Server Merge incoming?

http://www.ffxiah.com/screenshots/76086

Not sure how valid this screenshot it, but I'm kind of curious now.

Not valid unless theres an official announcement. if it is valid, GM is talking out their behind, which has happened before. Very odd wording for a GM to use on that last sentence as well. The GM staff are specific to each region so the odd use of english is suspect. Also, they wouldn't just merge one server, they would merge them in half if they were going to do it.

As much as I hate to say it I believe a merger has be done, I am on Cerberus 424 people on, have a left over mule on Leviathan about same as Cerberus, made another character to check out Shiva...same. Numbers were within 50 of each other.

Oh, lots of people want it to be done, but it's probably a pipe dream at this point. They've been doing more and more to facilitate solo play as popularity of the game has waned, It seems like they'd rather keep going in that vein than put more people on fewer servers.

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Originally Posted by lllen

As much as I hate to say it I believe a merger has be done, I am on Cerberus 424 people on, have a left over mule on Leviathan about same as Cerberus, made another character to check out Shiva...same. Numbers were within 50 of each other.

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What time were you checking shiva?
I usually see about 800 online, even in the evening we have over 600 usually. (right now it's 619) Sometimes we hit over a thousand.
Nothing like the numbers of the old days of course, reaching 4k to 5k in peak and around 2-3k at off hours. But 800+ is fairly reasonable atm.

but how many of those are mules or just parked characters? it usually looks to me like 50% minimum are not really there playing, judging by how many I can just run through with no delay.

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Originally Posted by Glamdring

but how many of those are mules or just parked characters? it usually looks to me like 50% minimum are not really there playing, judging by how many I can just run through with no delay.

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I can't believe 50% are just parked bazaars.
I would say maybe 10% honestly, 15 tops before counting temp afk players, or players waiting for others.
But half the world just sitting there bazaaring for example? I don't believe it, I've seen bazaars diminishing in count but server population stays around the same, least on shiva.

Overall, I'd say the count is proportional to the number of active players.
Just imagine how many people sat afk years ago when the game had 4-5k people on a server? Often selling a greater variety of items then anyone does now.
I would argue we have more active players right now then bazaarers.

yeah, not saying they are all bazaaring, but muling? oh yes. a guy in my LS spends 80%+ of his gaming time just sitting in his mog garden cycling through all of his mules and watching facebook and other social media. from people I talk to he's hardly the only one. on Ragnarok there are characters parked all over, but especially by any mog house exit. there's also players essentially just botting sparks/accolades who respond to nothing. generally 60% of any Aby XP/Merit burn is AFK, etc. Actual there, interactive players, yeah, I'd put it a bit under 50%.

An easy way to test it is after a maintenance or version update. I usually only see about 200 people on cerberus for the first few hours after one of those. Then by the next day we're back to 450ish with over half sitting in cities. During JP prime time we hit about 800. I have an account on asura as well. I see roughly twice as many people on at any given time there.

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Originally Posted by Glamdring

yeah, not saying they are all bazaaring, but muling? oh yes. a guy in my LS spends 80%+ of his gaming time just sitting in his mog garden cycling through all of his mules and watching facebook and other social media. from people I talk to he's hardly the only one. on Ragnarok there are characters parked all over, but especially by any mog house exit. there's also players essentially just botting sparks/accolades who respond to nothing. generally 60% of any Aby XP/Merit burn is AFK, etc. Actual there, interactive players, yeah, I'd put it a bit under 50%.

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I'm confused why anyone would do this. Granted, I only actively play a few jobs, but I have zero mules and no problem with inventory. Heck if had to deal with more than one mule, I don't know how i'd keep track of where everything is. I think a lot of people keep too much stuff. Keep every crystal, every garbage drop from every mob you kill, etc. becuase they might need it someday. Why? If you need such common items go get them when you need them, it's not hard.

If half the time you spend playing the game is managing your inventory, you're keeping too much stuff. Just my opinion.

I sign in and 3/4 of my LS are logged on but AFK and they stay that way day in and day out. They do appear in play here and there but most of the time they are not in game physically.

My mules became active when Abyssea had us getting all the various 6 million things you need to make each piece of equipment, the the stones etc to upgrade them, the 20 million glavoids, Brarius, etc drops for empy weapons, plus they hold all my sentimental gear I work so hard to get and just can't bring myself to drop them. We didn't have the inventory space we have now. I guess I could have just updated each coin, stone etc as I got them, but with several jobs I didn't know till I had them which job they would be used on, once used couldn't change our minds.

That looks like an old screenshot, possibly from the last merge (~2008 I think?)

I wonder if the reason for the lack of a server merge is due to how people play and where they spend their time today. Back in the glory days, sure 3k people or more on a server at one time would be fine, you'd be spread out all over the world. But now everyone would be in Port Jeuno, Western Adoulin, Delve, Skirmish, Wildskeeper Reives, high level Battlefields, and Abyssea (lol just kidding, felt like people were doing stuff there for forever).

Can you imagine how overcrowded the few zones that people still go to, if we had a server at full capacity? On the one hand it'd be cool, it'd look like the game was newer. On the other hand, I can't imagine putting everyone and their cousin on the same place on the same server would make it easy for the server.