Thanks for all this great advice!
It sounds like you're pretty ready to move to a JP server, which would make sense. I would transfer your character over because starting over means doing all of the 2.0 story again, all of the 2.x story again leading to HW, all of the gearing up again, and all of the HW story and leveling again, which seems like a waste when you can jump back in with all of that busywork already done.
There's no FC (only a LS), but there's a few gaffers on Durandal. It's a Legacy server though, with all merits and demerits of that fact.
I must say though, I've been enjoying myself thus far and I think Ultros is clearly the server to be on if you really wana be rolling with GAF.
Yeah, this part. Being able to play with GAF has been so much fun, and so educational. This is my first MMO and if I had had to learn all that horrible MMO slang and other non-intuitive concepts alone, I probably would have quit playing.
I thought that I would eventually move to a Japanese server because of lag and time differences and wanted to learn the game with fellow English speakers first, so I put what I thought would be my secondary protagonist on Ultros and my "real" one (male) on Durandal... and then ended up sticking to Ultros for everything. I could go back to developing him on Durandal; he's at around level 25-30 in one class. There would be a ton of 2.1-2.55 content to re-do, and it might be a grind.
I consider my protagonist to be a person whose adventures I am watching, not an extension of myself, but after learning that players tend to talk in chat as if they
were that person, as a man it would feel weird to talk like my real self but have a female avatar, so I might use Fantasia if I switch servers.
From what I read, Tonberry is the JP server with the most English speakers, and is the most multilingual/multicultural. That's what I want out of this game; that sounds like the most fun way to play. Back when the beta was out, Japanese speakers seemed more tolerant of people who love RPGs but don't know MMO concepts well, in contrast to the NA servers which were full of MMO veterans bringing their crazy lingo (which I later learned came from Warcraft) and expecting everyone to understand it. Is it still like this on the JP servers?