About the World Merge and Character Transfers (02/09/2012)

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Originally Posted by Mychael

Really, now? I seriously doubt every member of a linkshell is going to lose their name.

Besides, if you at least knew the server, you could /shout for your old friends in Ul'dah or ask around to see what became of XXYYZZ linkshell from Mysidia. Also, people change e-mails. I doubt whichever e-mail I used 7 years ago for my first endgame shell still exists; I definitely have no idea what it was.

Of course it's going to be difficult to find your friends, but there's no denying that it will be a lot easier with option 2 than option 4.

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o_o what does any of that have to do with what you quoted....

Elexia is only saying that friend list/linkshells are being wiped because of name conflict possibilities, not that all names ever are going to conflict.

That's the thing, it's not a likely situation, it's a precautionary measure because it can cause complications later given the way almost every MMO handles a guild type system internally (which is why you can't have duplicate names on the same server.)

You're basically flagged as being a part of x guild, so if your server merges with another and both guilds exists, how would they differentiate the guilds? Especially with the server flag taken out of the equation?

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I play and played XI heavily so I know for a fact:

1. Your linkshell most likely had a website if it was ever seriously ran.
2. You had contact information of them.

They would have a way of knowing which server you guys landed on, it's funny though how with that option they would "have no way of knowing" but with any other option "they would know" even though how would they then you guys still even played due to the fact in a merge the linkshell would be deleted as well as friendlist due to potential multiple names?

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OK so saying 'lost forever' was always an exageration, because they know where they are even if we don't. >.>;

The point is we won't necessarily be able to communicate with them. We have contact info for some not all of them, and contact info changes over time as lives change. Yes we have a website, but not everyone will remember it, or their login information. Our website has moved a few times over the years as leaders changed.

In a traditional A to B merger the linkshells on one of the servers aren't deleted nor do the players on that server suffer name changes. The in game flist we have now lacks the ability to survive a merger the way the XI flist did. If it did function like XI it would provide a means to contact people who got randomly relocated which is kind of my point; we don't have that yet. The best of both worlds would be an flist that spans XI & XIV. A good feature enhancement for SE accounts in my opinion.

Mergers are a necessary move, but lacking real flists, and linkshell features like /lsmes the process needs to take into account that our primary method of coordination is with ingame /tells. That's whats nice about option 2. You don't have to coordinate to land with your friends, but if you want to get away from them you can choose to leave and get a fresh social start on a new world. Its the best of both worlds in most respects. If for example people are merged onto mysidia, but linkshells on mysidia survive then the linkshell I created for the XI players would still serve as a common ground for communication even if some of us get hit with a name change because a merged player had that name first. That same truth would hold for at least three other large shells I have been in that moved en mass from XI at the 1.0 launch.

Option 4 is probably nicest to those worlds where only 100- 200 people are logged in at any given time, but hardest on those where larger player populations have created a number of large working social groups that often have social connections that span a number of shells. It seems more like a compromise that attempted to please the most people by completely leveling the playing field while at the same time giving the freedom to choose a landing spot. In truth in this case its easier if they just treat us like sheeple, and herd us in the right direction while preserving as much of the social order as they can post merger.

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Originally Posted by BrusselSprout

o_o what does any of that have to do with what you quoted....

Elexia is only saying that friend list/linkshells are being wiped because of name conflict possibilities, not that all names ever are going to conflict.

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I wasn't arguing that linkshells wouldn't be deleted. the "Really, now?" was at her saying

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Originally Posted by Elexia

how would they then you guys still even played due to the fact in a merge the linkshell would be deleted as well as friendlist due to potential multiple names?

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Unless I'm mistaken, the "as well as" separates "multiple names" from "linkshells," and she was talking about players changing their names due to identically-named characters; I was just saying that the chances of that happening to everyone you remembered were slim. Then, I could have read it wrong. My other point still stands, that using the contact info left over from XI isn't reliable, which was what her two numbered points were talking about.

Just knowing that you're on the right server is a huge head start. It could still be incredibly difficult to find your old friends, but it's not impossible, as it would be on a separate server. Hell, of all the servers in XIV I happened to run into a person in a party the other day that I met in the Dunes in '04 on Fairy, and we accidentally realized we knew each other.

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Originally Posted by Kraggy

So when Trion faced this problem with Rift they let players CHOOSE which servers to transfer to for a long period of time before force-moving those who held out, given Yoshi CLAIMS this has nothing to do with saving money then I see no reason at all that SE couldn't do the same thing.

He has given no reason why a 'big bang' destruction of the current servers and communities is NEEDED AT ALL at the moment.

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Are you kidding me? The reason why he's opened up server merges because of all the peoples uproars on these forums and then they demanded freedom to choose the new server they were going to.

Again...this was what the community in here initially demanded and Yoshida gave them what they wanted...and then they realized this wasn't truly what they wanted.

This has always been the case on these forums. The issue is the developers read too much into these forums and then they make the change peoples demand.

I've always said you can't listen to the community altogether you got to read between the lines because what they want and what they REALLY want are never the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Agoven

Are you kidding me? The reason why he's opened up server merges because of all the peoples uproars on these forums and then they demanded freedom to choose the new server they were going to.

Again...this was what the community in here initially demanded and Yoshida gave them what they wanted...and then they realized this wasn't truly what they wanted.

This has always been the case on these forums. The issue is the developers read too much into these forums and then they make the change peoples demand.

I've always said you can't listen to the community altogether you got to read between the lines because what they want and what they REALLY want are never the same thing.

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I think the easiest way to describe what the community wants is as follows

Players: Give us info on the next raid!
Devs: Here you go, info
Players: Thats not what we asked for, we want pictures!
Devs: Ok here are some pictures
Players: No no no you just cant get it right can you, we wanted videos!
Devs: Well here are the videos you asked for then
Players: Ok now we are getting somewhere, why isnt the content out yet?
Devs: Itl be out tomorow
Players: And you are just now giving us all this info? How dare you not give it to us way ahead of time, and why isnt the patch out today!

(this conversation woulda taken place over the course of a month too)

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Originally Posted by Mireille

This is one point I agree with.

When XI launched our linkshell from Carbuncle choose a server to join in XIV. Everyone but me stopped playing within a few months of the launch. Some returned to XI, but some had stopped playing XI long before XIV launched. Now I am in a new linkshell with a bunch of people from Bismark who I would follow to whatever server they choose under option 4, but but but but...

If my old XI group returns in 2.0, and some will I am sure, they may login to some randomly chosen server with no way to find out which of many servers the shell landed on. I can update the ones who still play XI with the new location, but the ones who no longer play XI would be lost potentially forever. The lack of a real flist system make this unworkable.

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It's already been said that you can follow people on the lodestone and leave a message on their blog, there are ways to keep in touch, whether they would think to look on the lodestone is another matter intirely lol.

this merging is not necessary...

why don't just keep it F2P until the 2.0 come out?

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Originally Posted by Evangela

this merging is not necessary...

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It is. Just because your server is well populated doesn't mean others are.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

this merging is not necessary...

why don't just keep it F2P until the 2.0 come out?

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For some servers, it is necessary. On the other hand, for those like you and myself, it's not really going to do any harm to us in the first place, so why the hell are you bothering to complain in the first place?