Is there any way we can just not do the merge thing?

[Zarchery]

Well I'm gonna miss my longtime home on Gilgamesh, but I welcome the opportunity to meet new people on Carbuncle. I also hope it brings an Al Zahbi that doesn't lose on level 3 Besieged -.-

[Alhanelem]

This is about server populations, nothing else. The servers being eliminated are the lowest populated ones.

[Burmecia]

If SE does what's needed to relieve congestion in abyssea areas, I won't mind the merge as much... But I'm deeply saddened that I will be losing my name on the merge. :/ The people on Siren seem much like us though, so I'm not so concerned about drama or anything at least.

I doubt SE is going to stop the merge, but I would very much welcome them to keep things as they are. I'm happy with my server and the way it is right now.

[Aena]

I miss Seraph, but honestly the increase in player activity was exciting after the merge (searching and seeing 3000+ people online? excitement!)... but then people from the original server blame the merging server for most of the new problems that come up. I was surprised we still had some anti-Seraph shouts in Port Jeuno a few weeks back. :/ I hope you don't have to deal with too much of that craziness.

[thefinalrune]

As my RDM friend pointed out today after three hours of seeking for a party at any level, I can't wait for their to be more people on my server. Anything outside of Abyssea seems to be suffering horribly from the limited number of low level players. I for one welcome higher population number despite and potential down falls that might come with it.

[Kitkat]

Eh, I'm mainly on the endgame scope rather than begining/mid-game scope. I look at the fact with the "low population" of my server (which is one that is going to be merged) that it is already difficult to get certain NM (popped or spawned) because of the popularity mainly involving their utility with Emp Weapons. Already getting certain of these pops requires a "Dragon Aery" mentality that you need to be the fastest to talk/trade to the ??? because only one can be up at a time. Hmm.....popped NM is fine, but not when it is being monopolized and vigorously fought over just to advance 1 or 2 people, an only after 25~35 pops.

So if we have that issue already with an average of 1000, and a peak of 1900, I'm sure it is going to be much harder after the merger when the peak is 2700~3200+ and an average of 1600~2000. The question then doesn't come to "why are they doing it?" so much as "how are they going to deal with the 'congestion' that is going to occur due to the merger?"

[Harukusan]

Alright, so my issue is this: We already have too many people on during peak hours. By peak hours I mean specifically JP hours. I myself generally play late nights and find myself in a gridlock with the JP population, which is the majority of FFXI players. If I want to avoid that congestion, I simply play earlier in the day. And I love having that option. Fortunately on Caitsith most JP players aside from my LS are probably like 12 years old, and have ADD or I would be struggling. I'm not looking to change things from the way they are unless it involves further segregating players to the point where I can just be alone for a change. When FFXI first started, the social atmosphere was great, depending on the people you surrounded yourself with. Now, it's all cutthroat. I don't care if you have a LS dedicated to Abyssea or whatever other pointless outdated garbage in which you participate, the simple fact is most people are just in the way. You don't need a full alliance to do anything. And based on what SE has stated, they want to force more people together to "enjoy" everything the game has to offer. Well, right now, it seems the ONLY thing the game has to offer is Abyssea. I'm not paying my monthly fees to provide charity to the "less fortunate," simply because if they really wanted to, they could accomplish anything if they could simply focus on their goals and stop failing. This isn't 2005. People don't need to throw a dozen bodies at something just to kill it and feel proud of themselves. If you are someone who fits in that category however, then you should just quit, and stop giving SE stupid feedback to fit your own needs. Everything the game currently has to offer THAT IS RELEVANT can be done with 2-3 people! No more! So why, again, do we need to add more people to the equation?

[Miiyo]

Only problem with merging servers is overcamping. Atm AF3 overcamping would be the biggest irritation. I believe they are supposed to add more mobs to solve that issue. When the update comes out there will be a lot running to see what's changed/new and a lot trying to see what new mobs drop af3. If they would've actually done the merge when originally planned... yeah... good call to postpone that.

[Olor]

I honestly don't get what the big deal is. Even if SE can afford to run half-empty servers - it doesn't make business sense to do so (it never makes business sense to spend more money than you need to in order to provide a service). It also doesn't make sense because if a new player starts on that world and finds it empty (outside of Aby) they won't want to stay.

[Birdkiller]

I liked the last merge. I played on various servers throughout my career of quitting and coming back, and the server I am on now needed more people. Also most of the friends I have now came from the server merge. From a social aspect, I think its just nice to see the game looking busy and lively with a good crowd of people logged in, I always worried about how long the game was going to last when I'd see as few as 400-600 people logged in during the night time.

Of course it has its bad sides as well, I pretty much stopped doing Campaign because the battles were lasting only minutes from when the enemy arrived. However, I think larger server populations help promote the over-all growth of the game, I can't imagine how well new players feel if they end up joining a server with a sparse population where it's slightly difficult to find actual people to play with, especially since this game requires you to do just about everything with a group to get the most out of it.~