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

[HiirNoivl]

It's the impression I got from the interviews.

I'm sure the other bad decisions they made would have only gotten worse with time. I say we're fortunate they pushed it out early so we didn't have a bigger mess on our hands (whiteknightish comment, I know, but hey, hindsight is 20/20)

Right now we get a more transparent view of things behind the scenes. There are plenty of people in SE who would agree with you Gramul, as well as the other 2 options. Yoshi P picked this one after much discussion, including with those who would take your side. He thought the pros of option 4 outweighed the cons and that the pros of option 4 outweighed the pros of option 2.

I'm basing myself off this quote:

The biggest deciding factor for this decision was me believing in the strong bond within the community.

Even tho it is possible for community to be split into a million pieces by choosing separate servers, Yoshi did not believe this would happen. That removed a huge obstacle that would hinder option 4.

[Teknoman]

Hello everyone.

I appreciate your patience as we worked to get Yoshida's post translated. Please take a look.

Two really does seem optimal. Everyone on both servers stays together, and only moves to another server if they want to.

Players would be happy with a fusion of communities, and people who wanted to strike out on a new fresh server could do so.

On a side note, I like Yoshi's new personal avatar.

[Sidious]

Two really does seem optimal. Everyone on both servers stays together, and only moves to another server if they want to.

Players would be happy with a fusion of communities, and people who wanted to strike out on a new fresh server could do so.

On a side note, I like Yoshi's new personal avatar.

It's only optimal for the people who aren't getting merged with someone else.

[Jinko]

As far as I can see the only difference between 2 and 4 is that rather than everyone picking whatever they want you're given a 'suggested server', so to speak, and if you don't want it you can choose any of the other worlds.

I think the vast majority of people in World B would just go ahead and let the automatic transfer happen, barely anyone would opt for a different world, and World A would go over its set capacity. This would result in even more stress for the people who can't go to World A with their LSs and such. Although it sounds great, it wouldn't be perfect and you'd most likely lose friends or LSs to the population cap., which would be more traumatic to both parties.

Thats why they would need to calculate before hand roughly how many active members would transfer to each server.

ie - merge a heavily populated server with low populated one. (leave enough space for people to transfer) or (only allow people to transfer a week later)

[Vaen]

It doesn't fix what I was saying earlier.

"I have no problem with people wanting to stay with their friends. The issue arrises is when these people don't want to move at all, keep their entire ecosystem, and have the rest of us try to fit in somewhere in that well-established equation. Every blanket merge I've been a part of hasn't yielded a cohesive community. It's yielded two communities trying to coexist, sometimes quite unsuccessfully. It sucks."

Option 2 doesn't alleviate that. It's still just a blanket merge, and I don't want that. No matter where I go, there will have been a blanket merge and the community won't be cohesive.

Hmm... I see your point, but are the current communities really that cliquish as to not be able to bond with the new, incoming communities from merging worlds?

As a relatively new player, I've been able to integrate into at least a small part of the already existing community pretty easily, so I don't think it'd be that hard for two existing communities to merge successfully. I could be wrong and you could be right though.

I guess the "community total restart" aspect of option ④ would help in the case that you're right, but I'd still be unhappy about losing my old community and not having any control over my server name.

[TheFatHousecat]

Thats why they would need to calculate before hand roughly how many active members would transfer to each server.

ie - merge a heavily populated server with low populated one. (leave enough space for people to transfer) or (only allow people to transfer a week later)

But either way, you're going to end up with the people in the high pop. servers not having to worry about anything because their communities aren't moving around, and the people from the low pop. servers getting f*cked because they have to split up depending on the population cap.

I would much rather figure out a server to go to within my closest in-game friends and say my goodbyes to others who opt for different worlds, than have to split at random according to the world population capacity while being merged with a high pop. server.

[Sidious]

Hmm... I see your point, but are the current communities really that cliquish as to not be able to bond with the new, incoming communities from merging worlds?

As a relatively new player, I've been able to integrate into at least a small part of the already existing community pretty easily, so I don't think it'd be that hard for two existing communities to merge successfully. I could be wrong and you could be right though.

I guess the "community total restart" aspect of option ④ would help in the case that you're right, but I'd still be unhappy about losing my old community and not having any control over my server name.

No solution will please everyone, but it seems like option 4 yields the possibility for people to bring their friends to a new place to meet new people and start an entirely new, cohesive community.

When you just smack to servers together, they just don't "fuse" like some people think. There's tension between people because each community may be radically different. It's fine for the people who were on the original server (in no small part because there are way more of them), but for the people coming in it's really not a positive experience. You're on Server A, but in a sub-community that belongs to server B. You'll never really be on the same page as the people you merged into. That's something that doesn't go away.

But if we all start over together, we can forge something entirely new. It sucks to leave what you have behind, but who's to say what you create next won't be even better?

[Noir]

I think SE should let us know which 8 worlds are less populated. Keep the 10 worlds most populated as it is. Names and all. Second, provide a server transfer for those people with the least populated servers. That being said, we would know which server would be on th chopping block, and let people be able to transfer to which server they want. Sure, one or other server will fill up. When that happen, I'm sorry, move to another one. You can't please all. All inactive accounts should be unlocked, as like being in limbo, not attached to any world. When those people come back, ie: pay a subscription, they should be able to select a world. German, French, etc, I don't see a problem at all. I play with many of them and we get along well. 90% have english as second language. They can fit anywhere. Plus having a time difference means there always will be people on when you log in. Not only at a certain time if you discriminate by world time. If you are on the closing server, and you move to a server that have someone with the same name, you gotta change your name. Can't please all, again. That's what I think would be easier and better. The way they decided, option 4, will be a mess. That's my 2 cents.

[Dominar]

We need 10 new servers with 10 new names. Let us see the names and pick based on that. People want to pick based on the names. Personal preference is a huge part of the reason to even name servers in the first place.

[Peucritond]

i would have liked option 2 better myself.

better yet... why didnt you ask this in the player's poll