World Mergers

[Caradog]

I know none of its new but it becomes an ever increasing problem in a dwindling population.

Not really sure if there's any way to fix the problem in the long run, we're getting a fair amount of content at the moment but its all either simply reskinned old content or fairly easy to get through in a week, think Square-Enix have just used up a lot of their credibility.

[Lyncath]

Regional servers might be the answer unfortunately.

I cannot see Square-Enix addressing the dead periods especially during EU times across most servers until the Japanese players begin complaining about it for some reason. No, that isn't bias either, it's a logical business decision - pander to your largest customer base.

[Sfchakan]

The day SE makes FFXI a game with regional servers is the day I unsubscribe forever. It would actually create worse issues, as no one would be doing anything outside of that region's primetime.

I wish SE would merge every server but Asura and Odin, so all of these monthly threads about the other servers being dead would stop... Surely they'd stop then, right? No? They won't stop then? No? Damn.

[Zehira]

I doubt merging servers would fix anything but only to lose more players. Don't you remember the day when it got merged, we all lost our linkshells and were forced to rename our names if already taken? Yep, that would be more problems than fixing the payment or improving the technology. I do agree with people who said this game does not appeal to new players, I had my friend who decided to play this for the first time (also her first MMO before FF14 released) last year. I helped her to get her thief all the way to level 99 but while I was not around online she simply had no idea what to do. I told her having the wiki guide is the only way to play this game so we both decided to drop it and move on to FFXIV because it suits her more better than this game does.

[Behemothx]

This thread is full of terrible ideas.

There is no reason to have a merge, SE weakens the content too fast and everyone gets everything. FFXI needs new, sustainable content.

Regional servers would cause even more issues than what it is now, imagine the auction house from 2am - 5pm.

[FrankReynolds]

I remember when my server used to have 2,400 people on line at night. 800 is not impressive. It hasn't always been this way.

[Draylo]

That is when the majority of content was 18 man, everything is 6 man or lower... They already made it clear they are continuing that going forward, 800 is plenty. The biggest thing the game needs is CONTENT that lasts, incursion was a good idea but they failed by not having any unique drops at higher ilevel. We need a new Delve again and fast, people still spam the heck out of Delve and for a good reason.

[Stompa]

I quite like the current numbers on Levi, areas are not overcrowded, but you can still find a few friends to start events with. I like being able to solo CAP for example, its nice that I can pick a fairly decent camp and be able to farm CAP at my own pace. It would be a lot harder to find empty camps if we had 1500-2500 people. Also things like Limbus etc, are nicer when you don't have to camp the entrance for ages. I have LS with people if I want to chat or start events, friend list too. Sometimes it does take a long time to /sh for members, but that is because there is so much new content - this competes with content from a few months earlier etc.

[Bluestar2kx]

To add to Stompa's point.
If servers merged, one of 2 things would happen with dynamis:
Prices would plummet as everyone can do dynamis and the server gets flooded with coins. Or skyrocket as dynamis zones get filled and coin income slows from competition.

Plus adoulin would just be overflowing, which is where everyone is right now, would be as bad as jueno used to be in 2005, stuffed full of people.
Remember, More is not always better. some things it might fix, but others are going to get messed up, and mergers involve a lot of hard feelings from players due to name loss (I lost Amanda which I had since 2003, when Alexander merged into Shiva), shells, and friends. Loss of friends means loss of funds for SE to support FFXI, because both the person who left AND their friend might go, and others will do the same, it's a potentially large snowball effect.

I wish we could see signs of life in older zones. Walking through most zones I go leveling in off pages is like walking through town after a plague. But just adding more people isn't going to solve that. The key to both problems is adding content and zones, people want to do, and adding enough of it.

Most people are too impatient to level the old way when they can burn to cap in a few days, so getting them back into older zones requires things like Unity does, or magian trials attempted. Getting players to come back is going to require a lot of work, like a new good expansion pack loaded with at least as much as adoulin had, if not more, and a story to rival CoP. (And empy armour reforge!! Seriously!)

[Ritsuka]

Bahamut is hungry it needs to eat another server :3 rawr!