set of characters on a random server, wait the 3-day cooldown period, and then transfer them to Balmung. It'll take you a little while to get them back up to a serviceable level - but honestly, I find I can access most RP events on a level 15 alt with an airship pass. That only takes an hour or two at most if you skip all the cutscenes and basically know how to play the game. More levels are a boon, but not a hard necessity.
- Finding EU roleplayers on Balmung - I'm gonna give the same advice I gave someone else recently: this tumblr, Balmung EU, is a godsend for getting started. They list out the EU-friendly events that take place every week - there's usually at least one a day, sometimes barring reset days. I find once you attend events that suit you both in timezone and RP style, you find other people at those events who you get on with. You add them to your friends' list - and then when you log on even if there's no events happening at that time, there's people on your friends list you can reach out to who are likely to be available. (Events on set days/times are also great for planning your RP around an existing PvE static/FC schedule.)
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!
![[Image: tUzrT.png]](https://puu.sh/tUzrT.png)
