Why not a live server merge?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by RandyLahey, Apr 6, 2018.

  1. Derd Augur

    I prefer the smaller population. Unless they lowered the number for picks to 2 or three groups it just makes it a mess on live server. It also does not mean you're actually going to be able to group just because of higher population.
    Geroblue and Xianzu_Monk_Tunare like this.
  2. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I agree that for a merger to happen they would have to lower the minimums for /pickzones. Also need some sort of guarantee it wouldn't be a database nightmare.

    Whether now or later at some point a merger of Live servers will be needed. Whether it is now or not I don't know.
    Geroblue likes this.
  3. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    There are plenty of people, they just choose to only group with people in their guild and with friends, as others have stated merging the servers is not going to help you find groups at all. It is just going to make it harder to find a place to camp when you do have a group or want to go do something.
    Maedhros and moogs like this.
  4. snailish Augur

    My guess, so take it at that value:

    Nothing will be done with current live servers until Phinny progression automatically catches live status.

    Then Phinny becomes the "premium live server" with load balancing, agents of change instancing on old content, truebox if they keep that going there on a server that was stated from the outset to "handle a large population load" in other words you can have numerous guilds doing the same content without blocking each other.

    Maybe they keep Phinny sub to play, maybe they decide that paid transfers to Phinny are worth more. Either way, by not improving the current live servers to the Phinny standard there will be momentum to move to Phinny once Phinny is the special benefits live server.

    -current live servers become smaller pop and probably left alone until as empty as Vulak was*, then you might see free transfers off the deadest, and eventually a merge away
    -Brekt carries on as the event server ending-point (assuming events continue)
    -FV seems fine, Zek is another debate best left alone
    -future progression dump into Phinny that rules them all
    -and whatever versions of progression are currently making $ are rolling through whatever they are doing


    *current live servers, at least many of them, would actually have issues with content crowding if you force merged a bunch of guilds onto each other.
  5. Maedhros High King

    I will bite. I confess that I am ignorant of the expansion timeline on Phinny, but I do know that it has been spamming me when I log in that Prophesy of Ro is opening on Phinny. That was the 11th expansion but was released 12 years ago. We used to get much faster expansion releases. 11 expansions in the first 6 years, but only 13 expansions in the next 12 years. Doesn't make much sense if there is an equal number of days between each of the EQ expansions on Phinny as they all were not released live originally with the same equal amount of days between. What about the nostalgia?!

    So when is Phinny scheduled to catch up to the live current expansion?

    I do not follow your logic that this is when we will get some kind of server merge, nor does it seem like the catalyst for merge. I also think you're a bit out of your mind if you think that many people that play on the traditional live servers will want to transfer to Phinny and butt heads with the low-brow idiots and their "dps-race" mentality.
    snailish likes this.
  6. snailish Augur

    the nostalgia bit: players are so smart and so powerful that most beat everything within the 3 months. It's part of the long-going, ongoing tuning discussion in the progression forums.

    This thread implies/predicts 2021 (not that far away really) Phinny catches live: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/full-phinigel-unlock-schedule.239703/

    Phinny has shed most of the problem population. They actually prefer the pre-PoP progression game as it is more profitable. Agnarr and Coirnav would likely be easier to find the problem people on at the moment. If there is a new progression server in 2019 that's where you will find most of them.

    If Phinny gets to live as-is it becomes the server where a single farmer isn't holding down a specific old raid permanently (has been the case for several locations on several old servers I have played on). That matters to some people.

    Any live server guild feeling stifled by guilds above them (not sure that exists much anymore) would be free to raid everything on their own schedule on Phinny.

    Then there is the truebox factor if it is still in play.

    Finally, the possibility exists that Phinny will be the largest pop live server that isn't FV, with the ability to support said large population. I don't know that any top guild on a current live server would be tempted, but if you are having trouble recruiting and/or frustrated in getting targets Phinny may have appeal.

    Phinny will have appeal for those dabbling types that want the instancing alone to do old content. IF the population stays up that could draw the nonraiders that like others possibly as well.

    Now, if they made Phinny the higher XP live server...

    ...but of course none of this happens if Phinny goes stagnant post SoD era. Or if they put existing live servers onto the "larger server" setup with full instancing and load balancing as Phinny and newer progression servers have. I'm not opposed to them doing that, but the possibility that people will pay more to do that on Phinny rather than giving it out free has to be on the dev team's radar.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Maedhros like this.
  7. snailish Augur

    Replied to this separately as I have mixed thoughts on it.

    -Server merger mechanic was very flawed for Vulak to Fippy... and that was the deadest server around to a very quiet one. Mergers get tricky without letting people have more character slots. Mergers work when server A + server B primetime raiding population "fits" together well. Last thing they want is making the open world and limited content 100+ too crowded at peak times --though this concern would likely be eliminated with very careful merger partnering. Mergers don't = money in the sense of transfers. Mergers upset people over character names.

    -They might be better off allowing a window of free transfers off 2-3 "quiet" live servers to select destinations that are more robust. Does that bleed out the quiet 3 servers or do people stay put? Offering free transfers potential gets a fair number of active characters moved... which would allow for a merge out of any servers that have truly gone dead (whatever that threshold is... Vulak was down to a handful of people per day for years from what I saw leveling a necro there in SoD era and wasn't merged away for years). But is it actually worth the bother?

    -my thoughts of Phinny to live as a catalyst is simply that leaving current live servers as is allows a populated Phinny (should it be) stand out even more as the "destination live server". If a pile of us pay to transfer to a server we have to maintain a sub to play on, and they can encourage that by doing nothing merger-wise for live servers in the meantime...

    and as I said in the other reply, especially if they boosted XP on Phinny, with all the other perks it has already (aside from truebox which eliminates some players entirely) I think there is a draw vs. other live servers.

    Having said all that, if mergers make some of my old live servers more robust, I am all for it asap. It just feels like there is a different play in motion to me (which I may be imagining).
  8. Aurastrider Augur



    Considering there is a running thread with people still complaining https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-lag-on-ab-server.238603/page-36#post-3648777 and have been doing so for over a year now I would hardly call that quite well and stable. Even if it was just chat that was messed up that would seriously impair raid forces and groupers abilities to communicate well which could be a serious issue. If you are just off boxing and don't depend on communication than the chat thing would certainly be a lesser issue. But reading the threads some people are experiencing far more than just chat issues. Maybe these people are the minority and its something on the user end or maybe its their physical location compared to other Euro players who are maybe not experiencing these issues.

    Basically providing a free one way transfer which is something they typically charge for is an omission that things are broken and they either don't know how to fix them or the cost to do so is not worth the effort. Either way the server itself needs much attention before I would ever consider playing on it. As I have stated many times before I have nothing against the players themselves. Some of the most helpful and most skilled players I have encountered in this game are from across the pond and I rather enjoy playing and chatting with a lot of them. It just sucks that this server in particular has been sick for over a year and has not been cured yet.

    Back on topic though are there actually any guilds on AB that raid at 12am pacific standard time? I think this would be around noon for most Euro countries give or take an hour or two.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  9. Aurastrider Augur



    I think the biggest issue is the true box code. Most players on live have become accustomed to non true box code and if someone is multiboxing from one pc either doing alt tab or using something like ISB it is highly unlikely they will be interested in any form of true box. The hardcore relics who love EQ the old way will probably be long gone by the time phinny reaches live and the population will probably be half what it is currently if not lower. I honestly don't see the appeal in people transferring there except for those that are very anti boxing and have no connection to the player base on their current server. All of this true box code imo is aimed at a particular audience most of which have very little interest in current end game EQ. It certainly will be interesting to see how well these true box servers do as time goes on.
  10. IblisTheMage Augur

  11. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Nope if this is the time you want to raid, you would proberbly be looking at an Asian guild.

    ABs 4 raid guilds currently start around 10 am - 11 am PDT
  12. Aurastrider Augur



    Are there even any Asian raid guilds left in EQ? I have met some people from Japan and Thailand but I don't know of any actual Asian raid guilds in this game. I don't know if its the amount of English text that turns them off, the graphics or the overall style of game play but its kind of odd there is not a stronger presence from this player population in game unless it has something to do with the above or maybe not enough people from Asia even know about the game.
  13. IblisTheMage Augur

    I think online gaming is quite a lot bigger in some asian countries than compared to us and eu. This could drive migrations towards other platforms... highly speculative, of course.
  14. snailish Augur

    There is a voice among the progression crowd that questions the point/sell of the truebox limitation once mercs are available in SoD.

    Phinny hits live without truebox + higher XP, while retaining its other benefits I think it is the biggest server by far (assuming it hasn't lost all pop already). That's my feel on it. Others may fell that truebox is a more important part of the sell.
  15. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    If you had read what you quoted, you'd have noted that i have made that distinction between server+zones on one hand and anything chat-system-related on the other.
    The thread is all about our chat-related problems.
    These include the obvious chat-lags but also zoning issues (presumably because the handover is done off-server to check - for example for access - in a centralized place and NOT on the AB cluster itself) and similar.
    Sometimes zones seem to crash, sometimes the server as a whole is "brought down" and login-server shows it as locked... but not more than on other servers i'd say.
    I don't know how much of that is related to the chat-system "simply" timing out on requests or how much were related to actual cluster-related issues of course. But i play on AB, and - barring zoning and chat issues that vary significantly in severance and impact - the server itself (i.e. once you are in a zone or instance and chat-lag issues aside) is ok.
    Which is also the reason (well, one of them) why none of us takes the one-way ticket off; the problem is NOT on AB itself, but on the changed backend/chat architecture/software.
    They've created that problem themselves around Oct2016(!!), and they could - if they wanted - reverse and solve it too.
    Instead they stubbornly decide to go on with whatever they changed and try to "make it work", with a noticeable negative impact on OTHER server's chat-system too; who knows what logic or constraints they're following there.

    At any rate:
    Take note of the difference between cluster-related issues and those from the chat-system/architecture.
    People simply say "the server isn't functioning" when often they should be more precise.

    And yes, these issues DO seriously impair our raiding and communications - but that's for the other thread, not what's been talked about here. Nor what i have commented on by the part you quoted.

    Agreed.

    Pacific is 9hrs behind CET and no, no raids in the mornings, regardless of the day - unless you talk mini-raids (2-4groups) perhaps that some people might do during their off-hours that happen from time (certainly nothing regular) to time but just as certainly tend to be "private", if they happen at all these days. (and when they happened regularly, they did happen during the nights not mornings).
    Normal raiding on AB starts at 19:00/20:00CE(S)T, with one guild starting significantly sooner on a SUN.
    This thread isn't about euro players only though, but all of them - the OP asked for all servers merged into 3 or 4 only.
    AB has a large enough population to (still) sustain 3raid guilds (and a half). Other servers do apparently not. As far as i am informed, there are one or two euro-guilds on the US-based servers which at least in theory share similar playtimes; but a merge always affects the whole population and with any merge, there'd be guilds and other communities/relationships/ties left behind or folding.
    I am not sure if the pro would outweigh the con overall; but at least where some US-based servers are related i can see the pro of a merge.
    I remember AB's population some 10years ago and compared to THEN, the population certainly has gone down significantly. On the other hand, the population isn't spread out as much as back then in levels, gear and zones anymore either, so the posters above all made valid points.
  16. IblisTheMage Augur

  17. Geroblue Augur

    I find it is easier for me to xp in zones with few players in them. A number of mobs are quickly cleaned out if even a few players are in zone.

    CR and Blightfire being two of them. The Newbie yards near the cities don't have many mobs either.
  18. Aurastrider Augur



    This is why I am confused as to why we don't see a higher Asian influence in game. I know gaming is huge in several Asian countries but maybe this style of game does not peak their interest or maybe its just not enough people over there even know about EQ. I know back in the day when star craft was still new there was a huge Asian influence on battlenet and most of those guys were amazing players or at least they made me look really bad on most days. This is a huge market of players this game is really missing out on imo.
  19. IblisTheMage Augur

    Thinking about it, I speculate that it would require an office in asia to cater for those markets, translation packages, maybe some aws hosting, and a revamped platform to handle multiple languages.
  20. Yimin Augur

    I was a proud member of the very last raiding guild from China Real Faith , we folded after defeating ROF , to my knowledge we were the very last Asian raiding guild ....there is of course some Australian raid guild but i dont know there names or what server they are on ....

    As for them merging server i would not count on it , I am still waiting for a Gnome Bst :p


    Yimin
    Quiverr likes this.