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

[Terri]

I personally prefer option 2. This "Going with option 4 being for the French/German player base" thing- I'm sure a good chunk of those people this is all for won't even end up on server 10 anyway. There is not really many cons since well, the naming system in this game makes it much much harder for people elsewhere to have your name unless you were lame and named yourself after a popular game/animu/movie chara. It Also helps returning players at least be able to reunite with friends easily, and not get their mules scattered across worlds.

To people comparing it to FFXI's server merges as a con- (I only skimmed and noticed a phoenix/titan comparison) you cant compare it to the Pheonix/Titan merge. That server was well, shall we say home of some pretty hardcore players compared to Titan. Titan was well- more of a casual server. Even Phoenix's casuals were considered hardcore to their standards- hence why they would feel that way. ( You could honestly tell people who was from where just by gear alone lol ) But compared to that, this game is still in primal stages. I know this prolly was the case for other servers too, but take into consideration that the communities here aren't as tight as FFXI's which had people who played together for a good couple of years. many of us were together for a year and a few months at most. Also, the server elitism that existed in XI wouldn't exist due to lack of content.

and honestly the other server i was on when it merged ( Quetz x midgar ) while I was against it for the sole reason of quetz's food market ruining my gil income- the communities blended together well. For XIV, market crash is something that isn't of concern. The markets are meh to begin with due to this game's age. lol


Honestly though, option 4 doesn't bother me ( it's easy to figure out where you and your friends will go- it's how most of us got to x server in the beginning anyway ), but it has many cons to it. Ya wanna be with your friends, server full and only half your friends got in? Too bad, your SOL! Got a mule and it didn't make it to your server? Oh wait your SOL! Come back from that long wait for 2.0? Oh wait, your SOL and lost not only your group who would letcha back in (not like many of us are doing much together since a lot of us have everything lol ), but your mules too!

SE... if you go with 4, at least make sure inactive characters made before the merges have 1 free transfer credit that they can use upon reactivation. You will lose many of those people waiting for 2.0 to come back.

[Biggs]

SE... if you go with 4, at least make sure inactive characters made before the merges have 1 free transfer credit that they can use upon reactivation. You will lose many of those people waiting for 2.0 to come back.

I could not agree with this part more. They seem to have no problem catering to players that don't play this game right now the rest of the time they are making decisions, I don't see why they chose to stop here. I hope that later down the road (possibly during 2.0 launch) they offer that as an option. People shouldnt be punished for not wanting to pay for a game thats in the condition its in now. I hope they change this down the road.

[Mychael]

Ok ,so I think you misread. First, my name is Biggs, so if your going to mention me, at least mention me by my name, as I would be more than willing to do the same for you. Second Yoshi made that post, not Bay. And I wasn't at all claiming that the majority think this is a good idea, rather, only highlighting that niether camp (yours or mine) can make a claim about what the majority does or doesn't want based on these forums alone. I actually think if a poll WAS taken using the 4 options listed, the responses would all be fairly spread out. Hence why I am glad that they just picked one in house, made a tough decision and moved forward with it. It would be comepletly impossibe to make the majority of people happy no matter which of those 4 response they had chosen.

Lol, getting people in threads confused~ I'm sorry. I think I'm heading to bed now. In any case, I'm not positive that the results would be evenly spread, but I have nothing to show. Honestly, I wish they would make it a poll, but it doesn't matter. And I guess I should rephrase what I said. If a dev makes a post, it will get a ton of likes. And if I'm not mistaken, Bay posted the translation; Yoshi's post would be on the Japanese forums. I was referring to Bay's post, not Yoshi's. Yoshi's original post has 100 likes, actually, so there's an even bigger stat for you.

[Sidious]

Numbers, please.

Amusing you should ask for numbers! I'm still waiting for your numbers behind this gem:

You seem to think that Gysahl is in the top ten..

[Mychael]

Amusing you should ask for numbers! I'm still waiting for your numbers behind this gem:

/panic!

What ever will I do!

My ability to question others is invalid because others can question mine!

Besides, if you have the population count, you're welcome to share.

[Madruk]

Your post highlights why why the world has now chosen to move toward absolute monarchy; democratic systems have been in decline for many years.

Ignorance is bliss.

[Mihana]

I read the response made by Yoshi-P earlier and given time to think it over I'm not really concerned so much now over their plans with Option 4. What I don't agree with though is why they're still making inactive players suffer. Why is it so difficult to let inactive players choose a server too? There's two options:

1.) Make it an option in the SQUARE ENIX Members account page. Upon logging into your account there you can designate which characters inactive or not, will be sent to which server. Give active players first priority on this. Inactive players will be marked as a lower priority meaning that if their choice of server fills up with active players first then they're instead sent to a different server. Or to make it more fair, let them choose up to 3 servers. If their first selection isn't open it defaults to the second. If not that one, to the third. If all 3 are taken, they're defaulted to the least populated server.

2.) Send them to a random default server if one isn't chosen before the date. Upon first reactivating a character and their account, they're then given the option to stay on their currently assigned server, or migrate to a new one providing their chosen server has an opening. This option remains in place indefinitely until they choose and accept a server for each character that's reactivated.

Using the above options it still gives players who are paying right now the higher priority but allows those who aren't playing for whatever reasons to choose a server without being shafted. It's highly unfair that they're pulling this stunt, and personally I believe it may be influenced as an incentive for people to start paying right now.

[Sidious]

/panic!

What ever will I do!

Make a cop-out post, it would seem.

Besides, if you have the population count, you're welcome to share.

I did. In the post right after yours.

[Mychael]

I did. In the post right after yours.

What you showed me was the number of players logged into each server at times roughly around 23:00 (presumably JST) on an unspecified date. This disadvantages servers with high NA populations, etc. I learned nothing about the number of characters on a server...

[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}