Quote Originally Posted by Rutelor View Post
...and the difference seems to stem from the fact that the company apparently has no intention to preserve already defined communities (not only linkshells) together. [...]
If you are currently playing the game and at least a portion of the like-minded people you play with are capable of comprehending numbers ranging from 1 to 10 and are also capable of communicating said numbers to each other, I'm fairly certain you can come to some arrangement whereby you pick the same number. Is this perfect? No. Some will pick different numbers. You will make new friends and lose old ones. That is true of life as it is true of this process.

Quote Originally Posted by Rutelor View Post
[...] I have friends that left the game and won't be back till after version 2.0. I have no way of talking to them in real life, do not know their real names and or contact data, and most likely will lose all contact with them during this process.
I doubt they're planning is centered on the possible desires of those who don't even play that you don't know well enough to have any other means of contacting.

Quote Originally Posted by Rutelor View Post
I have trouble believing that the complicated multi-step--and community-breaking--process proposed is the result of technical limitations. For sure the very process of server structuring and design was conducted by people mindful of the complications and implications of server merges... Or wasn't it?
Again, "complicated" is an exageration. You do not like their plan for server merges. Things that you do not like are not equal to things that are complicated. I do not like vegetables. This does not make vegetables complicated.

You are correct, it changes the current community by reforming it into new social arrangements on new servers. This is known as "change". Change is not always welcome. Despite change not always being welcome, it does not imply that the thing being changed is broken after the change. Things that you do not like because they have been changed are not equal to things that are broken. I do not like vegetables that are then steamed. This does not make steamed vegetables broken.

The process proposed does not fall into the category of something that is a bi-product of technical limitations. They chose to do it this way because they felt it was the best way to go about implimenting a server transfer.