Server merge is not needed

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

  1. Aurastrider Augur

    For raid guilds who are struggling to beat a raid another crazy concept idea I had would be to have favors in each raid sort of like the anniversary quest defending knowledge. Once you zone in you hail an npc and have a list of buffs and such you can accept. For each favor you accept there will be one less item in the chest. They could also have a raid challenger achievement linked to beating raids without receiving any favors. If the buffs are significant enough such as x amount of HP, x amount of increased dps, x amount of resistance and so forth it might allow smaller or more inferior raid forces to progress without changing any mechanics. Just another idea I would throw out there to see what raiders think.

    The same concept could be applied to group missions as well minus removing loot. Just link not accepting a favor to the challenger and this could help struggling players progress through the mission part of an expansion.
  2. Evertrek Augur

    my guess is most of you are 60+ yr olds that supplement your gaming budget with reselling game tokens and want a private server...

    MMO, MMO, MMO what can be said that will wake up the old dogs stuck in their own world of gaming.
    put the Massively Multiplayer back into EQ!

    dev may have their work cut out for them to make it happen, you can't see the future, just because a few players want private servers doesn't prove anything about the future...
  3. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    No, we just know from experience that none of the things you think a merger will do actually happens when there is a merger.
    Winnowyl, Sancus, Yinla and 1 other person like this.
  4. Aurastrider Augur


    That might be true for some but I can tell you I am no where near 60 and I supplement my income via a second job that pays more in an hour than I could make in countless hours trying to make a buck playing a video game.

    As far as the term MMO its just a genre. The name of the game is everQUEST not socialquest. When MMO's were first introduced they were one of a kind. The idea of playing with hundreds if not thousands of others online at the same time was exciting. That excitement has lost its charm for some but the thrill of playing with a select few individuals that we have come to enjoy playing with and playing the content is what keeps some of us coming back. I enjoy the social aspect of the game but I enjoy the content aspect more. Character development, questing, exploration, crafting, economics, class strategies are just some of the things a game like EQ offers. Some if not all of these things are not possible in RL for most of us but socializing is and its free of charge.
  5. Lianeb Augur

    Server A has 3 mid tier guilds and 1 Raid guild, that all the mid tier guilds think are a******s. So no one leaves to join raid guild A.
    Server B has 3 mid tier guilds and 1 Raid guild, that all the mid tier guilds think are a******s. So no one leaves to join raid guild B.

    When a server merge happens Mid Tier guilds A fall apart to High end Guild B (because their not a******s yet).
    Mid Tier Guilds B fall apart to high end Guild A (because their not a******s yet).

    This is what happened to the Mid tier guilds on the two server merges i saw happen. Experiences may vary.
    Sancus and Perplexed like this.
  6. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    You also get guilds who didn't want to merge with server Z so they all free transfer to server Y. Which can leave servers in the same state or worse than they are now.
  7. code-zero Augur

    Wow, as someone over 60 who’s played this game from the beginning I use some of the plat I have accumulated to buy Krono to keep alt accounts subscribed

    What an amazingly hateful post
  8. Perplexed Augur

    Yep..and that is what happened on CT starting with the first merger with Brells..and continued to get worse with each merger
  9. ShadowMan Augur

    My and many others opinions have nothing to do with being old or having a bad experience the last times they did them. People like different things and thats ok. Some like living in big cities some like the country. Some like large crowds others avoid them preferring smaller group interactions. To each their own.

    Server merges do not fix any of the issues many people people are bring up as a reason. Just cramming more sardines in a can doesn't make a problematic situation suddenly fixed. But it does take something away from those that prefer to not be in the city all the time. If a guild is not performing, not getting fresh blood its not a population problem its an execution, reputation or word of mouth problem that server merges don't universally fix.
    Allayna, Mazame and code-zero like this.
  10. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Where do you get your numbers on this? The game lost people because of other games coming out.

    Server mergers do help the grouping issue I have seen it myself with each merger I went through. They are never going to be a permanent solution to a game that was bleeding members regardless of mergers. They do help alleviate things. And we do have a bit more stable player population now. I mean you do get the fact that the whole reason server mergers occurred was that the game was losing players at a fast rate. Server mergers were the result of people leaving for other games not the cause of it.

    Simple math says if there are 20 people looking for groups on server and you merge it there will now be 20 + X number looking and it will be easier. And not everyone looking for a group that doesn't find one consistently is to blame for it.

    Larger server populations make things healthier for all the casual and mid tier raiders. Raid guilds may merge but the raiders still get to raid.

    I saw the long term benefits of mergers to my guild and other casual guilds I was in contact with at the time.

    And yes people group with friends but I have run a large casual guild since Dec 99 I see what happens in my guild because I watch for what happens in my guild. We had a new influx of players and in little time they became the same friends and buddies that were grouping together with the pre merge folks. I get change is scary but it's not bad

    And SOE had the numbers and were able to see what happened with each server merger. If the first mergers caused more problems then they solved they wouldn't have gone on to make further server mergers. The fact that mergers kept happening says SOE saw more positives from it then negatives.
  11. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    That makes no sense if its all private servers who can sell game tokens to anyone?

    Insulting folks isn't the way to have this discussion. Each side has views they believe are valid.

    Part of the issue is Everquest was having server mergers for a reason. Their players were leaving that is what caused the need for server mergers. People were leaving for other games. We have many people here who mistake the fact that server mergers were NOT the cause of EQ losing people they were the result of EQ losing people. With or without server mergers EQ was going to lose people If they hadn't done the server mergers the losses would have just been much more noticeable.
  12. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Hi TLP player that really has no clue what goes on. LOL.
  13. Prepared Lorekeeper

    TLDR: Merge guilds not servers.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  14. Nuttann Elder

    Here are my personal comments. I only read the first few pages of this thread.

    I have no issue with a server merge. We have had them in the past. Sure, some issues, but the game has implemented a couple things to alleviate some of the problems. And there are some advantages with fewer (or even one) server.

    Caveats:
    I do not know the underlying architecture of the code and servers, so cannot be sure about performance. For instance, when I log into the server 'CT', I don't know if every zone is being run on the exact same server or is somehow load balanced to run on servers with the comms being set up properly (either directly or via a proxy). The underlying architecture makes a huge difference as to what can be done and still have reasonable performance.

    Personal thoughts on some things that were mentioned.

    Character name collisions - They happen not only with mergers, but also when moving to another server. My original name was 'Nuttan' and didn't like that I lost it. I changed it to 'Nuttann' and got over it. I may have to do it again.

    Having a guild move servers - This is really hard. Convincing a whole guild to move is not easy. Many people have friends in other guilds and not guilded. I made that decision once. I moved to Bristle to join Sol Invictus when that guild existed. My wife was still on Fennin. The hardest decision I made was leaving Bristle and moving back to what was now Cazic so that I could group with wife and help her. That was really hard as I left a lot of friends that I grouped with and when I got back, many of my old friends from when it was Fennin, had stopped playing or moved to other servers. I knew very few people on the server at the time I switched back.

    Have guilds merge - This seems easy, but it doesn't work for all guilds. For instance, on Cazic two of the raiding entities who are having issues with attendance have some major differences. Schedules don't always match up. CTA was an alliance of guilds and FL does open raids. I think CTA raids Sun, Mon, and Thu. FL raids Thu, Fri, and Sat. Actually a fair number of the people who raid in FL are alts of people in other guilds or CTA, but others cannot make those days. Then come in time zones. One guild may be mostly Pacific time zone players and another might be East coast time zone. They may not match well. Philosophies may also be different. Guilds can merge, but two randomly chosen guilds may not fit well. If there were more guilds (possibly due to a merger), then there may be more realistic options to merge.

    Overcrowding / Locked down mobs: A merger can cause both of these to be worse. However, the /pickzones can solve the overcrowding. (Make it available for all zones) As far as locked-down mobs, if Agents of Change (AoC) were added to the live servers, that could help for those zones/raids that have AoC. Caveat: I am only going on my understanding on how AoCs work, but have no direct experience with them. There are a few things I would like to farm in certain zones where the bosses seem to always be dead (even before another merger). I wouldn't mind a shot at those items without parking a toon there to find out when they are up. And if I did lock down a mob, that would make it so others didn't have a chance at that mob.

    Character slots: This is the one thing that I could see being an issue for a lot of people. I only play on one server, so it wouldn't affect me. I do not know how to handle this except increasing the number of slots to match what the person could have total from each of the servers being merged. There may be some reason that this is not easy to do or other ways this would adversely affect people.

    I am sure there are more issues to merges from player (I didn't read all the messages) and developer (past mergers have not always gone smoothly) view points.

    My ideal EQ non-progression world: One logical server per rule set (normal, FV, player kill). Pick zones and AoC to alleviate certain issues. One final name collision to worry about. Now that may not be reasonable with the game as implemented, but at least is my fantasy.
  15. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I think when it comes to retaining names you need to look at which account has been most recently active as well as account age. Some sort of weighted decision between how old the account is and how recently it has been played.

    And like you I play on one server. Well I have some toons on a TLP server and I think on one of my accounts I made a toon per server just to see what things were like on each server. But there are those with more toons and there would need to be some way for them to retain all or most of their toons.
    Increasing slots per merged server would be one answer. If all toons can't be handled then some way for people to pick who they keep.
  16. Gana Augur


    As an alt-aholic, I can confirm that a server merger would cause me all sorts of issues. Across 6 accounts, I average 46.5 characters per account (the 7th account is for my wife and only has 10 chars). Depending on which servers would be merged, I would exceed my character allotment on a given server (in fact, one account has 9 chars on Luclin another has 10 on Fippy). Sure, I wish Fippy would be opened to a live server (though, the population there has barely been 4 people other than me whenever I login there), but to merge servers could be problematic for me.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and code-zero like this.
  17. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    In the end I agree with Absor, ie, that there really are NOT reason to oppose a merger. The reasons stated in response to his question formed as suggested above were inadequate.

    I think in addition to server merges, game health can be extended by revisiting some TBL "Features" that made trials, etc, possibly more "anti-boxer" than in the past. It seems to me that those things can be "dialed back" a bit so as to permit more player access to more of TBL on the group level.
  18. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    After reading the thread again, it seems that offering private /picks and lowering /pick thresholds would solve virtually all of the arguments against merging servers. And it seems that merging servers is the best way to bring the community together and gives everybody the most play options.

    Server merges and private /picks and reducing /pick thresholds really just need to be done together.
  19. code-zero Augur

    You haven't answered a single objection to merges just dismissed them out of hand.

    Why should we have any merges outside of the arguments that somehow it'd make it "better" for a limited set of players who can't make friends on the current servers?

    It was pointed out that people were already leaving when servers were merged previously. The merges did nothing at all to encourage anyone to actually stay if they were interested in switching to a new game.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Allayna like this.
  20. Mazame Augur

    That is how you fill but after reading This post and all of the other post about server mergers.

    Absor never posted that his feelings one way or another about server merger. He only ask why I would be opposed to it.

    I feel all of the post I have read are inadequate in their reasoning for needing a merger. I do not think a merger will solve any of the issue they have addressed