Oh I think it's terrible that people are having to pay money to switch servers just to enjoy the game and actually do content with real people. It's a shame, but after dealing with my old dying server for too many years and finally moving to Asura, I realized my old server was what was causing me to keep losing interest and quit the game repeatedly. Glad that's over.

I think all the excuses both from SE and players alike as to why merges haven't and won't happen (despite needing them YEARS ago) are just plain silly and groundless. I really don't get how SE doesn't understand that it's one of the biggest reasons for a dwindling population. Although population decline began during WOTG and Abyssea - a time when a lot of players agree that game was at its worst - everything done to the game after that era has been greatly beneficial to the game, and to me, FFXI is "back." They've fixed a lot of the problems of the past and it's actually pretty easy to get old players to return to the game they once loved. I've seen the same thing happen to other old MMOs, like Everquest for example - their "classic/progression" style servers brought back SWEEPING numbers of players to the point that their progression servers now have more players than their regular servers. So it's quite possible for an old game to bounce back. Not sure why anyone would want to deny FFXI of that though. :\