TLP upon reaching Live Status

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Skuz, Aug 4, 2020.

  1. Tymeless Augur

    I think all the TLPs with AoC's merging into a final server as they reach live would be a great idea. If 2-3 guilds on each server reach making it to live then that would eventually be a well populated server. I know it would suck for EU players at first but Phinigel has 2-3 EU guilds currently that are doing well. I don't know about other servers. Plus it would also be fun to play with my friends again on phinigel lol.
  2. Auesheet Lorekeeper

    Maybe there are other EU guilds on Phinigel that aren't raiding, but between the 3 current end game raiding guilds 2 are US, and 1 is EU.

    I do get that "doing well" doesn't always mean raiding end game content, so maybe there are some others that I just don't know about!
    Skuz likes this.
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Only 1 avtive EU guild on Phinigel afaik & I'm in it, a few players from collapsed/dead guilds sometimes appear but those are all alts as far as I know.

    OGC/Resolute are US

    There are other guilds on the server but those are 1 player & alts
  4. That0neguy Augur

    Don't burst his bubble with your alternative "facts"
    Skuz likes this.
  5. Tweakfour17 Augur

    Depends I guess on if they need the hardware for tlp 2021 or not, otherwise we could end up with a series of Fippys where you log in and you/re the only one in game.
  6. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I'm fairly confident all three current guilds on Phinigel will be around a while yet, how it looks once we all have to buy expansions is the current big unknown.

    If transfers simply do nada then merging Selo/Phinigel/Miragul once Miragul hits live makes sense - though what the eventual ruleset looks like by that point is anyone's guess.
  7. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    The problem is anyone changing server is going to be missing out on completing content in era that they haven't done yet.

    They are also going to have a lot of catching up to do to play with other players.

    There is also the social aspect to consider as well, many won't move due to having friends they don't want to leave.
  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    All true, but playing on an almost dead & continuing to die server has to be worse than playing on one that's ahead on progression & is considerably livlier I think, and if they all move together they bring their friends with them.
  9. Duality Augur

    I've been doing more on live than selo lately. Even just playing with yourself is getting boring there. The last month has been pretty bad, general can go 8 hours w/o a peep and there are less than 25 people left with toons in the bazaar with one of them basically giving away current gear for free.

    DP really needs to shine a light on whats ahead. The silence is getting too loud and it's making it worse for those of us who want to stick around and aren't going to keep re-rolling on a new TLP every year.
    Skuz likes this.
  10. KermittheFroglok Augur

    It likely comes down to activity, if the server is a ghost town, then the server will likely just meet the same fate as Fippy and get merged into an existing Live server that has a similar ruleset.

    They’re not going to say anything until closer to Live because they don’t want to tie their hands to any promises that might not make sense later.
    Skuz likes this.
  11. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Free transfers would likely just speed up the need to do a merge of some kind as the population slowly dies.
  12. Silver-Crow Augur

    That's the idea...
    Speed natural attrition with a view to leading to drama free merges.
    A classic example is that I didn't see anyone complaining about Fippy being merged.
    Skuz likes this.
  13. Tymeless Augur

    Sorry I meant mangler sorry for the confusion there,
  14. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Why just speed something up? Wouldn't it be better to just do a server merge with offers to transfer were you want to from the beginning rather than draw it out until the server is pretty much dead?
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Merging a fully-dead server is way less problematic, but what you suggest works too, so long as the heads-up is a month or two, so players can either choose to wait for the merger as they like where their server will be merged with or take the free transfer off.
  16. KermittheFroglok Augur


    From a business stance the most sense is merging with the most comparable server and making the players pay for transfers afterwards. It's not like they owe people the free transfer, the goal is to move them somewhere comparable and somewhere also needing population, not anywhere the player wants. Anyone getting into a TLP should understand its a somewhat finite thing and the server will mature/fizzle out quicker.

    The other thing to consider is the Devs choosing where the merged server's population ends up, it helps them regulate and influence server size more easily. If you leave it up to the players its kind of a guess whether or not the populations end up as they'd like post mergers. (e.g. If you give people free transfers, it's more likely they'll end up on highly populated servers like FV instead of servers more needing of pop like Luclin.)

    But I agree that in some scenarios free transfers do make sense and seem like the equitable or fair solution. For example, Stormhammer's free transfers definitely made sense because people paid a ridiculous ~$30 a month premium (on top of regular ~$10 a month sub) to move their characters to that special server, so it made sense to let people choose where they ended up when Stormhammer shutdown.

    Free transfers are obviously desirable from the player perspective, its just I understand why they usually aren't the default.
  17. Waring_McMarrin Augur



    My response was to someone suggesting free transfers as the next move. In my mind that would just kill the server which means it would be better to just merge away and either repurpose the hardware for other things or stop paying for it.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    The problem with the devs choosing where the server gets merged with so they decide where the population goes is implicit, devs merge the server with another dead server the population is going to feel they got shafted.

    Allowing players to move where they want also addresses the timezone differences on TLP populations, there is only one EU live server all of the others are US yet TLP have & still do attract a sizeable EU player population - merging them with any US server once population drops is far from ideal, it would be Darkpaw saying they don't give a crap about any player from outside the US.
    A Free Transfer for all of the players on the "to be merged" TLP is the only fair way to address that population difference.
  19. KermittheFroglok Augur


    But low pop servers not receiving another low pop server's players results in the otherwise incoming low population server's players feeling "shafted" in that they aren't getting more players. The idea of the server merge is to optimize resources and better balance population. Multiple small servers should be the ones merged because the bigger servers definitely don't need more players.

    The time zone/EU players argument is flawed because if the entire TLP population merges to the same destination then the EU players potential population during the time zone is about the same as on the TLP. In other words, the EU players are still whole to where they were before the merge from a time zone population standpoint. If an EU player chooses a non-EU server to begin with, then they're not entitled to move to a EU server for free. They made the decision to play on the last non-EU server, DBG isn't obligated to let them back out of the consequences of that decision.

    SoE/DBG has been very fair to EU players in situations arising outside the players control in that they let the Ubi Soft licensed servers players move to AB when Ubi Soft decided to stop supporting their servers, likewise when AB was indefinitely broken they offered AB players a one time transfer to Vox specifically (a low pop server). An EU player knows a TLP is going to be mostly US players like most of EQ, any player should know that a TLP's population will drop quicker, and an EU player initially chose to play on the TLP. TLP's maturing aren't a special EU server issue scenario, its just a case where an EU player needs to accept the consequence of their server choice.

    I understand you play on AB and are likely in the EU, but you made the choice to play on the non-EU servers, DBG shouldn't be on the hook for undo'ing the consequences of your choice.
  20. KermittheFroglok Augur


    Ahh, my bad, that makes more sense! Sorry that I misunderstood!