Hoping the Devs might be able to shed some light, or maybe its already posted? on what the end game for Mischief server will be. The population is obviously very healthy, and it has Thornblade which can be merged over if it does drop. Just say Mischief makes it to live with quite a healthy population, whats the end game plan with this server? Its a new rule set never used, so a few questions I had are: 1. Will Mischief stay as its own server for other similar servers in future to merge into? 2. Will it merge into FV which is already free trade and lose its bonus / random loot rules? 3. If it stays on its own server will it still be bonus / random loot on the current / latest expansion? 4. If it does stay on its own server and keeps the bonus / random loot in live expansions will other players be able to transfer here from normal live servers after a few months into a new expansion? Thanks in advance for your answers @devs.
I am guessing they won't say anything until it comes time for the merger to happen just because they don't know what the population will be like at the end. Hopefully at that point the server population between the two servers will be enough to justify it staying around and we will have a live server with random loot and free trade.
2. TLPs have always merged into live servers and always lost their special properties. (This was even worse before they added AoC's to live servers)
While that has been the case in the past these servers have a mechanic that would still make sense on a server after it reaches live. Not to mention it is likely that they are already doing the loot randomization as they develop new expansions so that they are ready when these servers reach them. While there have been many special rules in the past I don't think any of them really made sense to have as a special live server. Personally I think that having random loot/free trade would make for a great new rule set. Not to mention if the population stays at high between the two servers they might not be able to merge the servers into FV without some issues as the population between both servers could easily hit the cap and start a login queue for the merged servers.
May 2023 - New servers including possibly Random Loot and/or Free Trade open during TBS May 2024 - New servers including possibly Random Loot and/or Free Trade open during VoA May 2025 - New servers including possibly Random Loot and/or Free Trade open during EoK May 2026 - New servers including possibly Random Loot and/or Free Trade open during ToL Nov 2026 - Mischief reaches Live Dec 2026 - New expansion May 2027 - New servers including possibly Random Loot and/or Free Trade July 2027 - Earliest Mischief merge date assuming it doesn't get Corinaved Magic 8-ball says - Cannot predict now.
I would say let it stay as a live server and then merge any future Random Loot TLPs into it as they catch up.
Odds say it loses RLS and merges to FV. But never know and likely won't get an official comment from DBG until Mischief/TB are within a year of hitting live.
My prediction is a merge with Thornebade at some point before it hits live. It would be nice to see it stay as a live server with random loot. FV has a healthy population, if they are planning any further tradable loot servers they may reserve the option to merge with that server rather than Mischief. If they are planning any other servers with a Mischief rule set, having Mischief stay as is when it hits live gives a merge home for those servers following with that rule set. At the moment it is far too early to tell, it depends on too many variables mainly the servers which haven't been released yet.
I would personally bet heavily against this. Virtually the entire Live community sees the Mischief ruleset as "easy mode", and a Live server with that ruleset could create major recruiting problems for the major Live guilds on other servers, and they would rebel against that outcome. Easy mode on a TLP doesn't really bother anyone since it doesn't affect Live play. As it is, the FV ruleset is treated marginally as easy mode by many in the Live community, which is a big part of why you can't transfer off FV to any other Live server. My prediction is that Mischief will lose its randomness and merge with FV. Mischief toons would be decidedly unwelcome on any other Live server.
Easy mode? I am not sure how this would be considered easy mode once it is live unless you are talking about the extra loot from drops. And I am not sure I would see a mass exodus of people to the server for the loot.
Phinigel players asked for something similar but for just TLP in general so they could argue in favour of keeping Agents of Change. We saw how that panned out. Darkpaw don't want to go over teh amount of servers they have right now due to how they are hosted and how their host bundles server packages for games companies. Mischief should merge with FV after reaching live & then a new server with the rulset be launched afterwards.
And they also don't want to merge two high population servers into a single one. The fate of the servers will depend on the population level when it reaches that stage and right now it is way too early to determine what will happen.
If Mischief continues to keep its high population, they would be better off merging a couple of live servers, a few have been asking for merges the last couple of years and reduce the number that way rather than merging 2 high population servers. But that will also depend on how Mischief holds up with the player population after reaching live.
Which would have been even worse for phinny. It's fairly obvious what will happen.Thornblade will get merged in, that merger will happen 1 year after it should have happened, because Darkpaw would rather the server be on life support than somewhat functional before they merge. It will be option 2.
