Are we getting a server merge soon?

[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.

[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.

[Castanica]

FFXI has no instanced content, when you enter a salvage area you are taking up one of the 3 copies of each zone that exist side by side for that content. If you have 3 people who are hardcore and spamming salvage over and over you have a serious problem that locks others out, same goes for anything in this game. It's not made for large populations anymore and when the game did have large populations content was restricted to alliances / parties and had strict limits on how often you could enter. If you had a server with 2-3k people the game would be unplayable today, they would have to go back on all the RoV key items.

These long winded conversations are irrelevant anyway, they aren't going to do it. People have been on about this for years and the reality is that it just costs way too much money to do a merge and it upsets so many people.

[Diavolo]

FFXI has no instanced content, when you enter a salvage area you are taking up one of the 3 copies of each zone that exist side by side for that content. If you have 3 people who are hardcore and spamming salvage over and over you have a serious problem that locks others out, same goes for anything in this game. It's not made for large populations anymore and when the game did have large populations content was restricted to alliances / parties and had strict limits on how often you could enter. If you had a server with 2-3k people the game would be unplayable today, they would have to go back on all the RoV key items.

You're taking the idea of server merges to an extreme. As an example, Asura is NA/EU heavy, merge it with 2-3 JP-heavy servers with low populations and you suddenly have a server that's alive 24/7 without ever nearing your 3K simultaneous users mark. Let's not be silly and look at this idea of merges as some sort of "end of times" ordeal. Players expressed concern about it the last time it happened and everything worked out just fine.

These long winded conversations are irrelevant anyway, they aren't going to do it. People have been on about this for years and the reality is that it just costs way too much money to do a merge and it upsets so many people.

Now you're reaching. How much do you think it will cost them to consolidate servers? It took them a few hours to complete the task back when the population was over 15-20 times the size it is now. As for upsetting "so many people," we're talking about a tiny fraction of the community that will continue to play on despite their opinion on the matter.

The attitude you have is one that will never bring about change, whether in game or out in the real world. Telling yourself something can't be done is a self-fulfilling prophecy.We can criticize the FFXI development team all day long, but you can't ignore the fact that they have made tremendous changes to the game over the last few years - it's an almost night and day difference from the FFXI we played a decade ago - and I'm confident that they can continue making changes to cater to the remaining players, regardless of whether or not they decide to merge the servers.

[Castanica]

You're taking the idea of server merges to an extreme. As an example, Asura is NA/EU heavy, merge it with 2-3 JP-heavy servers with low populations and you suddenly have a server that's alive 24/7 without ever nearing your 3K simultaneous users mark. Let's not be silly and look at this idea of merges as some sort of "end of times" ordeal. Players expressed concern about it the last time it happened and everything worked out just fine.

Now you're reaching. How much do you think it will cost them to consolidate servers? It took them a few hours to complete the task back when the population was over 15-20 times the size it is now. As for upsetting "so many people," we're talking about a tiny fraction of the community that will continue to play on despite their opinion on the matter.

The attitude you have is one that will never bring about change, whether in game or out in the real world. Telling yourself something can't be done is a self-fulfilling prophecy.We can criticize the FFXI development team all day long, but you can't ignore the fact that they have made tremendous changes to the game over the last few years - it's an almost night and day difference from the FFXI we played a decade ago - and I'm confident that they can continue making changes to cater to the remaining players, regardless of whether or not they decide to merge the servers.

What is the point of a server that is alive 24/7? Japanese players don't want to play with EU/NA anyway and vice versa, do you just want it because or for an actual reason?

Also just because it took a short amount of time to actually do the merge does not mean it didn't take months of expensive preparations.

[Diavolo]

What is the point of a server that is alive 24/7? Japanese players don't want to play with EU/NA anyway and vice versa, do you just want it because or for an actual reason?

I apologize for the way this may sound, but are you being serious?

One of Final Fantasy XI's strengths is that it brings players from across the world together. I've been interacting with players from other countries my very first day in Vana'diel and I wouldn't have it any other way. If you start dividing the servers by region not only are you making the game world a less interesting place, but you're also slowing down its economy and its progress.

[Castanica]

I apologize for the way this may sound, but are you being serious?

One of Final Fantasy XI's strengths is that it brings players from across the world together. I've been interacting with players from other countries my very first day in Vana'diel and I wouldn't have it any other way. If you start dividing the servers by region not only are you making the game world a less interesting place, but you're also slowing down its economy and its progress.

So just because, gotcha.

A lot of XI players moved to XIV and love the separation (on both sides), one of the biggest complaints of this game was how racist JP players are (even though they just didn't want to play with people they can't speak to). I understand it's a big deal to you personally but that's not true for most people, Asura has almost no JP players and nobody complains there are no people they can't understand on it.

This whole worldwide server idea is just nonsense in reality (it was done to save money because the game has no regional server centers), they can't understand you, they won't play with you and it just packs the server with people that might as well be afk/npc. On my old server everytime a JP shouted, someone would say they were racist for not shouting with auto translate. The JP playerbase in particular prefer to be separated.

Asura is a unoffical English speaking server now, that's how people like it. If you want a multicultural server with lots of people online when you're in bed then move to one that is like that and don't ruin one that is fine how it is just because that's how you want it to be.

Also this isn't about restricting anything, the players themselves have moved themselves towards doing it by choice so dont' say it's not what people want. Jp and English speaking players alike have been paying to move to the unofficial JP and English speaking servers.

Asura used to have a large JP playerbase, most of them moved to Odin to have a better community they can actually play with, most english speaking players move to Asura for the same reason.

[Aisu]

Few things:
I miss the huge communities so don't get me wrong
Having NA/EU/JP all on one server makes an active 24/7 server even if JP don't want to play with NA/EU that is still more people to buy and sell items on AH. So weather they like us or not it is still beneficial
Last time they merged servers there were tons of issues with congestion and it took SE months and months to try to resolve issues. (instances being full and battling over them, area lag due to overcrowding)

Now it might feel different cause last time they merged servers to get about 4k players on but back then every player wasn't able to summon 5 trusts/player and solo everything. There were time restrictions like dyna/salvage/einherjar/sea had day waits and still people found times where it was still over populated. Now that there are no time waits and NM's are just pop NM's with Items that you can buy with sparks and solo or low man with trusts there is going to be problems with roughly 1000-2000 players active on a server cause escha/resisnjima/high tier battlefields are really the only places to be other than those that still like to farm dyna/salvage for relic/mythics. Some of which at certain times of the day are already congested as is to the point i have had to wait to go into certain battlefields or look around multiple places for NM pops.

Now i don't think it will be too bad if some of the smaller servers gets merged with 1 other small server but i personally feel that any more than that would be far too much. As i keep trying to explain with the population decrease SE made trusts so people could solo/low man stuff. That is the purpose of trusts they knew the game was losing a lot of players and they came up with the ability to change difficulty on battlefields and HP scaling so people can still complete these without the need of many players.
That is how the game is now and too many people don't realise this and want the game back to as it was years ago. Well not going to happen and never will and people need to get over it and realise this is a different game and SE are designing content for how it is now low populated and casual content.

[Aisu]

Here we go as i stated many times the "New" thing "Ambuscade" is so overcrowded there is a ton of people waiting outside the book spamming it i have been trying for 20 minutes and not gotten in. Many have left to come back and try again later. Worst part is most are asleep at this time with only 300 on from about 600(during NA primetime) to 900-1000 (during JP Time). SE has never been any good at making instances everytime they do there are restrictions based on the max amount of people at any given time. No one seems to get it

With everything soloable/low manable. Which was designed that way by SE themselves due to the fact the loss of players/server. They have just made it worst and impossible to really risk merging for a larger community, I hear Asura is probably the biggest NA community but doesn't make it better.

The Hype with Asura is word of mouth. You get enough people saying 1 thing then others are going to believe it and start saying it to others themselves without having actually experience first hand. I have heard a lot worst things about asura than good and the only good thing i have heard about asura and its the only good thing i will point out again is the large amount of NA/EU players. Now back to main point the larger the population in the current state of this game is worst for the people trying to accomplish stuff.

Before adoulin there were tons of things you could do such as. ADL event/ VW/ Neo Salvage / Meebles/ Neo Nyzul/ Legion. People wern't able to solo/duo/trio these. You needed a party to an alliance. There were no trusts and we needed the community to be large at this point.

Look at the current state of the game. Not how it use to be

This is important cause too many people think back like the point i posted above and are all like omg i miss the large communities. I do too but that doesn't mean with the state of the game as is now that it would be a good thing to have too big of an population anymore and so many people are too stubborn to accept this.

[Castanica]

"You feel repelled by a competing presence. Please wait a moment and try again"