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

[Sidious]

This would never make a difference no matter how it plays out. It makes no difference between two servers combining and LS collectively transferring and mixing it up in other servers. There is always going to be the potential of them clashing with one another.

This sounds like something from someone who has either lost touch with this community or comes from a server with a low population. So far, all of the major LS on MY server want to stay together. Which is another thing... it's not going to stop most of the server transferring to the same place. There really is not much difference in that sense. In other senses, as in the inactive players, option 2 is kinder to them. Everyone speaks of 2.0 and being able to transfer, but what about the time between then? They need to be segregated and live out the last days until 2.0 on a server filled with unfamiliar faces due to this insufferable dev team making unintelligent decisions? Uh, no. Think again.

I wonder which of us is out of touch. What is your basis of comparison, might I ask?

You say that it doesn't matter because everyone is going to transfer to the same place anyway. Then you say you want option 2 because it is "kinder" to the people who want to stay with the same group. Which is it going to be?

Option two is just a blanket merge, and that is unkind to everyone who is getting merged into a larger server. From what I can tell, you don't like option 4 because you want to force the community to stick together for your own selfish desire to resist change.

Option 4 is a real choice, option 2 is a faux choice because no matter where you opt to transfer to... It'll be two different communities trying to coexist.

[lackofwords]

Option two is just a blanket merge, and that is unkind to everyone who is getting merged into a larger server. From what I can tell, you don't like option 4 because you want to force the community to stick together for your own selfish desire to resist change.

Alright, so lets assume a player coming from a less populated world which has been decided to merge into a larger world.
The player could be either at the time being;

• Have a community established from previous world
• Been playing alone

I don't think a blanket merge would not affect the player who is already traveling with his established community. The player would stick to his existing social circle.

For the player who is playing alone, he is opened to more social circle opportunities to pick from. Oppose to the limited circles from the previous world, which the player did not wish participate for whatever reasons.

Now, Sidious mentioned problems of "two communities" trying to co-exist. It isn't that simple. There are hundreds of communities in a world. Just because a player is part of a world does not mean they partake in all the communities of the world as a whole. Besides, the hundreds of communities in the world itself has to learn to co-exist with each other. Adding more to it does not fundamentally change the dynamics of it.

Here's my personal example; (long story)

I was from Midgardsormr in FFXI, I was part of WeSH for my social outlet, and participated in several endgame shells, including some more specific shells like ShikigamiWeapon.

In 2010, Midgardsormr was merged to Quetzalcoatl. I kept together with WeSH, and a few of my endgame linkshell. ShikigamiWeapon, which was a shell in Midgard that helped people get their Yinyang Robe, was established in Quetzalcoatl as well to help the community.

Did it suck that we lost our world name? Yeah, a bit. But did that mean we didn't have fun together still? No, actually far from it. WeSH is having a great time on Quetz and picked up new members as well.

The only difference I remember noticing right after the merge was having more competition over endgame content, which is natural due to higher population density. Although as usual, over time some endgame shell dissolves, I join new ones, and still kept in contact with my circle back at Midgardsormr. However, I do not know if they were Quetz shells or Midgard shells or even a mix.

Never, have I personally asked new people I meet in game if they were from Midgard or Quetz, because I could care less. For me, a new face is a new face regardless if where they came from. Never was I ousted from a shell because I was from Midgard and not originally from Quetz.

Now, instead, if there wasn't a "blanket merge", where Midgard was merged to Quetz, what would have happened would be similar to when players being to choose a world on a new game. Since people have different circles of friends, they are forced to decide which ones they want to follow. Real life friends who plays, in-game friends, or in-game shells, etc.

To reference again to another personal experience;

I've played Ragnarok Online for while back while it was in beta and continued onto around 2004, which is when FFXI released. A few of the circle of players I knew in RO also wanted to move on to play FFXI.

Some decided to join the Ragnarok server, because of the name. However, some others decided to join other worlds. This essentially tore the circle apart and splitting into much smaller social groups, where the group isn't even sustainable by itself. Eventually what was a dozen players, dwindled down to three players. We had to find a new community to join into, instead of continuing from the one we've established from RO.

Now, if option 4 is picked, it's basically doing just that, forcing players to decide which circle of friends they want to follow. If option 2 is picked, no one needs to decide which circles to follow, because all their existing circles are there. Additionally, they also have the choice to pick another world if they wish. Such as if they don't want to merge into a particular world for any reason, they could try to convince their circle of friends to pick another world.

[LitoOrigo]

To the powers that be,

I must congratulate you all. With this decision, you've managed to disappoint me in a way that I didn't think was possible. I'm finding it difficult to express my disappointment in a civil manner.

The web of bonds that the community has built over a year (longer for those of us that came from Finial Fantasy XI or different games) is being threaten with destruction. Bayohne posted a translation of Yoshida's reply to the community.

With that said, first let me say that our underlying feelings are in the same place.
Especially with this merge, we felt very strongly to make it so everyone from the EU region can play together in the same time zone.

To this, I must ask, why not dedicate servers for other regions/languages as well? Other players have asked for something like this. I'm not trying to be rude in any way, but what makes that region worthy of your attention to the point where you would suggest that they gather at X-Server and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves?

The 4 plans that stayed prominent throughout the discussions are the 4 listed below.
(A=World with high population of players, B=World with low population of players, C=New World, X=Different World)

①A + B⇒A World to merge with B World
②A + B - X ⇒A World to merge with B World, except people that would like to move are able to choose a different World
③A + B - C ⇒A World to merge with B World, except people that would like to move are able to choose to go to C World
④Prepare 10 Worlds, set a limit, and give everyone the power to move their characters to a World of their choice.

I'm honestly baffled that option ④ was chosen. If the community had the option to choose the method, I wonder what percentage would have chosen option ④.

I may not be reading between the lines well enough or I might be trying too hard. I personally just feel that Yoshida, and the development team feel that the reasons "Why We Didn't Go With Option ①～③" (possible stress on the servers) are far more important than "The Cons of Option ④"

To the development team and community representatives:
I don't know how the other communities feel about Option ④. So, I must ask, have you seen the player-base this upset/disappointed since the initial release of this game or is this just the North America and English speaking player reaction?

I consider “community” to be the highest priority.

"Really" - <me>

Thank you all for your time.

Grammatical errors? {I'm sorry}