Before anymore Server Merges

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Draego, Sep 3, 2016.

  1. Draego Augur

    Yes and see this is exactly sensible, you are asking for your server to be merged, ok that's kosher, your willing to take a name change if it means you get placed onto a different server with a higher population.

    But let's play Devil's advocate here for just a second. Your server is the one that gets to retain its name, you have had the character name longer than the person being transferred onto your server.
    Are you still willing at that point to concede and give up your name (and yes I realize you might answer YES) ?

    This is where the hang up happens for some, lets say your server becomes the home for several of these lesser played servers, let's say there are now 3 or 4 people all coming to your server have the same name. Would you still be willing at that point to give up your established name?

    That is my point here, if the people being sent to your home server, are the ones being forced to move then logically (using RL thinking here: people usually have to give up addresses, HOME phone numbers, friends, etc during a move IRL) then in this game shouldn't the people being moved onto your server be the ones required to give up a name?
  2. Draego Augur

    Simply, thank you.....

    Several good ideas on how to resolve the issue, I was trying to address.

    The idea of creating a whole new server and merging servers onto it, and basically FCFS has the name, is probably the best thing I have seen on this topic so far
  3. Champion New Member


    You're putting too much emphasis on "home", "host", "merged" servers and the rights that a player from each one should have. Just think of it as many player bases that are now one player base. Throw everyone into a big pot and no one can have the same name....so the only way to decide who gets to keep the names (as I understand it) are to give the name to the oldest, then 1 X to the second, 2 X to the third, etc. At work for personal e-mail address purposes we have a John Smith 1, John Smith 2 and John Smith 3. I don't think any have launched HR complaints because they want to be #1...they just took a number from when they joined the company. I took part in one marge that I'm aware of...tribunal became Bristlebane - Tribunal and it didn't cause much confusion...if any.

    The guilds don't dissolve when servers merge so people won't lose track of their guild friends if their names do change, and every single person on all servers involved are aware of the server merge so after 1 simple tell to each Champion, ChampionX, ChampionXX, ChampionXXX will be enough for my friends not in my guild to know which one to message now. People complaining that a lot of the names are inactive, well that just narrows the field and makes us easier to track down since the likelihood of each name being used multiple times on an active basis is even smaller.

    If people are angry about someone else having the same name...they can think of it like something everyone has done at least 7 times - making an alt. The alt has a different name...they have to tell their friends their new name and who they are. Just do that except on your main (which can now have a different name altogether if you want).

    The opportunity to group with 100+ new people would be amazing.
    Mocha likes this.
  4. Arwhen Trulove New Member

    Hello Norath... Why cant BOTH peeps keep their names in a merge? say Thomas of Maelin and Thomas of Drinal cant believe peeps have SAME FIRST AND LAST NAMES what concerns me is when they do merge, if you have 8 toons on BOTH servers they take top 8 by alphabetical order? It should be by HIGHEST LEVEL how can they delete a level 90 toon and leave a level 40 toon because of a name? THAT IS WRONG..I would be hot .... and another thought what about having ONE GIANT SERVER with everyone on it .. I think that would be awesome..
  5. Champion New Member



    Because /tell Name doesn't know which last name you would mean...and with some of the first and lastname combos...making it /tell first+lastname just for the purpose of easier server merges would be far more trouble than help.
  6. Zheros Lorekeeper

    @ Champion, to me it sounds like you are just not putting enough emphasis on "home", "host" and "merged" and maybe that stems from you choosing a poorly populated server to begin with. OR maybe your server at one time had enough players who all left because the game continues to get more and more screwed up. Either way it sounds like you personally are not happy with the server you play on because the population is too low. Instead of griefing a legitimate concern for some people, purchase a server transfer and make yourself happy, just realize your likely to loose that name of yours and it will be at your expense.

    There definitely seems to have been some confusion from you taking part of that one Marge (hehe). Regardless the merge between Bristlebane and Tribunal, if I recall was because both servers had low populations at that time, unfortunately the merge didn't seem to help as the collective population still remains low.

    But hey if you still insist that they just move strait ahead with server merges without addressing this issue, let's just advise DBG to FORCE players to have to PAY for their merge to another server and call it a SERVER TRANSFER service, where the people being moved may loose their name. That is the exact equivalent of what happens during a server merge to the people who have been on the hosting server longer ***(edit/add): with the exception that they didn't ask to be moved to a new server. They are on their home server and get the shaft, *** when their name gets taken due to an antiquated resolution system.

    ******

    As to the subject at hand, Draego addressed a very real concern, one to which I personally agree, and apparently so do others. The point has been raised time and again, concerning people who created a ton of low level toons (if memory serves they can be perma parked at level 10 and never have to worry about being wiped and loosing the name) who have done nothing more than preserve the name for their own personal use. The worst part is that many awesome names are currently rotting on a bunch of abandoned or closed accounts, to characters that have hardly ever seen gameplay and never will again.

    The point still remains a "better way" of resolving the issue should be determined and put in place before any more merges happen.
  7. ~Mills~ Augur

    One solution is no more server merges ever!
    Zheros likes this.
  8. Zheros Lorekeeper

    Agreed and definitely gets my upvote........though I would have bolded (and possibly capped) "ever"
  9. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    While I am sorry your friend sufffered through that to be honest I thinks situations like that are very
    rare and it would make no sense to make programming changes around that scenario.

    Plus you could argue that since half the players would have come from the server with the problem player that forcing your friend to change his name saved him from the other player bad rep.
  10. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I know this doesn't directly relate to name issues but I think Daybreak/SOE should have adopted a different system for server mergers and the server names that get used.

    Each time a server merge occurred they should have just made a new server name instead of keeping one or the other. Keeping one name gave the impression that one server survived and the other was destroyed. In reality it was just a merger of data bases and there was no winner or loser.

    To make things easy for returning players have a link to another server select screen called "Merged Servers" and list all the severs merged. When someone clicks on one of those links it takes the player to the server that its data base was merged into. Returning peeps then no longer have to log on to every server to find the ones their toons are on or go around asking people where there server went to.

    Now granted Daybreak/SOE may not want to highlight how many servers have been merged or list them etc.
  11. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    See this is the problem with them keeping one of the two server names in a merge. The end name of the server conveys no special rights to players simply because their server name got picked as the one to be used. And in the past its generally been just two servers merging together not one server with several lesser ones. I would also expect that pattern to continue unless they did a REALLY big merge which I guess is possible. BUT that would be an even better reason for creating a totall new server name in my opinion.

    People have to stop thinking of this as one server being merged into another and more like two databases being merged together. Being on the highest population server in a merge should not convey any special rights to a player name. All should be treated equal but the current process of retaining one server name leads people to believe otherwise.
  12. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Not very realistic but sure. I guess can throw in just turn the game off forever as another solution. Again not a a very realistic option. But both have the benefit of ending the game faster *shrugs*
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  13. Coagagin Guild house cat

    Perhaps adding to the mix of options would be to contact the "winning" named toon to clarify they intend to keep playing under said name as well? I mean what's the point if "coolname101" is really just a lucky placeholder and is just there taking up a namespace.

    A little human judgement appears to be the wise direction here instead of trying to apply some weird math formula to a toon's name.
    disgruntled likes this.
  14. --Voodoo-- Augur

    I think most people are assuming that any mergers would be combining servers, with no "destination". Basically A + B merged to become server C.

    However, even if it were to be a low-pop server being dumped on to another server, you're still going to have problems. It's just as likely that the "home" server be the one with the jerk character who ruins someone's rep. Just as likely that the "home" server is the one with the inactive lvl10 name-holder.

    Considering all the normal servers seem to have around the same population, it seems just as likely that your server would be the "A" in your scenario. Would that change your mind?

    Yes, losing a name could suck. But the fact is there just isn't any way to resolve conflicts that isn't going to upset someone.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  15. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    While a great idea in a perfect world I am not sure how practical it is unfortunately. It would involve them developing an automated system to send out emails to everyone whose name was in contention as you would have to ask the people who kept a name and who didn't if it mattered to find out who it mattered to the most and then decide each case with some sort of automated procedure.

    I could be wrong but I suspect that most people who get to keep a name are going to continue to want to keep it. So it sounds like a lot of work for a small number of situations it could affect.

    MAYBE the one way it could work is if those who win a name and those who lose it both got the option to change their name. If the player who got to keep their name changes it then it would allow the other player to change their name back to the original one. Then it would be up to the player who lost the name to contact the person that won the name to ask if they mind changing their name.

    This would be the simplest way to fix SOME of the issues BUT it could raise others where people harass the other person to try and force them to change their name. Unfortunately I can see that happening and arguments about who should get to keep the name etc. So in the end there may be reasons for keeping the human element out of things.
  16. Aghinem Augur


    Then send the devs a private message!

    Don't post on a public thread making decrees that its not intended for the public, and don't bother responding if you object. Do you have some kind of social anxiety disorder that you are so afraid of being challenged by opposing thoughts? Its the Internet dude. If you are going to write something as obnoxious as that, prepare to grab your ankles for a verbal enema.
  17. segap Augur


    Many of those "awesome" names are likely things that break the original naming rules and only have persisted since we no longer have an active team of GMs interacting with players daily.
  18. Zool Elder

    If it takes a name change to play on populated servers....bring it...i change name anyday.
    disgruntled likes this.
  19. Mocha Elder


    No, it stems from Champion knowing what he's talking about. A server MERGE is not the same as a server TRANSFER. The new server isn't Bristlebane, nor Tribunal. In a technical sense, the new server should be named something else entirely, but for practical reasons (namely, players finding where their characters now reside), they use a hyphenated name including both of the old ones. There is no "home" server in a merge. You are not moving one family out of a house and into another house with a new family already there. You are moving both of those families into a new house. Trying to claim special rights for being there first is like trying to claim one of the new bedrooms because it is in a similar position relative to the old kitchen while claiming you have always held that room. You don't, and you didn't; it's a new room.

    But just for argument's sake, let's pretend the merge was like moving one family in with an existing family. That still doesn't give the first more/special rights. In the first place, why would it? In the second, everyone has an equal right to be there. One person's time is not more valuable than another's. They both play, and that's all that matters.

    As for the names, date created is the only fair metric and the reasons should be so obvious as to not need explanation, but since some people in here clearly can't grasp them, I'll lay it out with a simple example.

    If your current server has someone named Stealmyname on it, and you try to create a new character with the same name, the server will see that the name was already taken and deny you. Treat a merged server exactly the same as you would an existing server, and the same thing happens, except there's one small issue: the new character already exists. Rather than deleting your character, it simply renames it with a little X at the end, so that the two characters have unique identities for the purposes of /tell, parcels, bazaar, guilds, groups, etc.

    Did you catch that? The reason creation date is used is because it treats a merged server the same as an existing one. No need for special rules, with special exceptions, and special snowflakes crying about not being special (despite choosing the same name as someone else).

    Maybe they should do it like they do with EQ2 and give you a rename potion when they do it. Then you can try to be original again. Either way, crying about naming rules is a very petty complaint.
  20. Mocha Elder

    Just for fun, for the people who REAAAALLY care about a "fair" system. They could just flip a virtual coin to see who keeps the name without the X.

    [IMG]