Quote Originally Posted by Pixela View Post
He was saying that JP players won't play with English speaking players and that a lot of people afk. I was saying this isn't new, the game has always been the same.

The only real reason people want merges is because they check numbers and without taking into account that a lot of people are actually online at once they simply compare one number to another. A merge won't fix the real issues people have that are asking for merges, it will just make more.
I gotcha. I do agree that there is definitely a disconnect between JP and EN players. I really wish that wasn't the case, but language barriers are language barriers. And I totally agree that simply merging the worlds wouldn't fix the main issues with the game, but I don't know if it would make more. More people playing together means more opportunities (Assuming that the servers are re-optimized for larger populations).

With that said though, I think all of the games issues (including language barrier problems) could be resolved through more aggressive updates with the game, which we all can agree probably won't ever happen. For example, there's a lot of coding that needs to be cleaned up and the game really needs a more intuitive interface. In regards to the language issue, I'm sure that could be improved by a more user-friendly emote and ping system. Emphasize visual communications rather than typed/macro'd. We can give that a big Fat Chance sticker though.

And if you're looking for players to complete endgame content, the 800 server population really is a pretty stinky number when you consider that big chunks of that are attributed to:

- People that we don't share a common language with (Not as big of a deal for JP players at their peak times)
- Multi-boxers
- AFK Bazaars
- RMT (Not as huge of an issue now as it used to be and I haven't seen any bots, but I assume there are still some bots running around)
- Lowbies
- 99s with insufficient gear to clear the event.

All but the RMT makes up part of the server population that can't be used when putting together groups for events. Now if SE managed the servers so that they had 5-10k players, then the increased activity would mean more communication, more events, and more economy stimulation.

I agree that merging the servers would't be a panacea but it would certainly improve the gameplay.