Server merge is not needed

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Mazame, May 10, 2019.

  1. Makaha New Member

    You guys are missing the point. The merger required is for PST/Hawaiian high end raiding players who DO NOT have much new blood to go on at this point in time without a server merge. Without it, the ability for Erollisi to continue with the only PST /Hawaiian high end evening raid team will slip away..Absor gets it. It's about a solid group of player wanting to keep the mojo going. Now is the time to act if possible. Cazic has enough players in that time zone, so does Bertox. It's up to DB, keep the only west coast/ Hawaiian raid guild going, or not. We have all been through server mergers before, you are still playing right? Loving the game right?
  2. Drogba Augur

    I'd imagine Wreckers on Bertox would benefit from a merger too.

    They raid even later than NCM, 5 hours later iirc. It's the last place remaining for japanese/australians to raid. I'm not in that guild currently, so by no means their ambassador, but we were having to box half of the raid force when I was last there.
  3. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    The numbers in the OP's hypothetical obscure the real story:
    Bristlebane is one of most populated servers, I would guess one of the top 3. We have only 3 raiding guilds that finish expansions while they are current. If you want to raid in one of these 3 guilds, you need to play a class they want (generally healers). I am one of several people I know who switched toons just to get a chance to raid current content.

    We also have one other raiding guild that struggles with the early raids from the last two expansions and can't touch the latest expansion. There is also one "open/casual" raid force on the server, hosted by the most powerful raiding guild, which is also locked in the same content (T1/T2 EoK and T1 RoS; early raids from the previous 2 expansions). Neither the fourth raid guild nor the open raid can consistently field a full force.

    If there is another server in a similar situation, that means there may be 200+ people across two servers who might like to raid but can't. Let's call that the "leftover" group. If those servers were merged, you might end up with 2 more full raid forces and only ~100 people in the "leftover" group.

    I acknowledge your reasons for fearing a server merge, but I think the potential gains outweigh the potential problems, and I think some merges would benefit the overall health of the game.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Daedly like this.
  4. Arraden Augur

    Separate practical logical reasons for merging (or not merging) from emotional irrational ones.

    Guilds need players and servers are not attracting enough new talent in certain areas.
    Merges bring People issues that are entirely manageable. Spawning new players is not manageable.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  5. Barton The Mischievous

    I disagree with the OP , some server mergers are needed. I do not think every server needs a merger. I could also be wrong about that.

    The only reason I can think of personally that would make me not want a server merge, is if it would make the lag or server crashes worse in some way.
  6. Scornfire The Nimbus Prince

    I'm not too sure how many people on Cazic would be interested in raiding Mon/Fri/Sat 9pm-1am PST. About 1/3 of our Guild is on the west coast and most of them log before 9pm PST. It's less PST raiding and more Late night raiding for anyone in the western hemisphere. That said, not many of us actually knew what hours you guys were raiding prior to these threads, I imagine there's probably a handful of people out there who'd be pleasantly surprised that option exists if you do a bit more advertising. Bottom line is the devs have said merges aren't possible at the moment, the onus, rightly or wrongly, is on every guild to keep things going. If you guys moved off of friday/saturday I could potentially see that helping (Not knowing how many in your guild can't make tue/wed/thu/sun work), but eating those 2 nights is a big barrier for the younger crowd at least. Just my 2copper.
  7. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    the TL;DR here is: people had a bad experience with server merges in the past.

    these are the same people who had a car break down, so they refuse to buy another...
    they didn't like the last movie they saw, so they don't watch TV anymore.
    and they don't have a girlfriend because well.... they play EQ =P
    Maurasi likes this.
  8. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    People using bot software to automate game play like to have quiet places they can do this with no one seeing it. I guess they get nervous thinking the static zones would become too crowded. Pick zones should allow them to still have their dark corners though.
    Maurasi, Gyurika Godofwar and Drogba like this.
  9. Warpeace Augur


    Reducing the price of Server transfer token might be a fair thing? Add a free token with every expansion purchase?
  10. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Mergers are not silly. Overall they would be better for the game. It would definitely make for a healtier casual game and I think in the end a healthier raid game too. I get that guilds are worried about not being the top raid guild on their server anymore but with everything instanced servers have room for several top guilds all raiding end game content.
  11. Belkar_OotS Augur

    Reasons I dislike mergers.
    1. Losing a character name. The name is often significant to your identity with the character.
    2. Contested camps. It isn't fun to have to search around for places you want to hunt. I set a goal of what I want to do, and I want to be able to choose one of my top choices whenever I play with my limited play time. Picks are great, but the number required to spawn a new instance needs to be LOW, like 2-3 groups max low. Also the max number of characters that can be in zone needs to be large, enough to accommodate the groups and 1-2 raid forces if there are raid request NPC's. I'd even go as far as to say that 2-3 picks should just be UP for any current zone, and 2 for the previous expansion, and the number of people required to spawn an extra pick in old zones should only be 3ish people (since a high level person can dominate an old zone).
    3. Doing old content (hunters in PoP for example) is terrible with so many people just killing things whenever, making it hard to figure out spawn times, or doing old epics, or obtaining clickies in non-instance zones. Even as-is I may as well not bother trying for VT except on server up and I happen to be home at a weird time.
    4. Bots and cheaters. Low population servers have less of these as a rule, and those that exist are less likely to impact players. I hate seeing them and thankfully they are rare on my server.
    5. You have to learn who all the undesirables are from everywhere, and some servers are much more cutthroat and greedy than others.
    6. Character slots. People have characters on multiple servers, and that total is likely too large to all cram together. Having to delete characters is terrible.

    Reasons I like mergers.
    1. It gives players options and resources to gather more like minded people. I would have likely chosen a different server more in line with my play times if I did not move servers to be with a RL friend *when I did transfer 12 years ago*.
    2. The cost of transfers is prohibitive if you have several of characters (I have 12 max level toons I'd want to move if I were to ever make a swap).
    3. My server has crappy options for open raids.
    4. Having a larger pool to recruit from, or being able to form an alliance or a specialty play time (time zone preference) is just hard for guilds that don't have a strong draw which is usually dictated by their performance ranking for raids. More players means those people on Euro times, or Asian times will have options because as things are they just don't fit well, but the previously listed reasons will keep people from taking the risk of doing it on their own.
    5. Would be nice to feel like selling stuff were worthwhile, or that I could play a low level toon and have a pool to group with.
  12. Mazame Augur

    For those that are not in a solid raid guild. how would a server merger change anything? yes more people on the server but that doesn't mean people will want to join your guild if your struggling.

    All i see it doing is rather than 3-4 struggling guilds on a server you will have 6-8. People are not leaving their guilds struggling guild as it is now, how would a server merger change that?
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  13. Parker Elder

    Not sure if it's been mentioned but possibly the more elite guilds could lessen their requirements to join/participate. It made sense when there were people dying to get into these guilds, the requirements should have been strict to weed out bad attendance, motivation, ability, etc etc. If you will, those spots in the upper tier guilds were supply, and supply was short....demand was high, so up the price(requirements). Now those spots, I'm assuming now, are plentiful or will get there in the future(supply is high) and demand is low(overall population dictates this currently), so price should reflect that(requirements being lowered).

    Fast forward to when the overall population is running on something like 1000-2000 players. Would you expect requirements to any guiild wanting to raid current targets to be outrageous? Perhaps then Daybreak would consider increasing raid number cap but another option would be just to close up shop at that point?

    For me personally I've raided top tier with plenty of guilds but Im older now and cant commit to 2-4 on SET nights...family and all. But I could log in, maybe once possibly twice a week and muster out 2 hours give or take. If you multiply that by 10s of players with less strict requirements you might have a situation where you have a bench or wait team again....maybe. Just brainstorming here, I wish well for mid tier, family and elite guilds! I loved raiding!
    Mazame likes this.
  14. Aurastrider Augur



    My biggest concerns with a merger are the following

    -Technical difficulties such as toons going missing that occurred with the last merger. This would have to be worked out before any further considerations
    -Increased server lag with more players
    -Contested camps due to over crowding that were once not difficult to hold down by other players.
    -Impact on the economy. Merging a large pop server with a small pop server will likely put the lower populated server peeps at an economic disadvantage initially.
    -Naming issues
    -Increased bad behavior/rule breaking. Just like in RL when you put to many people in a concentrated area crime rates tend to increase.

    On the positive side if the technical stuff can be fixed I think merging has the following benefits.
    -More grouping and raiding opportunities
    -Higher player retention due to the above point
    -A more diverse economy as potentially more items will be made available

    I think for it to work well the technical stuff needs to be hammered out, more zones if not all need picks with a lower threshold to spawn new ones, and similar population servers need to be merged even if it means merging multiple small population servers into one instead of a small population server with a large population server.
    snailish likes this.
  15. Mazame Augur

    It simple to many people makes it harder to get things done. Find open camps etc. Most people are in the same zones looking for the same drops / quest etc. In order to help with that the zone balancing was added but it doesn't always work. I have log in plenty of time to farm X item or work on X quest and what I was after was camped. I tried /pick and not enough people or in the pick the mob i wanted was camped too.

    The next reason is like cragzop said Toxic people. Yes every server has them. From KS's to bot farmer etc. when you merger a server you combine the Toxic people from the two sever as well so their are just that many more to deal with.

    3rd reason is economy each server economy is set. having played threw 2 merger already each merger taken time to fix the economy and often a mess to deal with. This effects things like /baz prices. Lag buff piles. ( some server they are in pok other server it in the guild lobby. ) Yes these are things that work them self out over time. but it part of the reason I don't like mergers.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  16. Mazame Augur

    If that the way you feel then so be it.

    A server merger will NOT make a stronger raid base. Those that want to raid and care about being in a guild that is beating X content will server transfer to join those guilds.
    People that want to Raid at X time will transfer server to join a guild that raid at the time that fits their life style.
    people Pay 15 per month to play and a one time cost of transferring server to be where you get the best play for your monthly fee is understandable.

    Most people that want a merger are saying so because they think it will increase their raid attendance. But I disagree with this as a reason for a merger because if people are not willing to join your guild now then what makes a merger change that? People will still want to stay in their current guild even after the merger.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  17. code-zero Augur

    I decided to do a survey, I have orphaned alts and tradeskill mules scattered across 8 different servers entirely due to the 2 merges we've already had. My girlfriend needs a spreadsheet to keep track of all of her alts and mules across almost every server due to the prior merges.

    The first time we had merges I ended up transferring my main twice and before it all settled down my entire Guild with few exceptions all left EQ completely to go to an entirely different game and to this day none of them have even been back even for TLP. The few stragglers save for myself all quit shortly afterwards.

    Last merge I ended up traversing 3 different servers before finally settling down.

    If there's a merge in the future and I see anyone in general or /ooc or whatever happy about it I'm going to put them on ignore and do my best to blacklist them for cause
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  18. Parker Elder

    Great applicant...checks all the boxes...good attendace...gonna have to no vote him because he liked the merge...
    Anglesy likes this.
  19. code-zero Augur

    Yep, sure enough
  20. snailish Augur

    Be sublime then:

    Spool up a new live server with giant capacity (as per Phinigel progression server) and add in higher XP.

    No character creation the first two weeks, only paid transfers in.

    Starting week #3 you get a 1 month window of free transfers in and character creation is allowed.


    -If your name is the be and end all, you pay to transfer in or stay where you are.
    -Same logic for any other reason to move or not, want a merge or not.
    -No one is forced to do this. The free window makes large-scale (whether one person with lots of accounts/characters, or whole guilds) movement viable.
    -New server is starting with the understanding their will be an import economy (shrugs... we have krono anyways), whole guilds moving in and such.


    This new server would be very robust in my opinion.