Please consider a server merge to help out the low population servers. I play on Vox and it has become near to impossible to sustain a raid guild. Since Ragefire launched, I have not seen over 300 people in general chat channel. Please consider merging servers to balance the population so that all content can be consumed. Another solution would be to allow limited time free or reduced fees for server transfers from low population servers. I would love to move my toons to a populated server, however, it doesn't make sense to spend hundreds of dollars doing so. We need a solution to this population problem soon. Thanks.
I do think server merge is needed in soon but the evidence of never hitting 300 people in general is never something to go by. Majority of people do not join general channel as its just full of garbage.
Povar has had quite a hit since the new TLPs launched to. This morning there are only 200 people in general. I am not sure a merge is due though, during the evenings and weekends its still pretty hopping. Maybe people are spending their mornings on TLP and their evenings on live?
The question is that when people start getting bored with TLP (typically once GoD hits), will the newly merged servers be overcrowded?
It's the summer. Any speculation about the actual server population is going to be wildly inaccurate and would be the case with or without the launch of TLP servers. I'm not saying this isn't a topic to be considered but if it is, hopefully it's not based on summer statistics.
This is not the typical summer lull. Yes general is a rough estimate. I have to use some measure of estimate because the little icons on the homepage don't tell you anything. You can figure that 60-70% of people are in that channel on Vox. My point is prior to Ragefire/Lockjaw, we were seeing 400+ in channel. Server wide our largest guilds only get 15-25 people online at any given time. The server's largest guild is a bot crew of 50 run by 7 people. In recruiting efforts I have logged into every class' chat channel and never see more than 20-25 per class in those channels. We need a merge...
Bony, your really just throwing out numbers that are your estimate. You really don't know if 60-70% join the channel as majority of people dont join general or class channels or ANY channels. Summer has hit and numbers are low all around even on bristle, rathe, and xeg. Most of the guilds are trying to fluff of their numbers the last fews weeks and get classes even if they need them or not as this is a anticipated drop in population due to summer months. This happens every year and yes I will agree with you that it is hurts the lower guilds as higher end guilds take from those and some of them suffer and can't even raid.
He also left out the part that Vox was dying/dead months ago before TLP/summer even came around due to a select toxic few at the top end who drove a huge core of raiders to other servers. So... maybe it's not the "typical" summer lull for Vox, but for the rest, things aren't that unusual.
i would not base a merge on the general channel numbers, as stated so many dont join that channel to begin with AND if noticed the one constant here is since TLP.....which states people are playing elsewhere for something thats gonna wear out its welcome soon and not necessarily a death of population on any said server, they are just in game elsewhere.
Just make a megaserver already. /pick has been implemented on TLP, just fully commit and make it everywhere.
I left Vox in October of last year. I can confirm the op's premise that there is not a large enough population there to sustain a raid guild, and I hear it has gotten much worse since last fall. I also conquer with Silv that it is a toxic environment and I agree as to how that originated. Basically, imo, Vox is scorched earth. Better to just get out if they won't merge it.
God is still 3+ years away on those servers, do you want to wait that long to find out? Also it's been heavily hinted that Daybreak wants to do other specialty servers (looking into anti-boxing code server, reserving the server name Quarm for a future project etc.) Personally on server mergers I would say some of the lower pop ones like Trakanon or Vulak needs to be closed, but the others I think will be able to sustain themselves ... for now.
Vox is the 2nd lowest population live server, behind Trakanon, right? Maybe it should be added to free transfer away list.
Does Vox need a merge? Probably, but that was something being talked about well before the TLPs. Vox and Trak should get one final opportunity for free transfers and then shutter them. As the others have said, channels are a terrible way to judge population since many people have their own autojoins set up and others who don't immediately leave them since they are nothing but a cesspools. This is only compounded by several other factors. Just as others have said it is also summer and the populations always take a hit. The TLPs are pulling in players from the Live servers, but that has much more to do with TDS. It has been 6 months, after 3 months most people were already done leveling, AAing, doing progression, hunter, etc in TDS. There simply is no reason to log into the Live servers unless it is to raid and that is only for 1 or 2 nights a week. When TDS first launched everyone complained that the zones were too crowded, just as they had when ToR and AH launched. Give people a reason to log in and they do, imagine the crowding issues once the new campaign launches if the servers were merged. Even now people complain about some of the TDS zones being too crowded when the servers are 'dead'. This is another issue that most of the servers are also dealing with. The player base is fragmented into a million little legacy guilds nowadays that refuse to merge for whatever reason. The servers would probably be much healthier and more casual players much happier if most of these guilds merged as it would increase the social connections in game and provide many more opportunities for people to group and even raid.
Who knows maybe Daybreak is perfecting their multiple instance of static zones before considering merges. That would make some sense.
I don't disagree with you here - but just to give you some idea of how bad Vox is - the three largest guilds on Vox besides PnG merged last May. We only lasted until October. There were a lot of reasons for that, but ultimately at this point Vox is like a snake that is eating its own tail.
no closing vulak, its amazing. i actually killed quillmane before a botter warped to it! besides the 8 of us would be sad, its a unique experience playground, economy is perfect too.
Quillmane should be easy to get on any live server, people have had years to farm it, and South Karana is usually completely empty. On TLPs? You better have an SK standing on the spawn point spamming a /tar Quillmane00 /alt activate HT hotkey if you want a chance at getting the kill.
Please leave Trakanon out of the discussion. Once the progression servers get past SoV or peter out, Trak population will pick up again.
So the fact that people are playing on Ragefire instead of their regular servers is reason for a merger? Did you ever think that maybe those people have finished up all the progression they care to and are just killing time until the new campaign comes out?
