Are we any closer to discussing server mergers?

More people leave from the mergers than would come back.

Because... why? OH NO THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE ON MY HITHERTO PRIVATE SERVERRRRRR

The people that know for sure aint talking about it (surprise surprise) and that leads me to think there are no longer the tools or personnel to pull off a merger even if the motivation to do so exists.
Doing a database merge with a complex data set is nightmare even on non-custom systems. Let us just say the clues are there that it will never happen again.
It would be nice to be wrong as being right about this mess bites.

Because while it sounds good in theory, it does not work in practice due to several factors.

1) The pickup game on Live Servers is basically dead. When it comes to grouping your already boxing, playing with guildmates, or playing with friends/clique. Even within many guilds some people have difficulties grouping because many people will only play with their set cliques. If you are already struggling to find groups due to not having these options, they won't magically appear when servers are merged that rely exclusively on these options already existing for players. That is the nature of Live where everything is instanced and group where there is only enough group content to last average players about 3 months.

2) The population loss comes from slightly higher in the guild food chain. With every single server merge mid tier guilds collapse. Many mid tier guilds have issues and server mergers provide a means by which core groups from middle of the road guilds can bolt to what they perceive as greener pastures. That leaves the guilds losing players in a bind. They lose their core players: Leadership, key classes, and their top performers that have likely been carrying the bottom half of their roster. Those guilds are no longer able to raid current content. You will say, "But they can merge." They normally try, but then it is just a large collection of toons that lack leadership (leadership in raid guilds is no trivial matter), key classes needed to actually raid and top performing players to help carry the lower performing members of the guild.

3) Once it is obvious they are no longer able to raid effectively these guilds collapse. Being that these tend to be the bottom half of rosters they aren't going to get picked up by other guilds either. That is X number of toons + their alts that are gone. Ironically, this means that any returning players to these guilds will also leave shortly after realizing they no long have a guild/friends/etc.

4) Even in the guilds receiving these new players there will be attrition as they will bring in extra toons to see who works out and improve their depth charts. That means a bench and rotation that will result in more players from the bottom of that guild quitting and taking their alts and such with them. It also means returning players to that guild are leave shortly after as well since they will find themselves buried on the bench instead of right back in the action.

This has happened on every server after server mergers. You can visit the ghost towns of a multitude of now defunct guilds websites and will find that many collapsed or took a mortal wound 3 - 6 months after a server merge.

Recalling what I do about the last round of merges, and BTW I've not raided since that happened, I'd be strongly tempted to head off to FFXIV and never look back if it were all merged into a single "super server"

Damn Kunon, stop hinting around and tell us how you really feel.

I can agree with your point of view although it doesn't appear to be much different from what occurred during the heyday of EQ. Mid-Tier guilds were stepping stones and higher end guilds always attracted the top level players of those mid-tier guilds.

I would argue that the maturity of the game itself, the graphics and character models, the content and even the lack of support are all factors in low population. It's an old game and it shows.

If you look at all the complaints of training, kill stealing, etc. in the TLP forums you'll see exactly what you can expect out of a massive merger that forces a lot of people into a limited zone.

Yep. Same kind of complaints that occurred when the game was still fresh. Minus the limited intervention from GMs and Guides.

Oh well.

Consolidating down the servers should remove costs... I'm not sure why this isn't a no-brainer.

I never saw people leaving after a merger. Quite the opposite, they logged in to see the new community. SOE has the numbers and could tell us which is the true story.

PS Mid level guilds are already gone. They collapsed about two years ago.

Of course you saw them leave. The last mergers were around HoT and things were really crowded for a month or so. I think the first call for more merges occurred about 6 months later.

You should be calling for content so good that people come back to the live servers and not to the latest TLP. You should really be asking for new live servers and server splits, not merges. Merges aren't the sign of a healthy game

Eve doesn't have heavy path finding code. Ever run a mission there and see the enemy ships get stuck on space junk? They just keep trying to go in a straight line always until you close into their orbit range. They also don't have hundreds of other mobs in the area, while EQ does.

Nobody mistakes EQ for a healthy game. New live servers would make it even more of a ghost town.

I've never seen a reason for the TLP servers. Its wanting a 'first time I gamed' experience that cannot be re-captured. When it of course doesn't work, there are complaints in these forums for a new TLP as the prevous TLP server didn't work out. The TLP servers are a waste of money trying to re-capture an experience that is uncaptureable.

If a person is sick and needs immediate surgery, the doctor shouldn't say "You should be calling for a diet plan including more fruits and vegetables. Surgery isn't a sign of a healthy person" and then wave a turnip in the person's face while he or she just dies.

You know, a bit issue the game has is it's span of levels etc... Even if a server has a big population, most of it is at 105 which is great for 105's, but not so good for a level 3. A lot of the discussion lately has been about how some classes can solo and some classes really need a group to do well, and even if a warrior can solo, a mage will do it much faster. So get to level 3 on a live server and ask for a group... It will probably not be of a very high quality. It probably won't have 4+ members. It probably won't do a lot of things. Maybe what should be done is a different sort of restructuring.

How about for every 20 levels as you level up, there is a different server? At levels 1-20, you start on one server guaranteed. Then as soon as you hit 21, you have the option to go to a different server that you will definitely go to at 25. Then, as soon as you hit 41, another server, etc... There are a few drawbacks to this. The twink game wouldn't be nearly as strong, and I realize that. It would also separate the chats so that if a newer player wanted advice, it would be harder to get. These could be overcome though by allowing players to choose a server when they do this, and putting them in that server''s general chat. As for items, you could allow anyone to parcel items to these players. This makes a bit of a twink game viable, for sure, but if done right it will show that with a solid group you don't need to be massively twinked. The advantage would be that instead of making a character, and then waiting 100 levels to play Everquest, people make a new character, and they play Everquest.

In addition, to this, while you could have a server for 80-100, when a character reaches 85, allow it to go to it's desired server out of ones merged from the current servers, or finish leveling with a group there to 100/105 if people have found a good group that they want to keep together. And let them choose at that point what server to actually go to in case they ended up changing their minds based on people that they have met.

I think that if you did something like this, and also merged servers at 105, things could be more interesting in the game. If people go crazy because "there's too many people" and they don't have access to all the spawns, then use the same instancing technology that was developed for progression servers to instance zones on live. They've finally paid off! Reval, you've done it again!!!

The question of why people leave needs to be answered. DBG could do a poll.
a. because of nerfs
b. because of real life time pressures
c. all my friends have left (server population too low) or
d. too crowded (camp disputes, etc.)

Even if turned out there were a lot of D answers, super server with instancing would solve C and D. There's no help for Bs except missions that are molo-able and take 2 hours a night and give good exp. Sorta' like DHs before the nerfs.

The logical issue there is that usually after people have left, they probably won't answer a poll on why they did it.

e. Too many TLP servers and too much time and effort spent on them

That begs the question of what resources the TLPs are taking.

I do not believe that means what you think it means