Just Returning

Just logged back in for the first time in 10 years and wondering where the place is to go to have active players. I don't know anyone who plays anymore and would like to actually progress. Thanks for your time.

Welcome back.

If you're looking for an in-game place to find active players, maybe Mhaura (Ambuscade), Rabao (Odyssey), or Eastern Adoulin (good HP place, shopping, ionis, etc.)

There's a /yell command which goes to all cities, so actually being physically near other players isn't that big of a deal.

If you're still on Quetz, you probably won't find many players anywhere, it's the least populated server right now.

Regardless, I'd check with the linkshell concierge, see if you can find a linkshell from there or start /yelling to ask if someone has a linkpearl. May want to consider server change depending what your goals are and what your gameplay preferences are.

How can I find out which servers are the most populated?

It goes Asura -> Bahamut (70% of Asura) -> Everything else (roughly 50% of Asura)

Database

These are estimates, but jive pretty well with reality. Asura is filled with Mercs (sell you clears for gil) and yell spam, Bahamut is a tamed-down version of Asura, and everywhere else is pretty much socialize-or-die.

If you're just looking to do story stuff or solo/low-man, you can go anywhere and I'd recommend a more chill server.

If you're looking to do end-game content but have the desire to lead, do research, and/or find friends/linkshell/static, I'd say any server will do.

If you want to join PUGs for end-game content, Bahamut or Asura are probably your only options, though keep in mind gear requirements can be very strict so it will probably be a *** to get to that level. You will need to find a very supportive group or be prepared to spend a *** of gil, and probably be restricted on which jobs you can get a group on until you're extremely geared.

Thank you for the information. I appreciate it.

NP, let me (us) know if you have other questions, the community is pretty great about sharing info and answering questions.

in that case how do I set up gear swap?

...you've hit my Achilles's heel when it comes to helping, I don't use gearswap so I'm not really sure how to answer that question. In Windower you slide the thing to yes, that should install it. After that you might need to //lua load gs

Most important part is finding a lua for your job. A lot of people use Selindrile (sp) luas, though I'm not sure where you get all them or which directories they go in.

There's a thread dedicated to gearswap help on this forum, might even be a pinned thread for getting started.

awesome thanks again

You can make your own,
There are a couple of "Gearswap for dummies" and "Gearswap 101, how to make your own" guides.

There are also plug and play, pre-made.

Mote, Selindrile, Arislan and Kinematics.
Generally just googling one of the above names like, "Arisland Gearswap RDM", will find one for you.


I advocate for joining the cool-kids, "make your own Gearswap through blood, sweat, frustration and tears".

Yeah I guess I have some research to do. Thank you.

Lots of research. All the luas break on you if you try to figure out how to customize them.

And you're gonna want to customize them.

Try to keep regular backups.

Oh thank you for the advice. Hopefully I can figure out how to customize it correctly.