Ever getting server merge?

[Twilite]

Since the population for the game is theoretically growing, what SE does instead is lock the over-full servers to new character creation, and encourage people to plop onto the lowest population server instead.

It will be a few years before SE considers server merges. As Sove said, they're far more likely to to encourage people to transfer off the over populated servers than they are to merged two lower population servers.

It wasn't until most of the XI servers had a prime time population under 1000 that they merged them.

Remora went much sooner than that.

[Zephanoa]

I don't see this being a thing for a while. I just don't see it in the cards this early after the first expansion has released. I think what needs to be done is that the other servers just need more chances to shine. There is no reason for balmung to be THE RP server or gilga to be THE raid server or whatever. Not many people speak up and say, yeah come here and we will work together to make this a thing on my server. It's saddening but true. I have to say I at least applaud JoeNever for starting something that is presently only in the Primal DC.

[Niqote]

If this is accurate, then your population looks more then fine. Do you play in the low traffic times? http://xivsoul.com/

What are you even referring to? Cue times? Party Finder trends? New content popularity vs the old content? More information is needed before jumping 300yalms over Woad Whisper Canyon to reach the conclusion of a server merge.

There is no reason for balmung to be THE RP server or gilga to be THE raid server or whatever.

Is Gilgamesh really seen as a raid server or was that just an example? 8.5% have cleared final coil compared to 15.1% on my server, and as far as I know we don't have a label o_o.

:3 These stats are interesting to look at

[FunkYeahDragons]

If this is accurate, then your population looks more then fine. Do you play in the low traffic times? http://xivsoul.com/

I wouldn't trust this as a measure of server activity.

It states that Zalera has a higher population than Leviathan... but when I was there, there were 0-3 ads primetime, no activity in /shout or /yell, and mostly empty zones. Leviathan is bustling.

The site owner says the population is the number of player characters on the server, not the number of active subscribers. Maybe some of these were roleplay servers or something at one point, so at a glance it looks like small servers are actually large.

[Kosmos992k]

Something something data limitations, something something server limitations.

What I tried to say was with Square constantly saying how they can't add this or do that because of sever limitations. I feel they'd just give that excuse again when it comes to your idea. I want better server infrastructures.

Completely agree.

[Gilraen]

Sigh... seeing as people have this notion that a server merge is something can 'just happen' I will detail what a server merge means and what all is involved. Give me a bit to write my novella.

Square will announce well in advance when they will perform server merges, easily more so than they do maintenances. They will also announce which servers will be affected and how. When servers are merged one server is assigned the role of host. For this server all that's changing is it's population size, the other server(s) being the ones immigrating to the host server. For the server(s) immigrating to the host server, though, alot is going to happen. All linkshells will be broken. All free companies will be disbanded. All property will be relinquished, maybe refunded. The reasons for all this is that the only thing they are carrying over to the host server are your characters and anything directly connected to them like gil, items and retainers. In that regard it's not unlike a server transfer, look that up for the particulars that goes with it though you might be able to keep all your gil instead of a set amount.

This is because the server merge process favors the host server over the immigrating server(s), just like server transfers. This is also why server merges are not something Square does idly, there's alot of inconvenience involved for players. Between removing and storing furniture if you have a house or room in a company house, preparing with linkmates or company members about reforming on the new server, running afoul of naming issues, etc., it can be daunting. That's just the player side of things, server side can take a day or two to move all the character data to the host server. Setting up the European datacenter alone took a day, and that was just a straight copy onto blank servers.

This is why server merges is something they save for when they need to cut costs, it's easier to justify the time and effort when it means saving money.

[Kotemon]

Sigh.. This isn't FFXI. The list of possible rage quit reasons for a server merge and eventual shut down doesn't exist yet. Or to the extent where it is long enough to be funny. I would wait until midway to the end of 4.0 where the current layout ends and we are given the possibility of a new director/producer and story line. At least by then well have enough material to transpose that list from FFXI to FFXIV so we can properly talk about server merges, existing population levels, and going back to old content to make up for the lack of new content.

But I think part of the perception of server pop is probably due to the inability to see the number of total users at various times. Not knowing what region is on what world or cluster and the amount of used and unused bots/accounts filling the server pop. Maybe one players game time is during the majority populations bed time. It could be that most folks are looking to servers by name recognition or word of mouth. Thus is leaving some worlds empty due to alternate characters and transferring to other worlds when an opening becomes available.

[Saccharin]

How is that gonna solve the housing and FC problems? Forcefully take away all houses, dissolve all FCs and linkshells? That would make people happy for sure.

The housing system it utterly terrible. Having plots in a neighbourhood might sound nice but practicaly it's terrible. You get the abandoned houses and of course you get the not enough space for players. Then they make the personal rooms that for some reason are programatically tied to your FC so you can't access your house if the FC decide to troll you, or even demolish it.

They need to go back to the drawing board with housing.

[Hanayumi]

Well with the already low population in Mateus, many people are just transferring out for the larger servers, and unfortunately not everyone wants to do such and rather not have people left behind to such conditions, so yeah that why I asked about merging or something of the sort and its been like this well before even 3.0 came out. >.<