Are we getting a server merge soon?

[Jin_Uzuki]

No! That is what is known as a community. A linkshell is a communication system and nothing more. You can have 2 people in a ls or be alone in a ls or have 30+ people in a LS. Doesn't mean you need one to do stuff in the game which Shadowlina was trying to explain to you. I can have 0 Linkshells equipped like Shadowlina said and still get invited by friend/people i know to go off and do events and NM's.

... which you can do on more populated server too, you know? As I said, I had a character on Ragnarok, which was fairly populated at time. I'm still in touch with some of these friends today.

Now don't get me wrong my favourite time of this game was probably abyssea/Voidwatch era. Everyone got loot/kill (although it was random) and most jobs had a good role in that time for proccing/healing/Damage/buffing/solo farming. You got to meet a lot of different people with the shouts but what you don't seem to understand is that this is not the game anymore. The content is based on smaller groups doing them not larger ones. Most NM's now scale to the point it is a disadvantage to bring more people. It gets harder and you get no extra loot for doing so meaning more people lotting against you. So a lot of people will low man NM's i go to reisinjima #9 and see people soloing NM's so i have had to check multiple spots to find them taken as well by low man groups. I have had to wait outside of High tier battlefields because they were full.

You just don't seem to understand that the way the game is getting too many people on the server when there is already a slight competition for NM pop spots will only get worst the more people you have.

The worst part is i have seen people shout and some people get criticized and made fun of for shouting and making groups cause they might not be perfect groups so people don't want to shout they rather just stick to their friends because people that want shout groups like there use to be like to make fun of those that do at least try which is the most disappointing thing i have seen in this game and then wonder why no one wants to shout.

You don't seem to understand this game *can't have* many people playing because there aren't.
Why are people thinking merging a couple of the most dead servers will suddenly bring the game to 2007 population?

Pay for a server transfer, problem solved.

I already explained the reasons in the OP, but I will repeat it

1) Server transfer are expensive. Why should I pay 18€ when it's clear it's SE is offering a service that doesn't work
2) I lose all the people I've know on Sylph to move on a Server I know nothing off

[Jin_Uzuki]

Sylph has some of the nicest, and greatest people I've played with in a long time. I joined a LS, and often times I feel like a leech because I'm not up to par with some of the others there... but even still, despite that, they still help me. and there are times it's really quiet and I want to do something, but I know there are still things I can do even without other people to do it with. Salvage, Dynamis, and few other odds and ends are easy enough. Don't kill off Sylph just yet, she's still alive and breathing.

I missed this.
Are you saying you wouldn't be able to play with your friends if they added more players to the game? Is there a threshold? Like, 1000 players are ok, but 2000 aren't?

What about 1200? We had 1200 players during the Return Home to Vana'diel Campaign on Sylph. Are 1200 players ok or we can't go over 600?

Please need to understand that Sylph and many servers population is not low. It's abyssal. 600 players online are not and shouldn't be acceptable. Even Asura from what I'm gathering has *only* about 1600 people online during peak hours. That's low compared to any FFXI server during it's prime time.

[Castanica]

I already explained the reasons in the OP, but I will repeat it

1) Server transfer are expensive. Why should I pay 18€ when it's clear it's SE is offering a service that doesn't work
2) I lose all the people I've know on Sylph to move on a Server I know nothing off

Thing is people have been asking for merges for 4-5 years now, they don't want to do them. They refuse to do merges here or on xiv, they aren't going to happen so at a point you have to be a realist.

You need to keep in mind that doing a server merge is fairly expensive and you are asking at a point when the game has a lower budget than ever before.

[Zeargi]

I missed this.
Are you saying you wouldn't be able to play with your friends if they added more players to the game? Is there a threshold? Like, 1000 players are ok, but 2000 aren't?

What about 1200? We had 1200 players during the Return Home to Vana'diel Campaign on Sylph. Are 1200 players ok or we can't go over 600?

Please need to understand that Sylph and many servers population is not low. It's abyssal. 600 players online are not and shouldn't be acceptable. Even Asura from what I'm gathering has *only* about 1600 people online during peak hours. That's low compared to any FFXI server during it's prime time.

I'm simple saying that it is possible to still get things done on Sylph. Would it be nice to have more people every now and then, yes. But the other thing is WHEN are you checking the population numbers? Because if you aren't checking it at the Prime time when JP players are playing, then you don't have a true grasp of the population.

[Sirmarki]

I don't see how.

The game used to have players everywhere. There were thousands of players everywhere. People used to fight for Sky spots. Valkrum was filled with exp parties.

And yet the game worked wonderfully.

Yes, but... Now the game is a one level game, so all people will be in the same three areas. Not thousands of people spread over lower-higher level, varying zones. So I think mergers would be a bad idea, at this stage anyway.

[Shadowlina]

I'd like to point out that SE has said on the november update that there discussion for World Merges are open.
They have never not commented on it. They did comment on it, On November, and said that they would be open for discussion on the mater if it was brought up.

[detlef]

I don't see how.

The game used to have players everywhere. There were thousands of players everywhere. People used to fight for Sky spots. Valkrum was filled with exp parties.

And yet the game worked wonderfully.

"trusts" is a poop excuse, if it's one. Some servers are a literally deserts. The game doesn't have milions of players anymore.

I have to point out how different things are now.

Back then a single ??? in Sky could occupy 18+ players. Not only that, you were limited in what you could do by the triggers you farmed (outside of Reisenjima T2s, they've really gone easy on us). In fact, lockouts were kinda the thing back then with Dynamis and Einherjar having 72 hours cooldowns. And that was necessary to prevent overcrowding.

A single Salvage instance took 6-8 players, not 1 like today. You had a full alliance for ZNMs, which took a lot of work to farm pops for T3 and above. Sea didn't even drop triggers 100% at first. Voidwatch was a full alliance instead of a single player with mules. Did you have fond memories of the bird camp? The conditions back then weren't that rosy.

Basically, I'm skeptical that more players will make everything better. Especially since you can pop so many things solo now (VW, Escha, High Tier BCs). And this is after seeing 265 players on Valefor last night when I was playing. Hey, I'd like to have more people to play with but straight up doubling the population is a pretty risky step.

[Raydeus]

I agree with Detlef, and in my opinion it's more about increasing the quality of interactions between players rather than increasing the population that will make the real difference in the game moving forward.

[Aisu]

You don't seem to understand this game *can't have* many people playing because there aren't.
Why are people thinking merging a couple of the most dead servers will suddenly bring the game to 2007 population?

Please read carefully this time.

The thing is i never said anything about merging servers is going to make the population anywhere close to the population of 2007? I said there can already be congestion for specific things you want to do in game at certain times of the day. I have gone to reisinjima and have to look around for a pop spot because most where taken by solo players or people low manning it with trusts. I have gone to a high tier battle field to be locked out because too many people are already inside soloing or low manning it with trusts again. Merging with another server will make this worst which you don't seem to understand or want to understand.

What i am saying is how the game content is currently being designed and limitations on the game itself merging servers might cause more problems for people than you think. You are just one track minded on this because you miss the game how it use to be. I miss it too but that is not the game now. The game doesn't have lockouts like they use to back in those days. back in those days you had to make specific times when no one else was going and then try to get people to go at that specific time. I use to run a sky LS and i remember having to look for a good time that no events where taking up that time.

You really need to stop thinking the game is the same as it was. SE is specifically developing content for low manning. That is the game now and many realize this and not because they like the way the game is cause i'm not particularly happy with its state and wish it had a bigger community ect but it's clear and obvious to most why this is a bad idea.

[Diavolo]

A common theme I am seeing from those against server merges is the fear of overcrowding in popular areas such as Reisenjima and hard mode merit fights, which to me suggests you believe the development team would combine multiple servers together and leave it at that. Of course, if that were to happen we might have to deal with some slight overcrowding issues (again, Asura's doing fine with over 1,000 simultaneous users as mentioned in this thread), but it's not difficult for them to toss in a few extra NM pop locations, add an extra XP camp or two and make other minor "quality of life" adjustments as they've been doing for years now. Would your opinion of server merges remain the same if steps such as those were taken?

I view the crowded boulder/beitetsu/pluton dropping "hard mode" fights in a different light than some in this thread, I suppose. It seems the players on most servers find one or two fights they can clear quickly/efficiently and rarely stray from them. That's not an overcrowding issue, that's just players being too lazy to try something different. Is this really a pro or a con of larger server sizes? To me it's a benefit, potentially giving players who would usually gravitate toward a fight they're comfortable with that little push they need to try something new and maybe even have a fun time doing it. We're all role playing adventurers, afterall, let's try to show a little of that adventuring spirit every once in a while.