Think they are wrong about 989 getting bought by Sony considering the name of the company before 1998 was "Sony Interactive Studio's America" I'm pretty sure Sony (who at last report still own 10% of Daybreak) was involved all along.
You are correct. I had a Playstation around when it launched and was pretty certain this was the case but here's the blurb on Wikipedia: The 989 Sports name developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] In April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in at the time (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999. On April 1, 2000, 989 Studios was merged back into SCEA as a first party development group, in order to prepare for the then-upcoming PlayStation 2. SCEA continues to release sports games under the 989 Sports brand. Subsequent reissues and sequels to 989's games are published under the SCEA name instead of the 989 name.
If I had a vote....it'd be for dedicating resources to account to account transfers and not to server merges. A revenue generating endeavor. If that's not in the cards, then dedicate those resources to: Expansion release content ie: Quests (Less run across this zone and hail this guy, then back across the zone to hail that guy and more make this item a la crestra's earring) Raids (Throw in a few for the mid-tier to beat on, simple tank and spank, dps parse checking raids at a Tier 0, maybe 1 vis, 1 non-vis, 2 spells and no flags/coin a la the TBM era with hate and fear) Models and pathing Itemization (It has gotten to the point that there is 1 clear BiS item for all classes and so the need to make itemization choices has gone away) AA and spell development Improvements on existing systems ie: Advanced loot tool (Functionally works, but there is much to be desired, as people zone the list of names change when trying to assign loot for instance) Housing (Allow searching and or Find and grab from all housing that is set to co-owner) Raid window (many suggestions have been made as to how to improve this tool) Tradeskilling (there are a lot of recipes to max the artisan's prize, but not really a player friendly way to do combines, it is like going back to the days before the auto-combine system) Invite system (never understood why you need to be in the same zone to invite to fellowship but not to group or raid) In summary, I believe there are far more important things on the plate than something people can do on their own without adding developer time and attention.
After reading the Ar(s)ticle, a sasquatch knocked on our door attempting to deliver a tin foil cap... It wanted me to sign for it, I said "no". it left. I guess I should have gotten a selfie with Bigfoot for the article in the World Weekly News?
Thinking about it. If you are one of the top raiding guilds and have players server transferring all the time to join your guild then there is no upside to server mergers. The status quo works for any guild in that situation. I think its the health of the player base below that that benefits from server mergers though. The mid tier guilds that can't quite field enough players. The casual player base. I think they would actually benefit from server mergers. The top raid guilds in Everquest are going to be the last ones hurt by lowering server populations. Not so for everyone else.
I have to wonder in what alternate universe these people read devs saying no server mergers ever. Dare I say it... fake news?
So....by your logic somehow a raider has more disposable income than a casual player? It's the same transfer fee. If your guild isn't doing what it should, beating targets, keeping drama at nil....then you can server transfer. Server mergers will likely look like this: "OMGZ, wtf is my housing !?!" "You #$@! lost my trophies!!" "My entire guild got disbanded, WTF!!!" "WTF are all these #!$clowns training and acting like complete dips#$!@s!" "WTF....the servers are down...AGAIN?!?" Just judging by past experiences. You know what isn't chaotic?! People who decide, I'd like to move to XYZ server....they have a guild there I'd like to join, let me pack up my housing, put my trophies on my character, do a /outputfile realestate, and then pay for a server transfer to the server I want to go to.
I will venture a guess that these are people that dont want server mergers and dont want anyone to ask for server mergers, and dont mind twisting the facts to convince people to stop asking. Not that Im in favor of server mergers, but I am in favor of respecting the truth.
No by my logic raiders are almost ALWAYS be willing to do more to get where they want in the game. No harm in that it is just a fact. Raiders are generally far more competitive then the average player. And lets face it Daybreak are looking at server mergers for a reason. Based on the article it is already something they are seriously considering or possibly planning for. Not sure why people would all of a sudden start acting like idiots and training folks. They aren't merging TLP servers with Live servers. I guess one way to go is fear mongering about server mergers. Thing is every past server merger that happened I saw none of those problems. *shrugs* maybe we travel in different circles. And it seems that Daybreak is working on the technical issues before considering mergers. And no worries about guilds getting disbanded. When that happened to Lions (and no it wasn't a server merger) they ended up developing a tool to fix disbanded guilds. When it happened to MS years after that I believe you guys were reconstituted in a few days. Took longer for us beause they had to create the tool for it. I can see how you would push the server transfer option though. As you have said yourself you constantly get people server transferring to be in one of the very top guilds in the game. Not sure you know this but it is far less common when you aren't one of the very top raiding guilds in the game. So I get it that works for you and your guild. But a LOT of the players aren't concerned about their one or two raid toons. They want to keep all their toons and be able to play them and maybe they do not want to pay a server transfer fee for each and every one of their toons. So for those who want to move all their toons I am sure they don't mind paying the transfer fee for 8, 10, or 12 accounts. Not everyone is a raider moving just a toon or two.
Like you I prefer it when everyone respects the facts regardless of which side of an argument they are on. I suspect part of it is just one person misquoting devs and others then quoting that person. But I am sure there are some intentionally misrepresenting the facts.
So stay where they are and box with their army.... or, pony up the transfer fee. Either way, server mergers aren't going to "fix" anything. In a game that has ever shrinking resources...if you want something, pay for it. I pointed out that there was a hefty discount for Memorial Day Weekend. /Shrug There is definitely a minority on here that believe they should be given things for free that others have paid for....
*sighs* now you are trying to turn the discussion into getting things for free? Weak tea dude weak tea. And box "armies"? Seriously? You are trying to imply the majority of players out there are box "armies"? While I repsect you as a leader of a premire guild and overall honorable guy I see you now just throwing anything you can think of out there and seeing if you can get it to stick. But yes good point a lot of players box so they would have to server transfer toons on 2 or 3 or 4 accounts etc. While I honestly appreciate you trying to generate income for DBG (because that helps keep EQ going). Even DBG sees the idea of server mergers preferable to that. Higher server populations solve all sorts of things if you aren't one of the very top raid guilds that constantly have people clamoring to join. I respect the fact you are representing your segment of the game but please try to look at things outside that interest too.
Another thing server mergers succeed at is helping retain returning players. Someone coming back and trying the game may not be prepared to dish out money right away to server transfer all their toons just to get people to play with. I would say that a higher population server has a better chance of retaining returning players. That is a segment of the game I deal with daily. I talk to a lot of returning people. A lot of returning players go through my guild either to stay or to level up to move on to a raid guild. Anything that improves things for returning players is key because DBG has already identified this demographic as key to keeping EQ going.
Hi ho, the jester returns. More tin foil hatting less fighting? You both have the best interest of your respective groups at heart and nothing nefarious in mind, so say I. Server merges will have to happen someday, and eventually DBG will no longer be able to service players who will have to go to Emulators for their fix. So I don't buy the "We'll be here for as long as there are players". That being said, merge is broken. So there is no time crunch to ForumQuest/theory-craft out exactly what will be the best solution. And to that point, in my experience, when faced with a decision 'this or that', the answer is almost always BOTH.
LOL actually I meant to say 8, 10 or 12 toons not accounts. Sorry my bad. You know base paid account is 8 toons, you can add two from the store and two from loyalty vendors. So yeah I meant toons not accounts sorry for the confusion. If that is where you got the idea of bot armies that was my fault. Still not sure where that would be my motivation though. Are you saying I want someone's bot army to server merge to Xegony? Or was it just that I seemed to be pointing that out so I must have some reason to want it. But no I was just saying people may want to play on a more populous server and keep all their 8, 10 or 12 toons per account. I guess I am just trying to get you to look at it from a non raider perspective where it isn't about a main raid toon or two and we are considering what it would cost to move whole account fulls of toons.
Server mergers make sense. If everyone decides to transfer it could work out that returning players are returning not only to an empty guild but to an empty server. At least with a merge everyone gets moved together, regardless of being an active player at merge time. They have already stated this isn't going to effect Xegony and Luclin. IF they are looking at merging the others I would expect them to merge like with like instead of merging the largest with the smallest. For example FV with Brekt (the other free trade server) TLPs with others at the same stage (not different stages) PST servers with other PST servers( and mark it as such) Other possible no merge servers, AB & Zek. Zek because that is the last type of that server and AB as it is hosted elsewhere and may have possible contract issue with a merge to a US server, also no other server has a large amount of Euro players, though a merger with a US server maybe on the cards IF that contract is up. Who knows but them upstairs.
i am hoping they change their minds regarding Xegony at least. Bur next best thing is merging the smaller servers.
As Daybreak works on all these initiatives in the hopes of luring back more old EQ players, for some it simply won’t matter. Twenty years is a long time to dedicate to anything, perhaps especially a game. So no matter what Daybreak cooks up, former players like the Sheas have no interest in a return. “Our passions have taken us elsewhere at this point,” Mike says. “But both of us still remember it fondly and talk about it often.” This stuck out to me in the article. That and that it was really just about the raid game. No surprise with Holly as the one being interviewed. There is a lot more to EQ then the raid game and in luring back previous players it is something DBG needs to seriously keep in mind. Recruits for the raid guilds have to some from somewhere they can only feed off each other so much and still need to dip into the casual game. My advice is DBC forgets about the casual game at their own peril. Most of those I talk to who have come back to the game cite a previous hard core raiding experience but are now looking to revisit the game they loved in a more casual manner. Many times I have heard the "I did the hard core thing and now I just want to enjoy the game". Returning players overall are not the hard chargers they once were and they are also all older. We do need ways to hold on to these people when they do come back. Some feel making the leveling experience up to 100 even easier is the answer. Whatever the answer we need some strategies for holding on to returning peeps. I also wish there was a way for guilds to reach out to those still on their rosters have stopped playing. Just emails going out to the last known emaill address of folks saying "Your guild is still active play the game for 30 days free to visit them". Everquest is a strong community and people connections keep the game going. I think we should merge servers high and low pops till we are left with fewer servers and concentrate down to those few the places returning players will come back to. Include the high pop servers in mergers because as things consolidate its the high pop servers that have been successful in holding on to players. Use that success to hold on to more by including them in mergers. Needless to say when you look at affecting ALL servers you really need to have the technical side locked down so you can minimize any problems. You also need to be PREPARED IN ADVANCE for some giveaways to players to make up for any server merger problems. As much as DBG prepares for mergers there are probably going to still be problems. Beef up your CS department before the mergers, don't wait for problems to happen then tell us you are deciding how you willl make it up to players. Figure there will be problems figure out how to smooth out the waters in advance. P.S. I saw how Holly through whoever she left in charge of the last expansion under the bus. I am assuming since she didn't take credit for it being bad that she had no voice at all in appointing who handled things.
