This is why I added the part where I stated I dont think you understand how raid guilds function, what they need, or their membership. If guilds on Server A, B, C, D and E already cannot fill out their rosters with what is available, merging them into one server isn't going to magically change that. Those guilds will form a hierarchy and fill out their rosters by recruiting away members from the other raid guilds below them who are geared, experienced, etc etc. They cherry pick the best players (who carry those guilds) and the most essential (hard to find classes) from the lower guilds and leave those who remain in the lower guilds in much worse shape. That is exactly what happened happened with the last server merges. As for guild mergers, why would Guild A merge with Guild B if they are only interested in a few players? 100 toon rosters may sound great from your perspective, but only the 54 players in a DZ get raid currency and no one takes kindly to getting benched. You aren't going to bench your good players which will piss them off and cause them to leave so that lesser players can raid. Lesser players aren't going to log on every raid night just to sit on the bench for hours either. So then you get a few guilds who have lost their best players, key classes, and often leadership leaving behind rosters full of mediocre players without leadership or the classes needed to raid effectively. Those guilds occasionally do attempt to merge, but it never really works out. First they have to get past which guild will go on or if they will create one new guild (many fail here). Then they have to work out raid days and times which various for every guild (can't raid if people cant make raids). Then they have to figure out how to merge DKP systems (which is different for every guild). Only then can they work on actually raiding but they still lack the high skill/ability players and key classes that necessitated the merge in the first place with no recruiting pool from which to draw on.
There will be some consolidation of guilds. Players will be freed up. There may end up being fewer raiding guilds that have more members. Less pressure on non raid guilds that end up being the last stop when guilds are trying to fill their rosters. And some medicore guilds may merge and become less mediocre. And there are guilds that can no longer field 54 for raids even though they are still trying to be raid guilds. I still think that overall mergers are good for the game but Daybreak is the one with the data and who will make the decision. And I actually do talk to a lot of raiders on Xegony. The majority of them seem to be for mergers. Imagine a pond as it shrinks.... at some point you add more water or all the fishies start fighting for space... or in this case players. Also important to remember mergers would likely be lower pop less healthy servers with the more populated servers.
Raid guilds recruit just fine, without any cut throat that I'm aware of. Usually people come to us. At times we prod someone we notice and think have what it takes. Yes, this hurts casual guilds like yours corwyhn. But it really doesn't. You lose your best group players to us. I lead a casual guild for a long time. It certainly hurts. But think of it differently. Your member who wants to try the raiding game is getting a shot. Be glad for him. Plus, if you need some help with stuff, he likely still cares about your guild. He just bought a well geared ally for you. You now have new friends.
Nothing we do can fix the guild that wants to hang on when then can't do it. I feel for them, but forcing them to change via a merger won't make them change. They're hanging on tight and hoping but likely spinning their wheels. A server merge won't help them. It'll kill them.
If more than a few players/groups take on the treants, or silver rats in Blightfire, or the mobs in Natimbi, there isn't anything left for late arrivals. I have gone after the rats north of the crater in Blightfire and one other player showed up. It was a pain after a few minutes.trying to find enough rats to get xp. Thats why i mentioned mob numbers have to be increased. Same for Natimbi or Crescent Reach. Even Gloomingdeep for that matter. I have gone to Blightfire when there were a number of groups there. I had to log out of that server and go to another one as there were no mobs in enough numbers for my to level up. I don't have lots of time anymore to simply sit and wait for more than say 10 minutes in order to game. So, mergers would hurt my game play.
Enjoy your private servers, DBG won't be merging anytime soon unless their business model requires it. Too many reasons why they can't now but at some point they may need the hardware for other projects....
I think it is solely based on whether their business model requires it. I would guess that they lease server space as opposed to own the equipment themselves. The real question was how much of the previous sever mergers were based on being able to use less server space (and back then maybe they did own the servers) and how much was done because they felt it kept the game healthier by having higher server populations. If the server population size was the trigger we might see server mergers at some point. Although instances on Live servers have been useful did Daybreak add them just for that? I don't know. An argument could be made that adding instances to Live servers is a precursor to mergers. Even if they are planning any I don't think we will get much lead time. All our discussions on whether mergers are good or bad is mainly just interesting conversation. I don't think our discussions will sway anything one way or another.
We need server mergers because the lower range raid guilds who survive by sucking the life blood out of each other have already become known to their prey. They need new victims.
I don't want them to merge. But if they do the numbers of mobs in various zones will have to be increased to handle the player character load.
I really doubt there are actually individual machines for each "server" these days. I'd imagine there could be as few as one machine hosting all the various "servers" at this point. Merging them at this point would be solely about community. Not sure that's what DB wants at this point.
They seem to want to get more subscriptions and more people to buy from market place to drive revenues. They have increased the number of servers, and hired back some staff. That's a fair start. My own opinion? Democratization of design by allowing us kit tools to design our own instances and the like and then load those into a larger pool of quests and the like. But it's probably too much coding and too many shenanigans possible. Increasing content built by players seems to be a key aspect to sell more product. But a system would have to be put into place and you would have to build a large game designer community. I feel if players were able to design quests and the like to add into the game and apply new storylines could build up content.
Agreed but I suspect it is beyond the infrastructure of EQ or so cost prohibitive as to make the investment not worth it.
And I could be wrong but Daybreak might not even host whatever hardware EQ is on now. Daybreak took over at a point where it is pretty common to allow someone else to host things and deal with hardware updates and such.
While merging would be a community issue it could still be a profit driven one in that if they feel it improves community that in turn may retain players and keep things going longer. On one hand some players like lower populations because camps are more likely open when they want them and there is less pressure from others when you want to hold camps for longer periods. I get that. I prefer all that too... but I also think there are a lot of benefits of server mergers. SIDE NOTE: Botters don't want crowded servers where they are more likely to be observed either. More crowding means it is harder to slip under the radar and more likely to be noticed and petitioned. On the other hand merging servers would reduce the pressure on guild recruiting some as people use the opportunity to try new guilds. Yeah there would be winners and losers because there has always been at least some guild consolidation after a merger. Guilds that do well tend to do better. Guilds not doing well aren't as much of a sure thing. For some its a reprieve from fading away for others it's the last straw on the camel's back. For raid guilds there will be some of the best gulids grabbing the best from mergers but there will also be guilds struggling to fill their roster who will now be able to do so. The casual players really benefit form server mergers because it improves their grouping. Raiders are more likely to group with raiders when not boxing and are more able to handled content with partial groups. Groupers do better with as many active players as possible. Casual guilds either very light raiding tend to have lower numbers then the higher end raid guilds but they also tend to have people on more often over more of the year. Casuals are less likely to take off parts of the year or log on less. Mergers will give the successful casual guilds a chance to increase their numbers. When you take into account the current tendency towards boxing you can't really get "too many" people in a causal guild. If I have 70 toons online in my guild it sounds good till you take into account boxes.it may be better then other casual guilds on the server but when you take boxes into account it is less impressive. Guilds are important. More specifically non single player or two to three guild players are very important. Everquest is almost 18 years old. Part of the reason people still play the game is because it is unique and different then the current offerings but a large part of it is the people. Improving connections between people with guilds is more important then ever as the actual game tends towards a bunch of people off on their own boxing. Boxing won't go away and Daybreak can't afford to discourage it or they lose too many paid accounts from boxers (ether all access boxes OR players who stop playing if they cant box anymore as that is what they are use to.). I think using instancing (/pick zones) Daybreak has a chance to merge servers but keep camps relatively open. Competition for camps really doesn't add anything to the game. Perfect instancing merge servers. Win/Win.
Don't forget a high pop server in everquest is relatively low on people compared to more recently made games. Some servers have really healthy populations (I can attest to Xegony and FV having good pops as well as phinigel my 'main') and SOME people like to play on a low pop server, so at least 1 or 2 of those would be nice to keep. Imho about 4-6 servers could be merged and the rest left alone. Eq is not as empty as people think (rather it is super top heavy).
There are many valid reasons to merge servers together and just as many to leave them be. I still believe low population servers, should offer players free transfers to another server or a more populated server if they wish. We all want our monies worth and enjoy having fun and socializing and sometimes it's being taking away from us, plus DB wanting to charge players to transfer, some more than 3 main played toons, all the way upto 27 or more off a deadish server. It's okay for 1 or so, but it adds up. I played EQ from 1999-2004 when my guild/friends left and played WoW. I played for 11 years before returning to EQ at the end of 2015. WoW saw many population reductions and merged some servers. But 1 thing they did, I believe was a great idea was, low populated zones, many servers could zone into that 1 zone, just like an instance. You could all group, pvp, quest etc. But couldn't trade in any way. Still share in item drops and coin. But could get things completed and it didn't hurt your server in anyway. If another player from another zone had your name Bla Bla, it would be shown as Bla Bla (*) to you and vice versa. When you moused over, it would show the server they were from. If any of the merged zone servers got enough players to make the zone viable, then that zone would spawn it own zone and the next time you zoned in/out or finished a quest line, you returned to your own server. It's not a win/win by all means, but it would be worth a try, especially in off peak time players. Don't know if EQ coding could allow something like this, but I think they could do it, if they put the time into the venture and giving it a trial run.
