Antonius Bayle Server: Free Transfers to Vox Available

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Roxxlyy, Aug 10, 2017.

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  1. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Thinking long term, it is better to wait it out than move imho.

    MOVE:
    • Pro. We "might" get rid af the chatlag immediately (and the other bugs plaguing AB).
    • Con. It might split up the guilds and we will be stuck on a server with a different timezone. That is, the server will be sleeping in our playtime, except for those who moved with us.
    • Con. If we regret the move, we have to pay ourselves to get back.
    • Con. higher ping times.
    STAY:
    • Pro. We will get rid af the chatlag eventually, assuming DBG can fix it.
    • Pro. The guilds and community stays intact.
    • Pro. better pingtimes, and server performance on par with VOX(when AB is finally fixed)
    • Con. Maybe DBG can't fix it, and just have to kill off AB, and we will have wasted time waiting.
    • Con. Potential long term downtime, while the fix takes place(how much?) .Temporay
    If we have faith in DBG then there is not much reason to move, unless the fixing downtime will be in the magnitude of several months...

    A better deal would be to give every AB-char 2 transfer tokens for free, one for moving to VOX(or another temporary server), and another one for moving back again to AB, if we chooses to do that when the fix is done.
  2. baider Elder

    Why not offer a real solution like free server transfer to any server? You say you don't want to have the transfers to a populated server and over saturate that server, but if you open it up to all servers then people will go in different directions. This could HELP all those servers with already struggling populations, killing two birds with one stone. Picking one of the least populated and lowest raiding servers is a slap in the face.
  3. Drcoracle Journeyman

    How do you do the transfer?
  4. Nightmares Augur

    I don't play on AB. but I have been following the situation as I have a lot of friends that moved to AB years ago(some till play on Rathe once in a while).
    From what I am reading let me try a different solution idea.
    IF it's a hardware latency issue between US and Euro locations, could you not just move the Euro server to US so all in 1 place? I am not sure how this would effect latency with Euro locals though, but If you're online and just going to the server, I would think it wouldn't matter the Physical location at that point. ( I'm not tech savy on this stuff, sorry). All that would matter is the "chat" between the systems that have to work together, and their latency between each other.
    Now if that idea is just straight out, you are back to the whole fix the issue on site / transfer options.
    I do agree to potentially split up guilds, even a community as a whole, is definitely NOT a solution. And transferring to a low population server has it's downsides, as discussed earlier in the thread, but those aren't truly as severe as some make them out to be. ( not trying to play devil's advocate here).
    If Vox is barely alive, it's almost on par with being a new server. IF they corrected problems and fixed everything that was wrong with the server before a transfer, that would make it a Much better solution ( yes, big IF there). But if you're whole population did move, you'd have the same population you had on AB, nothing would change in that regard ( again, another big IF). Although you'd have a few more players from the native Vox players, which would also give them more options.
    Someone pointed out everyone left Vox. Ok, then probably a lot of the problems they made went with them and again the Core would be replaced with a new core. so no real difference there.(especially if DB did in fact go through Vox with a fine toothed comb to get rid of any problems before proceeding with this plan). In effect it could basically be an actual server merge of Vox and AB onto Vox hardware / location of servers(much like all other mergers basically). Though I might actually change the name a little to give both populations their earned respect.
    As for play hours of population. While it's nice to have heavy pop up at certain times( we all know it is) it's also good to have active around the clock for those that may live in those locations that would normally be a part of the main times, but maybe work odd shifts and whatnot so they are forced to play at off times. Having a little more variety and options never hurt anyone, not really anyways.
    I do like the free transfer to any server option someone had stated, but not necessarily 2 tokens per toon. At least not an indefinite availability. Allow them 2 transfers for free, so IF they need to they can come back to original server for free, not a free to anywhere second transfer. This way it would not piss off the whole rest of the EQ community ( free transfers to anywhere? you know that would raise eyebrows, or at least furl them). That second one in this instance would be unlimited time offer, so people could come back once the issues were fixed.( but then again, if they just merged servers, no need cause everyone would still be there. Less downtime and issues than thousands upon thousands of transfers).
    Not sure if any of that would work, but It's how I am seeing it at this point. I would love constructive feedback in regards. We might be able to solve the problem for them.
  5. melody4579 New Member

    So how do we do this?
  6. Anhur Journeyman

    I'd rather have been offered a diminished subscription fee until such time as the AB server is fixed - the drawback I can envisage from such an offer would be that people exploit it and get a reduced sub yet don't play on AB, but surely they could set a parameter that the account has to have a character on the server with a 'last date logged in' and a 'minimum amount of playtime', I'm sure they're far smarter than I and could have come up with something.
  7. Roxxlyy Augur


    Type in /servertransfer and select Vox - you should be all set!
    Cazmac likes this.
  8. eqzekisdead Augur

    Free transfers to Zek are also available for everyone on AB!
  9. Miss_Jackie Custom Title


    Roxxlyy, there is a server with even less players. And that server is Trakanon. Whenever I logged into that server, I was lucky to even see 20-30 players logged in when I did /w all. Are you saying that Vox has even less players than Trakanon?
    Cazmac likes this.
  10. Silentchaos Augur

    I uh, wouldn't worry about that.
    Cazmac likes this.
  11. Cazmac Augur

    I had no idea that the chat facilities were on another continent! Thank you for that info; it does explain a few things.
  12. Cazmac Augur

    I don't want to move to a server with a worse ping than AB, thank you! :D
  13. AB_H'Sishi Augur

    That theory is quite good, except a minor detail. From what I know, the AB server resides near or in Amsterdam, Netherlands. But, in global terms, we only talk about few hundred kilometers (or miles, whatever applies to you) on the same continent instead of crossing an ocean.

    From my understanding, there are (at least) three chat systems.
    • One which provides server-internal chats (/say, /tell, /gsay, /gu, /raidsay, /shout and /ooc). There's no reason to route them via US chat servers and they still work when the UCS (see next part) disconnects.
    • Then there's the "Universal Chat Service" (UCS), allowing [tells, ingame mails and chat channels across servers and even games (e.g. EQ 1 <=> EQ 2).
    • The third "chat system" I want to mention is the ingame Voicechat (EQVoiceService.exe). I don't know if this system is still operating. I'm unable to use it for months now; each time I activate it EQ is unable to even see my audio devices (yes, I have multiple) and I didn't see any "Speaker" icon on group mates for some years now.
      Any googling for help on this issue leads mostly to several years old hits. Try to find something about it in DBG's help system? There's nothing.
      I don't know why it's still in the UI or its files in my EQ directory, in case this feature is taken offline. But the files get re-added when I delete them and re-patch.
    Anyway, the chat issues we have now for some months weren't there shortly after F2P or the UCS were introduced. Otherwise US servers would also have been affected.
    Also, they didn't appear immediately after SOE transitioned to DBG.

    Unless it's a simple economic result of reduced server resources or bandwidth contracts regarding AB, I'm out of idea's :( .
    Cazmac and Jumbur like this.
  14. Jyve Augur

    First, appreciate the acknowledgement of the issue (think we first started bringing this up in September 2004 when OOW came out and the instances would take an hour to spool up, AB's been wonky ever since) and something to help mitigate.

    Few questions...
    How do entire guilds move? Last one out, nuke the guild on the old server to free up the name and get the new one on the new server? (and can we get the guild halls copied across too? or does that go with the person who initially bought it?)

    What % of people jumping to Vox makes the AB server not worth saving, so it gets shut down. and there's an effective server merge anyway? (ie, to make things simpler, do we wait for a bit if the problem can't be found, there's a server merge with a new server so guilds get copied across easier than reforming).

    Plan B, can the AB config be copied to new hardware in the EU using the same config used in the US.
    Plan B.ptB can the AB config be copied to new hardware in the US so we can keep the name/community?

    Plan C. Servermerge with Vox so we can all keep together (and those stragglers who don't log in a year from now don't start moaning they can't find their toons)

    if ...1/3rd of the AB peeps move to Vox, will that lighten the load for the people remaining? Or if it's a 'comms back to HQ' issue, that probably won't help?
    Cazmac likes this.
  15. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Actually I have no clue about the internal server setup, its just a theory. But as you said, it would explain why some functionality(chat) is affected while game-mechanics isn't, and it would explain why AB would be most affected of all the servers.

    I would guess zoning would require some credentials-checking(does the player have that expansion?), which could also be located in USA.

    It doesn't explain why the raidtool-lag follows the chatlag, though. Having the raidtool sending messages all the way to USA doesn't really makes sense, as it only affect server internal chat. :confused:
    It also doesn't explain why it wasn't a big problem much earlier, Unless SOE actually paid premium for a good connection between amsterdam(apparently) and the rest of the serverpark, and went cheap during the DBG transition.

    If my theory is correct then the US servers wouldn't be affected since chat-packages would just need routing across the building, before being send to clients, rather than to another continent.

    :eek: I thought it was a relatively new problem that started with the SOE-DBG transition?

    AB had some stability problems shortly before TBM I think, they fixed that, and thats when the chat-lag began?
  16. Rumplestilskin Lorekeeper

    The answer is obviously to have the Euro raiders move to a server with a strong PST raid guild.
    Reynen likes this.
  17. Jyve Augur

    Around that time, year, this new lag started.
  18. Zaph Augur

    In support of what has already been said before me. Thank you for admitting there is a problem.

    But the basis of choice one way movement to a dead server is utterly insane and really not a option for any of the major raiding guilds.

    I played/raided on a US based server (bristlebane) for the first 10 years of my Everquest time, and ping times are really not such a horrible prospect as some might make out, I only moved servers to be with other eurotimezone players as the population on the previous server was dwindling.
    For the most part, for the state of the game in general, the population on AB is "acceptable", but if a notable percent of players, either raiders, or casual groups moved, it would drastically harm the entire server more than I believe the suits in charge of this whole idea could possible expect.

    The solution is hardware, not user options.
    Cazmac likes this.
  19. Thrinity Journeyman

    As a European player my ping on any of the US servers is around 210-220ms, this is very playable. Been raiding as a cleric and the ping was never a problem. You get used to it
    Reynen likes this.
  20. Theo Journeyman

    I appreciate DBGs decision to offer us the choice, however, with this choice comes the realization that AB is now officially dying...

    New players, EU time zone and others, will not want to join a broken server.
    Casual Players currently on AB will likely return to old friends on other servers or move for a better play experience as they have nothing tying them to AB.
    The only people who will kick up a fuss are the raiding guilds. Those who require x amount of players to function.

    In many peoples eyes the raiding guilds are the core of a server but this announcement hurts them more than a straight up server merge.

    So my question to DBG; given the initial response to this announcement will you at some point consider a server merge if enough people jump ship.
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