wouldn't this be more realistic for merge?

[darkstarpoet1]

take the top 10 servers and keep the top 6 population in tact.

1. Global Server(name of the top pop server)
2. Global Server(name of the second)
3. Global Server(name of the third)
4. Global Server(name of the 4th)
5. Global Server(name of the 5th)
6. Global Server(name of the 6th)
7. Jp Server(name of the server with the highest % jp)
8. English Server(name of the server with the highest % na)
9. French/German Server(name of the server with the highest % french/german)
10. Rp Server(Keep Besaid as rp server)

ok the populations of the top 10 servers and the names of the servers will stay in tact, but the members of those servers would be given a 1 time server transfer to get into one of the other servers if they wish. that way if they are on a server, but wants to be on the jp server they could go there.

take the bottom 8 servers

1. merge to server 6
2. merge to server 5
3. merge to server 4
4. merge to server 3
5. merge to server 2
6. merge to server 1
7. merge to server 6
8. merge to server 5

move the entire populations including the inactives to those servers. give those people a 1 time optional transfer in case they want to go to the jp server, role playing server, or even a server they have old friends on they can join with.

this would not only allow the merge to keep linkshells and friends together, but it would also allow people to choose to go to or leave an english/jp/french/german/rold playing server.

the have a few reasons i am worried about the way merges are being handled.
1. people leaving a low population server may wind up on a server with even lower population after the merge.
2. friends that plan on coming back at a later point in time may not return due to getting separated from their friends.
3. people could wind up choosing to go to a server that other languages decided to make their primary server so they are stuck with a server that's full and they can't communicate with.

[Elexia]

1. It'll be almost impossible to end up on an even lower populated server when you're axing servers and those players are being condensed into even fewer servers with 2-3k+ (I believe?) range per server they wanted at present time.

2. This will indeed hurt the inactive people, but that's just it, this right now is for people currently playing as it's being done in order "to improve player experience", not necessarily improve the image of the game (even though that can happen with a merge though.)

3. This is inevitable in any MMO, especially one not created by your native language development team.

What will happen with the first idea, is the global servers will become unbalanced because everyone will try to flock and fill up language specific servers, which you then successfully created problem #1 by trying to segregate people.

[darkstarpoet1]

1. It'll be almost impossible to end up on an even lower populated server when you're axing servers and those players are being condensed into even fewer servers with 2-3k+ (I believe?) range per server they wanted at present time.

2. This will indeed hurt the inactive people, but that's just it, this right now is for people currently playing as it's being done in order "to improve player experience", not necessarily improve the image of the game (even though that can happen with a merge though.)

3. This is inevitable in any MMO, especially one not created by your native language development team.

What will happen with the first idea, is the global servers will become unbalanced because everyone will try to flock and fill up language specific servers, which you then successfully created problem #1 by trying to segregate people.

with the current system it may be almost impossible to wind up on a lower population server, but it would still be possible. isn't that what a merge was being done for was to get rid of the lower population servers? i know of very very few people that have talked about going to a language specific server, but at least by designating one as that they would have the option and the ability to go there.

also, no, 2-3k was not the population they wanted per server. it was the amount they wanted per time zone. they wanted to have 2-3k on for each of the 3 prime times each day. the total server could wind up being 6-9k per server and the estimates right now are there is anywhere from 25k to 50k people playing right now. that would not even fill up 6 of the servers on the high end estimate and leave the other 4 servers completely empty.

[AngryNixon]

No thank you.

[Choyi]

2. This will indeed hurt the inactive people, but that's just it, this right now is for people currently playing as it's being done in order "to improve player experience", not necessarily improve the image of the game (even though that can happen with a merge though.)

If by "improve player experience", you mean "cut server costs to save SE money"? :>