About the World Merge and Character Transfers (02/09/2012)

[Leela]

The reason why I had a hard time choosing Option ④ was because of the following factors.
The Cons of Option ④

The reason why I had a hard time choosing Option ④ was because of the following factors.

A: Players who belong to multiple communities might end up being torn apart by having to decide which community they will follow.
B: The option will cause stress on all players instead of causing stress on a number of players.
C: Players who decide to come back to the game after the merger will end up on a brand new World and no longer be able to player with friends.

What I like to hear what ever moved you to go with this?
Promoting a option and an explanation as for why this option was chosen over the others does usually not go by listing all the cons.

But then again I for one can not find any pro's in that option.

[Efrye]

Other translation didnt spesifically said German/French player, they said its for EU timezone. maybe you could check on it.

Yeah, I've seen it in the French announcement. It doesn't really help though, since
a) most English speaking EU players won't know about it, and
b) I'd end up on a server with mostly german/french players anyway.

[lackofwords]

Option two is just a blanket merge, and that is unkind to everyone who is getting merged into a larger server. From what I can tell, you don't like option 4 because you want to force the community to stick together for your own selfish desire to resist change.

Alright, so lets assume a player coming from a less populated world which has been decided to merge into a larger world.
The player could be either at the time being;

• Have a community established from previous world
• Been playing alone

I don't think a blanket merge would not affect the player who is already traveling with his established community. The player would stick to his existing social circle.

For the player who is playing alone, he is opened to more social circle opportunities to pick from. Oppose to the limited circles from the previous world, which the player did not wish participate for whatever reasons.

Now, Sidious mentioned problems of "two communities" trying to co-exist. It isn't that simple. There are hundreds of communities in a world. Just because a player is part of a world does not mean they partake in all the communities of the world as a whole. Besides, the hundreds of communities in the world itself has to learn to co-exist with each other. Adding more to it does not fundamentally change the dynamics of it.

Here's my personal example; (long story)

I was from Midgardsormr in FFXI, I was part of WeSH for my social outlet, and participated in several endgame shells, including some more specific shells like ShikigamiWeapon.

In 2010, Midgardsormr was merged to Quetzalcoatl. I kept together with WeSH, and a few of my endgame linkshell. ShikigamiWeapon, which was a shell in Midgard that helped people get their Yinyang Robe, was established in Quetzalcoatl as well to help the community.

Did it suck that we lost our world name? Yeah, a bit. But did that mean we didn't have fun together still? No, actually far from it. WeSH is having a great time on Quetz and picked up new members as well.

The only difference I remember noticing right after the merge was having more competition over endgame content, which is natural due to higher population density. Although as usual, over time some endgame shell dissolves, I join new ones, and still kept in contact with my circle back at Midgardsormr. However, I do not know if they were Quetz shells or Midgard shells or even a mix.

Never, have I personally asked new people I meet in game if they were from Midgard or Quetz, because I could care less. For me, a new face is a new face regardless if where they came from. Never was I ousted from a shell because I was from Midgard and not originally from Quetz.

Now, instead, if there wasn't a "blanket merge", where Midgard was merged to Quetz, what would have happened would be similar to when players being to choose a world on a new game. Since people have different circles of friends, they are forced to decide which ones they want to follow. Real life friends who plays, in-game friends, or in-game shells, etc.

To reference again to another personal experience;

I've played Ragnarok Online for while back while it was in beta and continued onto around 2004, which is when FFXI released. A few of the circle of players I knew in RO also wanted to move on to play FFXI.

Some decided to join the Ragnarok server, because of the name. However, some others decided to join other worlds. This essentially tore the circle apart and splitting into much smaller social groups, where the group isn't even sustainable by itself. Eventually what was a dozen players, dwindled down to three players. We had to find a new community to join into, instead of continuing from the one we've established from RO.

Now, if option 4 is picked, it's basically doing just that, forcing players to decide which circle of friends they want to follow. If option 2 is picked, no one needs to decide which circles to follow, because all their existing circles are there. Additionally, they also have the choice to pick another world if they wish. Such as if they don't want to merge into a particular world for any reason, they could try to convince their circle of friends to pick another world.

[Biggs]

Yoshida did specifically ask for constructive feedback, not "OMG SE YOU RUINED MY LIFE BECAUSE I CANT CONTACT MY FRIENDS OUTSIDE OF THE GAME TO COORDINATE A NEW SERVER TO JOIN WITH THEM. IM ALSO IN 7 LINKSHELLS THAT HAS 100 MEMBERS EACH AND WE MAY BE SEPARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATED."

You do know you are talking about North America here right? I mean , I dont think we even know what constructive criticism is. Just RAGGEEEEEE!!

Oh at first I was like who do you think you be! But then, I saw that you're all the way up to level 18 and how relevant this must all be for you. No wonder you speak like such an expert on the issue.

So there is NO possibility that he is just a reroll. Look at my level jackass. Did you even consider that many of us have been playing since launch and just rerolled? You ignorance is so bright its blinding the rest of us.

There are 4 community servers forums for each world I think and most people don't read them.

Well now sounds like a good time to start using them wouldn't you agree?

Nah you can be excluded from the outcast list .. Im just pissed cause option 1-3 wouldv'e saved soooo much frustration and actually probably made majority of people happy.. the people who are for option 4 are the small minority sadly...

Says who? The people on here complaining? You do realize that everyone posting on here still only represents a VERY small portion of the community as a whole right?

I don't understand why SE did not make a players poll about what we would prefer and just linked it to our login page if it was such a hard decision for their development team.

. Make a decision and move foward, thats what it means to be a leader. You have to make tough decisions that don't always please everyone. After watching the way most of you have reacted about this, I wouldnt want most of you determining my fate in a forum based player poll anyway. W/e option they would have chosen would have ended up having the same responses. WHen a storm comes you can either choose to bitch about it and accomplish nothing,or deal with the hand you have been givin and make the most of it. I would spend less time whining and more time collaborating with my server on what to do next.

[Mychael]

You do realize that everyone posting on here still only represents a VERY small portion of the community as a whole right?

Numbers, please.

~~~
From your post, I begin to understand why why the world has now chosen to move toward absolute monarchy; democratic systems have been in decline for many years.

</sarcasm>

In other words, once SE says "This is the way it's going to be, deal with it," these threads will be for "nothing." But the way I understood it, they want feedback. It helps them make decisions. Ours is every bit as valid as yours.

[Biggs]

Numbers, please.

~~~
Your post highlights why why the world has now chosen to move toward absolute monarchy; democratic systems have been in decline for many years.

In other words, once SE says "This is the way it's going to be, deal with it," these threads will be for "nothing." But the way I understood it, they want feedback. It helps them make decisions. Ours is every bit as valid as yours.

I certainly agree that is true when its CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. But getting on here and raging without offering any feedback about how you would have liked to see this done in a way thats beneficial to EVERYONE (Internationally mind you) isn't helping them at all. Many of you think there would be a better way, yet very few of you can actually lay one out.

And I think it should be obvious by looking at the 45 likes that Yoshi's response has gathered already about why they chose to do this the way they have proves my point about the numbers. There isnt 45 posts on this thread that come out and support his method, but clearly there are a group of people that do that don't feel the need to post why they think its fine. Its a very western thing to make full posts when your unhappy about something yet remain silent and NOT post when your pleased. Yoshi himself has said this more than a few times. Of the 55 people on my old ls, me and 4 other guys were the only ones that ever even checked this forum let alone responded on it. I am sure that is not an isolated thing.

[TheVedis]

Numbers, please.

~~~
Your post highlights why why the world has now chosen to move toward absolute monarchy; democratic systems have been in decline for many years.

In other words, once SE says "This is the way it's going to be, deal with it," these threads will be for "nothing." But the way I understood it, they want feedback. It helps them make decisions. Ours is every bit as valid as yours.

i hate to say it, but its true

you maybe only ever see 5-10% of the actual game community on any given forum

even just using my shell as an example(except for the fact we have had alot of recruitment from the forums itself lately) most of our members are non forum goers and im sure thats how it is with most groups

[Jinrya-Geki]

Anyone want to join me on Server 4? Looks like my linkshell is choosing 4. I hope to see all you cool people on March 27th?

/Red Wizard bow

[Mychael]

i hate to say it, but its true

you maybe only ever see 5-10% of the actual game community on any given forum

even just using my shell as an example(except for the fact we have had alot of recruitment from the forums itself lately) most of our members are non forum goers and im sure thats how it is with most groups

I agree with that. What I was aiming for was that I doubt Brigandier can show that the majority is in favor of this merge. I'm on Selbina, which is apparently becoming an exception to the rule, but I've seen rages and petitions in /shout as well as /say throughout Ul'dah, not to mention within linkshells.

@Biggs

Everything Bayohne posts gets 40+ likes. It doesn't matter what it says. Beyond that, Yoshi's post also said that they would continue to monitor feedback. That's where my like came from. Not that he said that it was set in stone.

[Biggs]

I agree with that. What I was aiming for was that I doubt Brigandier can show that the majority is in favor of this merge. I'm on Selbina, which is apparently becoming an exception to the rule, but I've seen rages and petitions in /shout as well as /say throughout Ul'dah, not to mention within linkshells.

@Brigandier

Everything Bayohne posts gets 40+ likes. It doesn't matter what it says. Beyond that, Yoshi's post also said that they would continue to monitor feedback. That's where my like came from. Not that he said that it was set in stone.

Ok ,so I think you misread. First, my name is Biggs, so if your going to mention me, at least mention me by my name, as I would be more than willing to do the same for you. Second Yoshi made that post, not Bay. And I wasn't at all claiming that the majority think this is a good idea, rather, only highlighting that niether camp (yours or mine) can make a claim about what the majority does or doesn't want based on these forums alone. I actually think if a poll WAS taken using the 4 options listed, the responses would all be fairly spread out. Hence why I am glad that they just picked one in house, made a tough decision and moved forward with it. It would be completely impossibe to make the majority of people happy no matter which of those 4 response they had chosen.