Are inactive accounts/characters priority over transfers?

[Northman]

I'm sure they are analyzing this situation and deciding to do something or not to do. There were 4 ? options, but in fact there are even more. Many more, but it costs more money and time. Just one example option. They could add one extra server for those japanese, who want a server to japanese speaking only. It would be filled quickly and would give room in all other servers. It would make those japanese more happy and even bring in more customers. Or some other idea which would make people more happy. Maybe not good business to do nothing. Better wait now few days and look how they solve this. They are in response, not us poor big mouth gamers.

[weeble]

I'm sure they are analyzing this situation and deciding to do something or not to do. There were 4 ? options, but in fact there are even more. Many more, but it costs more money and time. Just one example option. They could add one extra server for those japanese, who want a server to japanese speaking only. It would be filled quickly and would give room in all other servers. It would make those japanese more happy and even bring in more customers. Or some other idea which would make people more happy. Maybe not good business to do nothing. Better wait now few days and look how they solve this. They are in response, not us poor big mouth gamers.

not a jp only server but a absolute new server. jp don't need a server for themselves any more then english do. they do however need a empty server. this will be the one everyone that wants a full totally populated by people who are playing server. all countries in it...all time zones will be packed with active players. all days and nites we can get things done without spending hours trying. this is best idea just open 1 more server, make sure it's fully empty when we start migrations there ...that is all and it will fix everything. linkshells can stay together in there servers, friends can migrate or whatever together. but most importantly ...we have 1 frigin server that will have more then 200people active on it.

[Northman]

But we already have that kind server ? People just avoid it. Maybe 50-60 % of gamers are japanese ? and now they would be on all servers except Ragrog I don't know. They are the easiest solution. Easy to find 2000 of them to fill one national. Easier than force GMT people (10 times less) to go to one. But I don't care how they solve it. The solution can even be that Ragrog is made interesting by giving special weapon or skill for all Ragrockers.

[Murugan]

Why is this so hard for you people?

The servers are being balanced for ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS (in yoshida's explanation). So they are not "filling up the servers".

Inactive accounts will remain on their server, and when they are reactivated they will be on the same server they were on (in most cases now merged with another server).


There is no issue here.

/facepalm

[indira]

inactive accounts wont be screwed since they didnt want to play anyways and some may never comeback.
they should get the backseat and let people paying get the rewards.

[Eli_Jin]

Has anyone considered that SE can treat inactive accounts differently than active accounts? Meaning that while yes they are getting "priority" to move to their default new server just like all of the active accounts, but they can easily weight them differently. For example if they have stats that say after every major patch about 1 in 5 (a guestimate, exact number only known by SE) inactive players come back to check it out. Then they can say that every 5 inactive players = 1 active player spot.

For that matter they can also weigh active players as well. If active player X is online average 8 hours a day for the last 6 months, and active player Y is online average 4 hours a day for the last 6 months, then player X takes twice as much space as player Y. They can go even further by factoring in timezone played in to help even it out. I recall SE saying early on something about wanting to help ensure that the server transfer process takes into account timezones so that players can find parties at any time of the day (though that may not apply as much to the EU server since they are the minority player base).

Edit: This would also explain why the full/not full server status on the World Transfer Application page only updates several times a day instead of instantly. Their servers need time to process the change activity and calculate full-ness of each server based on player timezone and playtime.

[Mireille]

The people who are inactive might have only been inactive 1 month, just to wait for 1.21 to resub.

Don't assume all inactive people are waiting on 2.0

I created a character on Istory so I could check how many people are on during the day as compared to Mysidia. Istory has about 200 - 250 active players during NA hours. Mysidia has around 300 - 350 during NA hours. That adds up to 500 - 600 people post merger. That's based on searches done throughout a week. Prior to fee pay Mysidia had about 600 people on during NA hours, but I have no idea what that number was on Istory.

I can't speak for Japan hours. I'm not up late enough to see what the populations currently peak at during Japan prime time.

In a community of 350 people I don't see many unfamiliar names on Mysidia during the day, but lets assume double that many people are active on both servers and not all of them login every day. That's 1200 people during NA hours.

Servers were supposed to accommodate 6000 - 9000 people on at a time to my recollection.

1/6th - 1/10th of the server's potential full population is active as of this point based on my estimates, but the server is full.

I know SE can't assume none of the tens of thousands of inactive accounts won't be returning in 2.0, or sooner. I also know that many of the in-active's will become active again. Still its sort of sad that people can't move to a server of their choice, and a bunch of inactive players who aren't planing to ever return are keeping them out.

Mysidia has been a three chocobo server since launch. I failed to notice how many birds Istory was when I created my toon there. Even if Istory was only a 1 bird server that means Mysidia + Istory makes Gungnir at least a 4 chocobo server, so it may have been instantly marked full before anyone had a chance to choose the transfer option. Oh well...

I will say for the benefit of the Istory people Mysidia is full of nice people who play during NA/EU hours, and while I don't know the Japanese population well I've always found the Japanese players to be perfectly polite. Even if you can't move to another server you aren't going to merge with a bunch of people who behave like the hind end of a Chocobo.

I know some people wanted to go to a server other friends are on, or move another toon to the server they actively play on, and those people are losing out.

One thing SE could do would be to not count the long term in-actives unless they reactivate. Then set a threshold where if the server crosses a population limit reactivation's that exceed that limit force you to pick another server as a part of reactivation.

[Wynn]

Has anyone considered that SE can treat inactive accounts differently than active accounts? Meaning that while yes they are getting "priority" to move to their default new server just like all of the active accounts, but they can easily weight them differently. For example if they have stats that say after every major patch about 1 in 5 (a guestimate, exact number only known by SE) inactive players come back to check it out. Then they can say that every 5 inactive players = 1 active player spot.

For that matter they can also weigh active players as well. If active player X is online average 8 hours a day for the last 6 months, and active player Y is online average 4 hours a day for the last 6 months, then player X takes twice as much space as player Y. They can go even further by factoring in timezone played in to help even it out. I recall SE saying early on something about wanting to help ensure that the server transfer process takes into account timezones so that players can find parties at any time of the day (though that may not apply as much to the EU server since they are the minority player base).

Edit: This would also explain why the full/not full server status on the World Transfer Application page only updates several times a day instead of instantly. Their servers need time to process the change activity and calculate full-ness of each server based on player timezone and playtime.

The page actually updates super fast. I've watched servers come up and down again in the span of seconds.

[Discordia]

A better solution would've been to create a holding server to permanently house all inactive accounts. This will allow these players to, at the time of reactivation, choose the server they wish to move to. This takes care of two things: (1) the off chance that their LS moved to another server different from the merged-to server (2) allows them to return normally and not have a feeling that they need to reactivate during this period "just to transfer".

What puzzles me is why SE have come to either of the two methods when there were a myriad of other options. This hasn't been the first time SE has fumbled over this issue.

Edit:

Another simple solution would be to not bother with a "server status" page and just have an open application for all players, on a first-come, first-served basis. Allow players to provide up to 3 main choices and then to check off one of two options after that: (a) IF all options are not able to be filled, leave me on my current home server to be automatically merged (b) Be placed on a waiting list for one of the 3 aforementioned choices and agree to risk being randomly placed if none of those choices can be filled.

[darkstarpoet1]

people are still discussing what to do with inactives when the very post from yoshi is in the thread? i'll say it again. inactives DO NOT count towards whether the server is full capacity or not.

this is directly from yoshi. the people complaining and yelling i told you so need to read what their deity has stated about inactives.

"Inactive characters/non-subscribers are also counted, but they are not factored into the maximum limit of active characters allocated to each server."

now if anyone has any new info where he has now changed his mind and stated they do count now i would back off the statement. basically he has stated the caps are for only active players that are on the server.