Are multi-box players delaying server merges?

[detlef]

I don't play on Asura. I've heard there are other people who also don't play on Asura. If they are unhappy with the state of the game, I suppose these people could transfer to Asura and have their problems completely solved as you say, but maybe they don't view the game exactly as you do. Well I'm sure they'll do what's best for them.

Oh, and could you please outline the "less is more" mentality in greater detail? I think you're going to blame the mentality solely on the playerbase and I'd love to see you do that. Please follow that up by explaining how the players are the reason why server merges haven't happened yet. In the meantime, I will do my best to get by on my Podunk server.

[Diavolo]

If the game had standards, that'd work. You can't count on randoms sometimes, they're just plan bad. The game needs a way to verify you're at least capable of performing at a tolerable level.

Yes, that's unfair, but if every event I ever did took an extra 5 minutes cause one player was bad, I'd have lost an EXTRA year of my life on this.

Join a linkshell or create one that's made up of players that meet your standards? I can't imagine that's asking for much, which is why I tend to believe you'd stick to multiboxing regardless of whether or not the requisite number and quality of players were around for you to pool from. You don't have to share with a second account. I'm not sure why people are afraid to fess up to this. I've done it plenty of times myself and I'm not going to pretend it's because there weren't decent players around to help me.

I don't play on Asura. I've heard there are other people who also don't play on Asura. If they are unhappy with the state of the game, I suppose these people could transfer to Asura and have their problems completely solved as you say, but maybe they don't view the game exactly as you do. Well I'm sure they'll do what's best for them.

I didn't say moving servers would solve everyone's problems, that's ridiculous and you know it.

You present the idea that a party of 2-3 people can tackle a lot more content with a dual boxed account tagging along in a support/healing job which implies a number of things, including the possibility that you find it difficult to put together a competent party of 3-4 players on your server. If that's the case, why is it so?

Oh, and could you please outline the "less is more" mentality in greater detail? I think you're going to blame the mentality solely on the playerbase and I'd love to see you do that. Please follow that up by explaining how the players are the reason why server merges haven't happened yet. In the meantime, I will do my best to get by on my Podunk server.

Well, now that I've wiped the sarcasm off my screen... it's right there in the first reply to the OP. The blame goes both ways or are you suggesting that's not the case?

These games are run like businesses and, like most businesses, if the customers are unhappy with the product the developers can choose to do something about it or not. The developers behind the game, at some point, became far more receptive to customer feedback, hence the creation of these forums and the staff's (albeit limited) participation. They probably don't pay much attention to other forums, but they do read what goes on here and let me tell you, if I was on the development team and I made my decisions based off the feedback received here there isn't a chance in hell I'd want to go to the trouble of merging servers either - there's too much push back against it. In a perfect world everyone playing the game would make their voices heard here and you could say, without a shadow of a doubt, whether or not the existing subscribers would tolerate server merges, as well as whether or not the larger server(s) would draw back both old and new customers, but that's not the case, not even close. So here we are, using personal preference to argue for/against server merges, some of us wanting the game to go back to being the large scale, challenging open world it once was and others preferring it stays small/easy.

I hated the idea of paying a monthly subscription fee to play an MMORPG with thousands of other people, but I gave it a chance and fell in love with it back in 2004. I've seen my server go from supporting over 8,000 simultaneous accounts down to a pitiful 250, forcing me to move because I want to be part of something more than a ghost town. There are probably a decent amount of newer players among us that didn't ask for that, who enjoy playing in solitude or with a small group of friends on a quieter server, but I'm just not one of them. In this case, bigger is definitely better - a-holes, crowded CP camps, overflowing auction houses and everything that may come with it. Variety, inherent with larger populations, keeps things interesting, so I'll keep pushing for server merges even now that I'm on Asura.

[Shiyo]

I don't multibox, I also don't want server merges because if there's more than just me + whoever I'm playing with at doing any content in the game the game immediately gets frustrating. It's kind of the design of the game that makes a lot of people NOT want to be on populated servers. Everything just gets annoying and tedious when you have to deal with a single other person there. It's multiplied by the fact that it's so easy to solo lots of stuff now, in a game originally designed around needing 5 other people to leave a major city without dying.

Ambuscade "instance limit" is hilarious, I've had to wait multiple minutes to be allowed to enter when there wasn't even TEN people inside the zone and only 2 groups. That's insane, buy some better servers, SE.

[Sirmarki]

I don't multibox, I also don't want server merges because if there's more than just me + whoever I'm playing with at doing any content in the game the game immediately gets frustrating. It's kind of the design of the game that makes a lot of people NOT want to be on populated servers. Everything just gets annoying and tedious when you have to deal with a single other person there. It's multiplied by the fact that it's so easy to solo lots of stuff now, in a game originally designed around needing 5 other people to leave a major city without dying.

Ambuscade "instance limit" is hilarious, I've had to wait multiple minutes to be allowed to enter when there wasn't even TEN people inside the zone and only 2 groups. That's insane, buy some better servers, SE.

Initially I was against server merges and more populated servers but I got fed up with standing around and nothing happening on a dead server. Sometimes there would be one shout in the entire day.

A quiet server is good if you like to do things on your own (which I think defeats the object of a MMORPG), or have a good bunch of friends to do stuff with at a time that suits you all.

I decided to take the risk and move to Asura which has 4x5 more the population than most servers. I don't regret this choice - There are countless shouts and stuff going on, I can just sit in town a literately pick and choose what I want to join, or I could just go out and solo stuff if I want to. It makes for more varied and better gaming experience, and I see little negative points to it.