Server merging

[Deifact]

What are the downsides to a merge BTW? I can understand JP master race and SE want to please them, but if there's no downside to doing it anyway...

[Sapphires]

What are the downsides to a merge BTW? I can understand JP master race and SE want to please them, but if there's no downside to doing it anyway...

Downsides:
-You now get 2-3x more competition in dynamis. This is still an extremely popular activity and people have grown accustomed to little to no competition for their favorite spot at certain times. Huge negative for people that farm regularly.

-Salvage congestion+lag and being locked out of entering since the instances are limited.
-Myself or friends would probably have to rename their characters and linkshells due to name collisions.

Merges in mmos have a rather destructive effect on communities, people that you know casually or just see regularly day to day (they arent in your guild, but you've maybe known of that person through their deeds or grouped with them a few times, or whatever) those people get 'erased' with name collisions.
That seems like not a big deal but it makes people feel like they have been removed from their old server entirely because many of those people 'disappear' due to name changes and other players really do disappear because they view merges as a sign of a game thats bound to die soon (why make another RME if the game is gonna die right?)

-increased congestion for AA/DM which is still making alot of people money
-even higher population during jp time so content bottlenecks get even worse for them
-higher congestion and demand for limited resources will also bring about a wave of inflation on items.
-players from merged server communities can still strongly identify with their old server and stick to just hanging out with their 'own kind'. This means you have extra people running around on your server that are for all intents and purposed someone that you wont have any interactions with, except for competition over a shared resource (AH items, a world NM, battlefield event, etc).

Alliance content is mostly dead, so even if you triple the people on the server, social circles (linkshells) will probably remain numerous, but small and fragmented.

Many people stand to lose more than they gain with a merge.

A merge just means double the worm party shouts , and maybe twice as many people doing some random delve/skc/aa once an hour with 4/6 slots filled shouting for a whm or brd. If you're lucky.

[Damane]

Downsides:
-You now get 2-3x more competition in dynamis. This is still an extremely popular activity and people have grown accustomed to little to no competition for their favorite spot at certain times. Huge negative for people that farm regularly.

-Salvage congestion+lag and being locked out of entering since the instances are limited.
-Myself or friends would probably have to rename their characters and linkshells due to name collisions.

Merges in mmos have a rather destructive effect on communities, people that you know casually or just see regularly day to day (they arent in your guild, but you've maybe known of that person through their deeds or grouped with them a few times, or whatever) those people get 'erased' with name collisions.
That seems like not a big deal but it makes people feel like they have been removed from their old server entirely because many of those people 'disappear' due to name changes and other players really do disappear because they view merges as a sign of a game thats bound to die soon (why make another RME if the game is gonna die right?)

-increased congestion for AA/DM which is still making alot of people money
-even higher population during jp time so content bottlenecks get even worse for them
-higher congestion and demand for limited resources will also bring about a wave of inflation on items.
-players from merged server communities can still strongly identify with their old server and stick to just hanging out with their 'own kind'. This means you have extra people running around on your server that are for all intents and purposed someone that you wont have any interactions with, except for competition over a shared resource (AH items, a world NM, battlefield event, etc).

Alliance content is mostly dead, so even if you triple the people on the server, social circles (linkshells) will probably remain numerous, but small and fragmented.

Many people stand to lose more than they gain with a merge.

A merge just means double the worm party shouts , and maybe twice as many people doing some random delve/skc/aa once an hour with 4/6 slots filled shouting for a whm or brd. If you're lucky.

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

[bungiefanNA]

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

That doesn't change the peak hours that people play, and would make servers completely dead outside of JP prime-time, while crowding the servers moreso. Flooding all the NA/EU players to one or two servers would give us the opposite problem, too many players to be able to enter events in a timely manner.

[Mirage]

More crowded areas during peak times for regions that have a higher population. Merging two servers where the EU/NA primetime is at 800 and the JP primetime is at 2000 would change NA/EU primetime into a nice 1600 players that we all can enjoy, while japanese players suddenly have 4000 players trying to do the same things.

[Lithera]

Along with the name stealing bs that seems to happen during merges

[Mirage]

There are probably thousands of legitimately created characters that aren't in use anymore but just happen to take up names that are currently used on other servers. It's not always intentional although some are. They blocked character creation for merging servers before they announced the merge last time, though.

[Ravenmore]

There are probably thousands of legitimately created characters that aren't in use anymore but just happen to take up names that are currently used on other servers. It's not always intentional although some are. They blocked character creation for merging servers before they announced the merge last time, though.

Not really there was a day long window where you could still make a char on any server so some stealing still happened.

As for 6 man content the players got down and begged for 6 man groups and to do less with alliance content so SE gave the payers what they wanted.

Then we have VW, even with increased numbers filling a alliance for old and boring content will still be hard. With how much the items go for and still people don't want to really do it.

[Deifact]

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

Yeah that's a good suggestion!

[Rainehx]

As a company selling subscriptions another merge would be a very bad idea, so don't expect it any time soon imo.

They will want to have as much capacity for "new/returning" players as possible. I understand to us this sounds silly
but lets say they merge..every server is 2-3k peek time aside from the obvious problems with events etc what will they do
with all the "new/returning" people they have to expect when the next expansion hits? a new server? no.

I think when they give up with the game we will see a merge, but I hope that's no time soon as it will
likely spell the end of updates or any chance of another exp pack.

Careful what you wish for.