World Merger? who will make the cut

[AmbrosiaAmor]

Short answer:

Chances are Selbina, Gysahl, Cornelia, Figaro, Mysidia, and Lindblum will most likely stay
intact (or the top 1/3 most populated Japanese servers).







Long Answer:

It depends on how the final method of merging the community from one server to another will
be. Seems this time around it will be not just simply a "forced" A to B server: or if you want
to go to another server it will be $25 like in FFXI. While the numbers are not finalized it
seems Yioshi wants to maintain the population at around 1500-2000 players at peak hours (most
likely evening blocks for NA/EU/JP). But are those numbers mainly for Friday-Saturday evening
time blocks, or the average to sustain the entire week?


Ok here is a roll call from a couple of the Japanese forums, mainly from Logsuku and Awabi.
The number in parentheses are the populations from the day before yesterday, while the numbers after the military time given are the populations from yesterday. Note if any of the
characters are changed to ?? it is because it didn't get copy/pasted correctly. Note that
because of the holiday numbers may be a bit lower than usual.



23:00 1084 (??1,222) Selbina
22:22 838 (?? 874) Cornelia
22:48 828 (?? 998) Gysahl
23:29 709 (?? 857) Figaro
22:40 659 (?? 783) Mysidia
22:51 621 (?? 650) Lindblum
23:35 561 (?? 634) Saronia
22:45 553 (?? 622) Besaid
23:15 521 (?? 636) Kashuan
22:54 516 (?? 614) Fabul
23:00 498 (?? 494) Rabanastre
23:10 498 (?? 567) Trabia
22:25 447 (?? 513) Palamecia
22:35 438 (?? 513) Istory
23:00 426 (?? 505) Melmond
23:00 354 (?? 385) Wutai
22:27 350 (?? 374) Bodhum
23:01 338 (?? 415) Karnak



Note that these numbers during Japanese hours for Japanese populations are actually lower,
these are global numbers. If you were to take the numbers by language you would have for
example:

Melmond: (JP 351, EN 70, FR 1, DE 5)

Which adds up to 427 from another poster at a similar time compared to 426 on the above chart.
They have also posted 2 charts one showing the entire history of FFXIV showing the trend in
population while the smaller one shows the current trend in population starting around the end
of November. Note that there are some tiny upward spikes most likely due to weekend numbers
and/or updates that the game has received in the past 15 months which is no surprise since a
good portion of MMOs do give updates to make their games better as time goes on generally, but
very rarely if ever shows an influx of returning players to stay for the long term.

FFXIV Population History Trend:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...x=x0nb002hrzyo

FFXIV Population Recent Trend:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...x=2j347wa4kvqu

And considering that the JP population numbers now mirror (or in some cases are worse than)
the NA/EU populations from December 2010 that is definitely a bit shocking. I was expecting
them to be a little bit higher. So practically all JP server populations are below 1000 and
only 1 out of the 18 servers have JP populations that are very near the 1k mark or above. If
he wants to reach the 2k mark on peak times he would have to drop the server count to
somewhere between 5 and 7 servers... or roughly axe 2/3 of the current servers.

And yes the charts does show comparison to J-TERA but these were the only charts that I could
find. On a slight note from 4gamer.net it seems J-TERA is going to have a pretty big server
merge come January 25th.

[viion]

I think people really need to read this though

And with the method on how the world merge will be done, it will not be done in a simple method where World A and World B will merge into a single new World.
In order for EU players to gather on the same server in a certain mass, we are planning to go with the method where the players from a World with a less population can designate the World they wish to transfer to.

Yoshi is clearly stating it will not be 2 worlds merging together, so people suggesting it here makes no sense.

It also clearly states we get to decide which world we want to go to.

Now my question is, where do people who did not pick a world go?

[Magnesium02]

I think it would be hilarious if all those servers that have the 'elite' LS that were boasting about Primal kills and quibbling over legitimacy etc were to merge. It would be great to watch when the next Primal comes out

[Bowen]

I think it would be hilarious if all those servers that have the 'elite' LS that were boasting about Primal kills and quibbling over legitimacy etc were to merge. It would be great to watch when the next Primal comes out

Send all the elitists to one server? I wish. . .
We all know that if that happened many would be denied their 'first world kill' and therefore, would never go to where they may be threatened so.
Now that I think about it, I wouldn't want the forum ridden with:
"We were first!" "No, you cheated! We were first""No, we were first. You both stacked classes!"

[viion]

Yoshi should just come out like he did last time and say who did it first so everyone stfu XD

[Bowen]

Yoshi should just come out like he did last time and say who did it first so everyone stfu XD

To me, it doesn't really matter. If you beat it then you are no better/worse than the next person.
We should also remember that this is just a game, we are supposed to be having fun not trying t stab each other in the eyes.

[AmbrosiaAmor]

I think people really need to read this though



Yoshi is clearly stating it will not be 2 worlds merging together, so people suggesting it here makes no sense.

It also clearly states we get to decide which world we want to go to.

Now my question is, where do people who did not pick a world go?

Note the last sentence in his paragraph as well.

"With the details such as when and how it will be done, they will be announced once they are confirmed."

"How it will be done"

How the world merge will happen has not been finalized. There may be additional steps/options that have yet to be released. He gave "one" example with EU players with "one" scenario.




FFXI "Simple" Method:

Person from a less populated server A is "forced" to a more populated server B for free.
Person from server A does not like server B and wants to go to server C. It will cost $25.




FFXIV Method (Gives players more options):

Person (EU/NA/JP) from a less populated server A is "allowed" to freely choose which server they want to transfer to (it may be any server or it may be from a list of more populated servers).

However chances are this won't be the only step. This can easily cause a complete imbalance between servers. So there may be a chance that this will allow players from a less populated server to merge into a higher populated one. But after people make their choice Square Enix may take additional steps if some servers come out worse from this i.e. a server that used to have 300 people now only has 100. Chances are they are not going to leave it like that.




So I read the entire quote Yoshida gave Viion, did you? By the way with Japanese populations down to 10k (and this is considering billing has yet to start) if his plan is to have 2k players at peak times how is he going to do that without chopping off any servers. If you checked the population as well as the 2 documents you will see the trend that FFXIV has gone through in the past 15 months. 10k active players at a given time across 18 servers is around 555 players... so how can axing servers not going to be part of the plan?

[viion]

So I read the entire quote Yoshida gave Viion, did you?

I think you are taking the "details on how it will be done" as "its not decided how", when he has already stated how it will be done. He did not say "here is an possible option", or "this is one method", he said "it will not be done", why would he clearly (with absolute zero confusion) say it will not be done where 1 server merges to another, if he is then going to actually do it that way? That would be a pure out lie.

He then even states soooo clearly "we are planning to go with the method ...", they are planning to go with the.. method they just said, its already decided.

The final part is just explaining the exact details of this because a small paragraph does not state when it will happen or who gets to choose and which servers they can choose.

He has already decided clearly how it is going to work, and he will post details later, it is like how when we knew the skill system was going to to change, he said you will get 15 skills and 10 traits, details will come later, when they came later, that is exactly what happened, we got 15 skills and 10 triats, there was nothing different from his made up mind choice.

Dont question if I read it if you're going to misunderstand what he is saying.

The only A > B = C Merge will be when there are left overs and people do not choose a server.

So from his definite plan of action it seems it will process like so:
- We will get a period where we can choose a server we'd like to go to, with some form of deadline then those who did not choose will be merged with another server (maybe they try merge ones with similar peak times). But we will all get to choose.

[ChiefCurrahee]

I think you missed my foot note on my list:

* those servers don't represent the current population, the names were used purely for example *

SE could scale FFXIV down to 3 servers, designated each one as JP EU and NA. tell those players which server will be used for "prime time" populations goals and have peeps move.


Otherwise any merge in the end will be forced merge. If you don't move your character that lives on an underpopulated world SE will move it for you. And If you live on a target "home" world you wouldn;t have to worry about moving (if you so chose to do so)

But you also have to think about the repercussions of letting people choose at will where they end up.
You will take 18 servers and no matter how few servers remain, chances are great that one of the target worlds will remain underpopulated. Which is why I believe they will force merge low pop onto target worlds but give some choice to where you end up. But not allowing 100% of the games population to freely choose where that will be.

Hence Blue servers to blue targets and reds to red targets.

[AmbrosiaAmor]

I think you are taking the "details on how it will be done" as "its not decided how", when he has already stated how it will be done. He did not say "here is an possible option", or "this is one method", he said "it will not be done", why would he clearly (with absolute zero confusion) say it will not be done where 1 server merges to another, if he is then going to actually do it that way? That would be a pure out lie.

He then even states soooo clearly "we are planning to go with the method ...", they are planning to go with the.. method they just said, its already decided.

The final part is just explaining the exact details of this because a small paragraph does not state when it will happen or who gets to choose and which servers they can choose.

He has already decided clearly how it is going to work, and he will post details later, it is like how when we knew the skill system was going to to change, he said you will get 15 skills and 10 traits, details will come later, when they came later, that is exactly what happened, we got 15 skills and 10 triats, there was nothing different from his made up mind choice.

Dont question if I read it if you're going to misunderstand what he is saying.

The only A > B = C Merge will be when there are left overs and people do not choose a server.

So from his definite plan of action it seems it will process like so:
- We will get a period where we can choose a server we'd like to go to, with some form of deadline then those who did not choose will be merged with another server (maybe they try merge ones with similar peak times). But we will all get to choose.

They did say and you quoted "we are planning to go with the method." Yes I read that part but plans can change or is it impossible for plans to change in the future? If he is going to run the simulation and try to hit that range of 1500-2000 players online how is he going to do that when 17 of the 18 servers have roughly 800 or less players from Japanese evening times (and chances are the NA/EU players are less than that during their respective evening times). How can he achieve that range without axing any servers? Note that he even said that they will first analyze the number of players in the game after billing starts. No analysis has started yet. So yes they are "planning to go with the method" but again plans can change.


He did state that the range is provisional so if the numbers change to somewhere let's say around 500-1000 then sure it is a done deal. There is no need to drop any server. But what if that number of 1500 or 2000 is finalized at a later date, how will they achieve those numbers for peak hours?


And the last paragraph you wrote I agree with (I even said people can make a choice in my post, yes I know we will get to choose):

We will get a period where we can choose a server we'd like to go to, with some form of deadline then those who did not choose will be merged with another server (maybe they try merge ones with similar peak times). But we will all get to choose.


So those inactive players, or folks that simply didn't choose for whatever reason (out of town etc.) when they come back online they will be merged with another server. I think we agree on that. But then what happens to those servers that may or may not have an exodus of people leaving? Hence the part I wrote how some servers "may" end up worse from this on my previous post.


I guess my question to you Viion is:

After this is said and done will there be exactly the same number of servers or is there a chance that some servers are going to be axed because they cannot reach the numbers they want to across all servers?