Voluntary Data Center moves, "Compensation" and why its failed, a theory.

[Barraind]

(2)

Its easy to see why people dont want to move. We havent even gotten into losing statics, losing the community (as youre praying the NEW community will make up for the old community as much as possible), losing personal friends (being reliant on discord, like slack, like aim, like irc,, ect just doesnt work) and we're already operating at a MASSIVE loss.

I honestly dont think voluntary moves even can work the way squenix has their servers set up. The code that seems less stable than Everquest at times doesnt support a lot of what they would need to get people to seriously consider moving:

Keep your house, because housing is correctly instanced.
Keep your FC and all progress it and you have made.
Move all your existing inventory spaces without having to put it in specific places.
Have the ability to party find, duty find and group with people on any datacenter in your region (or world. Its already being done in other, current mmo's that had to build the infrastructure for it from the ground)

Honestly, that would do it, you wouldnt have to add anything else.

But as that isnt now, and likely never will be an option, I honestly dont think any amount of compensation they can reasonably offer (you cant just throw more gil at the problem) will make people want to transfer.

And as evidenced by the ~30 hours of nonsense surrounding Crystal, this was something they should have figured out well before now.

[Solarra]

Agree with everything you said.
Housing and FC Progress seem to be the main sticking points that stop people from moving. The compensation is laughable. What use is gil when you have given up a prime housing plot and may have to settle for something smaller, in a less favourable position or no house at all? They need to give people much better incentives if they want them to move and your list would probably tempt a lot of people. Sadly, I don't see instanced housing happening.

Have the ability to party find, duty find and group with people on any datacenter in your region

I think this would be a huge help, not only to prevent people from rushing to popular worlds but also to alleviate some of the issues caused by the EU and US data-centre split.

[Sethy]

(2)

Have the ability to party find, duty find and group with people on any datacenter in your region (or world. Its already being done in other, current mmo's that had to build the infrastructure for it from the ground)

This would help a lot. I don't mind losing my house as much losing the ability to play with friends who will now be on another data centre