To all you asking for server merges: READ THIS

[djjdiss]

After reading quite a few comments scattered all over the forums talking about the subject, I decided to post my insight on the matter so that most of you understand why IT IS NOT a good idea for this game to undertake a merge at this juncture.

I love how so many people here are saying: oh yeah it's easy, just server merge! All our happy fun time problems are gone!

WRONG

Firstly

To those of you concerned about the negative publicity a merge will cause: YES, the press WILL report the merge and either purposely or inadvertently make it look bad because that's a juicy story, so let's get past that, take off our wishful thinking hats and put on our realistic hats.

Question: When do server merges usually happen?

Answer: when the game isn't going through MAJOR changes like XIV is, but instead when the game is getting stale, isn't progressing development wise, and people are beginning to leave. This makes it easier for devs to focus on the merge and ensure that no data is lost and minimal players are affected.


At the current rate SE is trying to work in regards to meeting their roadmap deadline, it doesn't seem likely that they would have time or extra man power to initiate a merge process, and trust me, it's a process even if it was a good idea.

So why is it not appropriate for a server merge currently?

(1)

One aspect to be considered is the economy. XIV is already about as glitchy and buggy as MMO's come. The market is no exception. Server merges almost always throw economies through a fluctuation hell.

(2)

As someone already mentioned Guilds, or Linkshells in this case, WILL be affected. You can expect several Linkshells to be broken apart from a merger process. This is counterproductive since the reason for the merger in the first place is to create more population traffic and expand group play. The worst case scenario here would be having to repearl all over again and lose several LS members who are now on other servers.

(3)

Server stability is something to be considered in this process as well. Anytime a merger happens, aftershocks are usually felt in the form of server outages/errors. These outages/errors can last for a very brief time or drag on for several months depending on how well they are monitored and repaired. Since the XIV team is pretty tiny in contrast to other major MMO games, dealing with these outages would take longer than normal, since most of the teams efforts are already predisposed elsewhere. can you imagine what would happen when something like patch 1.21 brings a large cross section of dormant players back for an exciting look at the new job system? A server merge would create all sorts of problems at that time.

(4)

Items and possessions almost ALWAYS end up missing or scattered during merges. I don't know of a single successful merge that hasn't resulted in a players inventory getting screwed up somehow. This game will be no different.

(5)

The porting process is set to begin in April. Once that process starts there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO chance of attempting to do a server merge. So between now and the next few months the devs would need to work overtime to plan out a server merge and pull it off successfully before April. At that point they would then need to balance out development time with the inevitable maintenance that the merger would need. This would cause all sorts of frustrating delays for content delivery.


So in the end what most of you think is an easy task for SE, simply is NOT. If it was a Blizzard sized team we were talking about then, yes, maybe.

Most of you suggesting a server merge should take what I said into consideration and decide whether getting development and content rolled out quickly is important to you, or having the dev team spend extra time squeezing the already tiny community together even more and delaying the main task at hand is the most important.

The XIV team is in no condition to accommodate you having your cake and eating it too, for now. Just because you are now paying a monthly fee does NOT mean that your standard of customer service will increase as well during this next 11 months. The team is still the same size, the plans are still just as large and the project is still spread just as thin as it has been.

If you have begun paying a monthly fee with the notion that you would be entitled to make larger demands during the overhaul, THINK AGAIN. while a server merge would make the feeling of a dead community disappear, it creates too many new problems to be worth it, especially with the stakes as high as they are for this game.

To elaborate on this, let's look at what a server merge is exactly.

[SIZE="6"]The Truth About Server Merges[/SIZE]

They were originally intended to be implemented when an online games community had become so thinned out that the players-to-servers ratio was drastically out of balance. If the online game reached this point, it usually meant its best years were behind it and the game was on it's last legs. Standard practice for these situations dictates the need to initiate a LAST RESORT server merge. The merge is intended to squeeze any extra life, and income, out of an mmo that might be left. Since the procedure is a very risky undertaking that involves, in some cases irreversible, collateral damage a game publisher ALWAYS tries to avoid doing it until a games population balance has reached critical, game shutdown, points.

Today however, server merges have become a common practice amongst developers large and small alike. Since the mmo market has been flooded over the last 9 years, it has become increasingly difficult for an mmo's population to fill up and thrive for the years it plans to stay online. With so many different titles all biding for a players money and time, the average population that any one mmo reaches has taken a massive plunge. With nearly 20 new mmo's emerging every year game companies are finding it harder to keep a players attention and monetary loyalty. This consequentially results in MAJOR population abandonment in shorter periods of time.

With no where left to turn, especially for lower budget mmo's, a game developer will frantically merge it's servers to shield it's players from feeling the effects of it's current failure without realizing that there may have been other options available to help the game community grow and thrive again.

Server merging is essentially biting your own leg off in order to escape the "this mmo is dead" trap that your game has fallen into. Since many game developers lack the innovation, finance or ability to either:

(A) create new exciting content that draws the dormant population back again

(B) Implement a F2P model structure that makes the game accessible to a larger audience that would have otherwise never given the mmo a second look

or

(C) hire a marketing firm to help publicize the game better (i.e. current players get rewards for inviting their friends to play promotions and whatnot)

The only option available to them lies in server merging.

Since server merging is so common today, many companies have begun to exercise it casually without regard for the effects it has long term. Unfortunately this practice has introduced a "numbing" side-effect over time. Players have become more tolerant to server merging and have taken it's implementation less seriously. This in turn produces yet another side effect from the player: a lack of care or pride in the game community that player is part of. So essentially server merging devalues what makes an mmo massive, leaving a negative shallow feeling in its place.

While the hardcore fans of the game still remain faithful, the other 80% of the population that makes up the average casual player, leaves the game to pursue other titles that don't feel so cheap and dead.

Needless to say that this often leads to the mmo's ultimate demise shortly thereafter in most cases.

This is what I call "Firework MMO's" They launch and explode into a beautiful beginning, but then just as fast as they ignited, they fade out into the darkness.

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Sorry, but that's the reality of it. SE knows this, otherwise they would have server merged a long time ago.

If the meager 10,00 of you left are still paying to play the game because you care about XIV's success, then DO IT FAVOR AND SUCK IT UP!

Let Yoshi and his team focus on their roadmap and less about your miniscule problems.

After all, the 10k of you still around WILL NOT make or break this game regardless of whether you're playing it or not.

The game WILL relaunch with or without you in 2013.

With that said, I'd advise those of you that want to help make this game awesome to focus on constructive suggestions for Yoshi and his team instead of sitting around looking at how few people pass you by anymore in town. If you have that much time on your hands, then you should be spending it brainstorming about ways to improve the overall gaming experience when XIV does relaunch and passing those ideas on to the dev team rather than asking SE to devalue the game even further for your own short term enjoyment.

A temporary solution

As others below have pointed out, SE is planning to allow for a free server transfer to a much more heavily populated server at the players choice. This should make for enough of a band-aid fix to tide the few of you that are left over for the time being.

SO let THIS and the original post that Yoshi made serve to inform you about what is and what is NOT going to happen.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS FINAL FANTASY, STOP MAKING SERVER MERGE THREADS!! IT MAKES THE FORUMS FEEL TACKY AND NOT FABULOUS XD