Server Merge request

Hello,

Every time I resubscribe to this game it is the same issue I face. I get missions done, quests caught up, whatever..then I get to the end game and there isn't enough people on my server to do content with.

And before anyone tells me "GO TO ASURA!!!!" no. Someone oddly enough took my name and my BF name. His name isn't popular at all, and turns out the person told me it was to impersonate us, whatever. Okay then lol.

To clarify - We've had our names since 2002 launch, so if it followed the same rules as before, we would keep our names.

Anyway, I don't want to have to lose my name due to being forced to move if I want to play with people. In 2010, we had way more players then "260" which is the average on Lakshmi, and SE, you merged the servers. Now we have WAY less than we had when they were merged before and there is still no sign of a merge.

So many of my friends want to come back, but they keep telling me "We will when they do another merge, I am not playing a MMO with 200 or less people on a server"

My BF too - He doesn't want to move either because he will lose his name and feels that if they still don't merge the servers, they just don't care about the state of the game, so why invest time and money in it if the company doesn't even seem to care enough to merge so we can have people to do content with.

So I figured I'd ask yet again..and give it a month I guess, if no merge then I'll just let my sub run out again and keep waiting..or just give up for good.

I think when making a party to do the content is more challenging than the content, something isn't quite right. I saw on reddit they did a survey and the majority expressed wanting a merge too.

And again, I'd love to move to Asura where it is populated, but I don't want to lose my name..so my only option is to keep asking, or keep waiting.

Aren't you severally limiting/punishing yourself by refusing to move, simply because of your character name?

Um, the older character had nothing to do with keeping the name in the 2010 or the 2011 mergers. It was a simple case of the host world characters get to keep their name while the imported ones would have to change just the same as a server transfer.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/pol...ews18111.shtml

Character Name:
In cases where a character with the same name already exists on the "Destination World," you may be required to change the name of your character. If this is necessary, your character name on the character selection screen before login will be displayed in yellow. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the change.

So if you want Server merges to keep your name you best hope yours is chosen as the host world and not the imported one.

ironic as im pretty sure one of the reasons SE wont do another server merge was because everyone was upset they had to change their name last time! But yeah i'm sure there's a few linkshells on Lakshmi doing content on your time zone. Some people like the smaller servers because of the smaller close knit conmmunitys, 200 consecutive players is fine. You don't need more than 6 people for any content anyway. But if you want to be able to join pick up groups easily rather than organised linkshell events you need to move to Asura.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

Aren't you severally limiting/punishing yourself by refusing to move, simply because of your character name?

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We should not have to pay them extra money to play with more people. That's not really fair when a population problem happens, its Square Enix job to fix, not the customers. Sure, I could transfer, pay them more money, lose my name, then have all my friends who just paid to transfer to my server..pay to transfer..AGAIN, probably lose interest and not want to play. I can't ask them to do that.

And no, its not only about the name, there are many more reasons that I didn't feel the need to list. I figured expressing a desire due to lack of population on my server enough info, as SE devs said on the reddit AMA, they will do it if enough people ask. So..I asked :P

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Originally Posted by Cesil

We should not have to pay them extra money to play with more people. That's not really fair when a population problem happens, its Square Enix job to fix, not the customers. Sure, I could transfer, pay them more money, lose my name, then have all my friends who just paid to transfer to my server..pay to transfer..AGAIN, probably lose interest and not want to play. I can't ask them to do that.

And no, its not only about the name, there are many more reasons that I didn't feel the need to list. I figured expressing a desire due to lack of population on my server enough info, as SE devs said on the reddit AMA, they will do it if enough people ask. So..I asked :P

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I completely understand what you are saying and some what agree. However, you have to deal with the here and now. Holding on to something that may or may not even happen (mergers) is kind of self-defeating. At least by transferring yourself, it's done and dusted (ie in your control).

You need to tell your friends it doesn't matter if there's 6 or 6000 on the server, most content is designed for low man now. Asura is overcrowded by today's standard and they have congestion issues. Sounds to me the friends are just making excuses not to play. But if they are serious then really, just switch servers and change your name and put in your bazaar comment <the player formally known as blank on blank server> if it matters enough. You will find it does a remarkably good job to your mental state after losing a long time name. I get it. It's yours. You came up with it. My main may not be 100% original but after 14 years I have come up with some mule names I am proud of.

Some of us would love to lose our names. You have an idea on what it's like to spend 14 years being judged because your name looks like Voldemort? take that idea and multiply it by 100. Nevermind that my second character on my account since day one is named Voldemortt, because Voldemort was already taken. I was brand new at the time to MMORPGs and the idea was to create a cunning warrior and a deadly alt mage, before I realized what sub jobs were. Voldermolt was my choice for my warrior and Voldemortt for my mage, entirely because I got tired of being told 'name already taken' on all my other choices, even names I thought I was being original and I wasn't. So I came up with a ton of names based off Voldemort that weren't lazy ripoffs like Voldemortt or Voldimort or Voldbmort and were not pronounced as Voldemort, and the one that got through first was Voldermolt. For Voldemortt it was going to be Voldemort followed by as many ts as it took because at that point I didn't care, i was going to be a lazy ripoff for my mage character. Could have been Voldemorttttt. Voldemortt got by first.

((I just want to take this opportunity to point out that at the time I had no clue that Voldemort was bald. I don't even know if his first appearance on screen was before or after I started FFXI. I was never a harry potter nut. I've never read the books. I just thought the name was cool and I knew Voldemort was a wizard. FFXI > red mage > gotta name it voldemort! Durrrr! The fact that my character is a bald hume is entirely chance. At the time I had a shaved bald head and it resembled me the most *shrug*))

But nobody wants to hear it, I obviously misspelled Voldemort by accident despite that at the time you couldn't last a half hour on the internet without coming across the name VOLDEMORT. In very large part this is why I can be such an ass to people I don't know and I do apologize for it but that's where it comes from, years of hearing shit over a name and seeing people use the /scared command because all they see is Voldemort when they look at my name. I make no excuses for my shitty attitude over the years, I'm merely revealing where it all started. I had the power to not be an ass. I chose ass. That's how it is and my older self suffers for it as I don't believe I deserve to play amongnst others for my past behavior. I play solo most of the time if friends aren't playing at the time. As a result I can't stay top geared in FFXI like I do other games. I'm always years behind. That's my way to pay for my sins. FULL DISCLOSURE: It has been a long time since anyone gave me shit over my name. The last person to do it wasn't actually doing it to insult me, I understood things and she and her husband became great allies of mine to get stuff done. So it hasn't been happening for all 14 years. Most left playing have grown up and aren't immature babies anymore online, for many years now.

In short, just be glad your only worry is losing your name. It could be way worse. I really would just pay the fee and jump ship, if you are serious about playing the game. For what it's worth I'm the complete opposite. I want to switch servers just to change my name to the all mine original name I came up with 10 years ago for MMORPGs(by the create a char method with current name on another world) but I don't really care to deal with the hassle. It matters alot but at any given time a group of friends may finally log in for a few months before they log off for another year +. I gotta take'm when I can get them. At least until I forgive myself enough to try to play with others again, but even to this day I have 'wrong think' opinions like how people need to stop complaining about blank job because it deserves it's pewpew moment after 15 years of being shat on by players, so I probably won't be invited to dynamis supper any time soon by anyone in the end game scene. I did group with peeps for the 99 cap fight and the final mission fight for rhapsodies, but that's it for many years now.

If it helps, I agree server merges are needed as well. The game just feels dead when there's <500 on a good day. AH is so slow.. Maybe most are in their "cliques" of shells and friends and dont really face the issues new and returning players do of feeling lonely in an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Nicklamort

If it helps, I agree server merges are needed as well. The game just feels dead when there's <500 on a good day. AH is so slow.. Maybe most are in their "cliques" of shells and friends and dont really face the issues new and returning players do of feeling lonely in an MMO.

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It's understandable that a new/returning player got the above conclusion based on their past FFXI or MMO experience. However for those who already know how to make progression on small servers merge may be acceptable but not absolutely necessary.


Here is what you can do:

1) Just transfer.
2) Look for new/returning player LS on your server.

Many established endgame group(regardless of server) are cliques because in high level endgame not everyone can work together with everybody. Some people has bad pt synergy, some don't get along, some has jobs that can't form functional pt composition in endgame, and some people has different goal or want to do different type of content. Therefore cliques are formed for these reasons, basically only like minded player with similar goals and jobs that works well can form a group for endgame stuff.

So a new player are less likely to just return and jump into a group that does higher lv content right from the start, and it's not server's fault.

That being said, new player needs to join returning player friendly/social LS to gear up first by ask for help then reach out to established endgame group based on what they want to do.

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Originally Posted by Afania

So a new player are less likely to just return and jump into a group that does higher lv content right from the start, and it's not server's fault.

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I'm not saying new or returning players should be able to join an endgame ls haha; and I get why the "cliques" are formed, that's fine. Hoping to find such a returning player social/friendly ls and do just that, but it won't change being in a dead server with a bad economy, no shouts, and a weak overall community.

They could simply drop just a few of the most underpopulated servers and allow the players there to choose which live server to transfer to, allowing them to choose one where their name is not taken thus not be forced to change their name. Then follow this up with a free world transfer campaign so that after things have been shaken up a bit, it allows players who prefer smaller population to move to one if they end getting more populated than desired. Win win?

The game could definitely use a world merge right now, all they have to do is not to merge the most populated servers like Asura.

I play in Carbuncle and I like how chill the game is in here, we still get endgame done and help new players gear, the main problem here is the lack of materials in the AH but besides that I like it a lot better than when I was in Asura. If they merge those servers with under 300 players online I don't think that should be an issue, just a bit more competition for some abyssea NMs and bit longer queues for Ambuscade but we still wouldn't get the waiting times they got in Asura.

Whether a server merger occurs or not, it won't fix the main problem, which is being involved with a dedicated LS that takes on content. I am also on Lakshmi, and met plenty of players in great LS that do content almost daily. Sometimes, it better to ask for an active shell than or get referred to one. Also, some of those good shells are looking for key jobs (mainly support jobs) and most are down to help you on any content outside of Aeonic weapons (it's a hit or miss). I don't play as often as I use to due to the line of work, but when I do have a chance to play, the LSes I am involved in definitely lend a hand when I need it and squeeze me into events, even if I am not up-to-par in a needed job.

I say mingle a bit more around the server, make a couple of new friends and go from there. Also, you can build a new LS and experience the new content with like-minded folks.

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Originally Posted by BurnNotice

Whether a server merger occurs or not, it won't fix the main problem, which is being involved with a dedicated LS that takes on content. I am also on Lakshmi, and met plenty of players in great LS that do content almost daily. Sometimes, it better to ask for an active shell than or get referred to one. Also, some of those good shells are looking for key jobs (mainly support jobs) and most are down to help you on any content outside of Aeonic weapons (it's a hit or miss). I don't play as often as I use to due to the line of work, but when I do have a chance to play, the LSes I am involved in definitely lend a hand when I need it and squeeze me into events, even if I am not up-to-par in a needed job.

I say mingle a bit more around the server, make a couple of new friends and go from there. Also, you can build a new LS and experience the new content with like-minded folks.

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Yes, that is old school FFXI.

However, on Asura it's littered with mercs selling anything from gear/job points/ambuscade/dynamis/fresh air.

You don't have to use them. Asura has plenty of normal linkshells, too.

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Originally Posted by Suteru

You don't have to use them. Asura has plenty of normal linkshells, too.

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I don't use them.

If they didn't exist, people would have to form groups and actually experience battles (and learn). There would be more 'pick up group' shouts, and the game would be played as intended.

I've also done plenty of Pickup Groups recently, too. If you don't see them, start one.

So true! I started playing back in 2007 and I loved the game because of all the parties you could get into, even for just leveling. I quit in 2011 due to some family issues and have finally returned this year. I find that I am now having to solo everything because no one is interested in simple cooperation anymore. most of the people on my server seem to all be lvl 99 already. For those that aren't, such as myself, there aren't any opportunities to meet and join current linkshells and or groups. I wouldn't mind so much if this didn't seem to make the game stale. I loved this game and am trying to tough it out, but it is hard when all the fun seems to have been leeched out of it by these facts.

There are plenty of good groups on asura. I run a group myself that does everything in house, we rarely shout aside to sell items we don't need. The issue you may face is getting into this type of group. I don't just take anyone, only recommendations from existing members.

If I had more time I'd help new/returning players more than I do, but I don't so I have to pick and choose.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

I don't use them.

If they didn't exist, people would have to form groups and actually experience battles (and learn). There would be more 'pick up group' shouts, and the game would be played as intended.

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mercing has been in mmo since text based MUD ff11 had mercing since the NA ps2 launch.

most the ppl who Merc, are doing so for alt, lack of time or don't follow the meta.

I am largely playing solo to see the stories that i just never completed. And my play-style never really fit the meta. i recall having shouts made anout telling ppl not to play with me due to that. Even though i still aided the group in my own way.

what players choose to do doesn't change the game. If you wanna start a group, do so. If you start a pt, and we are on the same server idm joining, just don't belittle my play style as i do try hard to play my role.

Why is a name so important?
What if everyone else on the server doesn't want a merge, just you.
Your worried your feeling will get hurt by having to change your name but don't care others people feeling when they get forced a server merge because you want.
What if your server isn't the host server and through a merge you'll have to change your name anyway.
This is a silly discussion.
Deal with the name change and move or stay on that server and deal with the low population.
Easy solution.

I am subed to ffxi and ffxiv I have used this name since 2003, it is me and my reputation that's what a name can mean.

The meaning is not much.