I rather liked the previous merges. It gave me an op to get rid of some riffraff and combine wealth on several servers.
I am happy with Vox’s population and would probably stop playing if my server became more competitive. I don’t have issues finding groups in OLD content even so “low pop” aren’t terrible if you’re not afraid to be social with random people. There are already high population servers so there is NO NEED FOR A MERGER. Just save up your DBC and start transferring your toons? The headache of a merger would hurt player interest and morale more than it would help the handful that aren’t happy on their Live server. A marketplace deal to merger all your toons off a server might help, I think that would make bank..
"Just transfer" - That's not an answer if you actually stop to think at all. People have friends they like to play with, and usually have more than 1 character they play. So, in this thread, we have people actually experiencing issues due to server population, and people on high population servers telling them to suck it up.
What is EQ's duplicate name policy after server merge? From EQ1 (2010): Character and Guild Names Priority for character names will be based on the date the character was first created. Subsequent players with the same name will have an "x" appended to their name until a unique name can be determined. The same process will be applied to guild names. Players that receive an "X" appended to their Character Names can change it by typing the "/changename" command into their chat window. Guilds that wish to change their names will need to use the "/petition" command. From EQ2 (2018): In the event of duplicate character names during a merge, priority will be given to the character who has logged in to the game within the past sixty (60) days. If multiple characters have logged in within the past sixty (60) days, then the character which was created first will retain their name. Other same-named characters will have an "Z" (or several) added to their names automatically until their name is unique. Each player that is auto-renamed this way will get a free rename potion so that they may change their name. I also wonder how many players get discouraged after losing their character name?
No, I’m from a low pop server. I think transfers should be more economical, I don’t think a mass campaign of mergers is necessary. Maybe, if Bristlebane starts struggling to stay at med. to high pop, but just not now. Mergers can and did work in 2005 , but back then we had dozens of servers that needed TLC. I think merger should really be a last resort type thing and that if a server’s community in general feels they need one then I think they should campaign on their sever for more people to ask for it. It probably should be assessed on a server by server basis, again some like Vox seem fine to me.
that's how I came to FV when there were from transfers. Came from the tribunal don't regret coming to fv one bit. Andarriel
I don't think anyone's wanting mass mergers. I agree that doing them based on "need" is the better way. If 2-3 servers are seeing low populations, then they'd be prime candidates for merging.
If they do merge servers they'll offer everyone one free transfer per character on all merged servers. So it's not at all unlikely that you'll see your friends all vanish off to different servers anyway if they don't quit outright Server merges really will cause people to quit. Sudden overcrowding sucks a lot more than having a few empty zones
Where do you think there will be overcrowding? Aren't the last two expansions all set with pickzones? I guess buff piles could become really crowded. Even if they offered free server transfers with mergers why would friends go off on their own to another server? Seriously just trying to figure out your reasons you think these things would happen. I didn't see it the last two mergers though I can't claim my experience is the same as everyones. I am for mergers but willing to listen to arguments against them.
Merging servers while not a bad idea would be nothing more than a band-aid to the crisis in design direction and over-tuning the last couple years has seen. The increased flagging speed in EoK and RoS is a good idea (was that even in patch notes?), but that means little if the developers insist on disastrous harsh design and over-tuning on a level not seen since Underfoot. I've seen some people say the developers don't care, and they point to the addition to an enrage timer to kick raid forces out of the GMM content when it's already super exclusive as is. I hope they are wrong. As it stands, it seems like the developers have forgotten any raid forces exist other than the guilds they go to for testing. The mid tier, not to even mention the lower tier, of the raid game is in danger of extinction.
We do not need a server merge, what we need is for the complainers to addict their family to EQ. If you have no family, then addict your friends to EQ, and if you have no friends, then go out and make some friends, and addict them to EQ.
It's possible they forgot to add a note about EoK and RoS. There is no way it was accidental. (Four flags per event in EoK now, and 3 for RoS.) It is definitely a positive change, but I fear the only thing that could address the root threat to the raid game's stability is normal and hard mode raids. I fear if the current design trend continues it will very rapidly evaporate from the bottom up. I admit I wasn't thinking about the group game when I responded as well. Sadly I admit I have no conception of the status of that aspect of the game. I'd imagine more players would mean more grouping opportunities though.
No, we don’t know this. Game overall has been growing last 4 years. People are raiding less on Live. Maybe it is not as fun a it used to be, maybe people are moving to TLP, TLP bringing a third of the revenue. Server mergers bring frustration. The people that stayed instead of rerolling or transferring have demonstrated a preference for conservation, they are paying for continuity, not population resolution. They are paying to stay. Guilds can solve the population issues for themselves, and have done so in the past, with entire guilds transferring. Individuals can solve this by rerolling or server transferring. But they don’t, they prefer to pay for continuity. So do not expect server mergers, they are not viable nor profitable solutions, in my opinion. Solve it yourself, either by embracing your context, or by convinving your online friends to move with you. If some cant afford it, it is likely that the others can pool and cover it. That is what friends are for...
Let us do this logically.. What are the reasons to do a server merge ? What are the reasons not.. to server merge ?
Pro: -reduces the number of low population servers on server select -in theory increases the population of the destination server -shows they take the feedback to merge (we're at 7+ years? of threads calling for it in some form) -resets the powerbalance in the server community for some -once upon a time it freed up resources to roll new servers (I think this no longer applies) -increases the baz pulse on the destination servers, a key thing for a server being alive to all the different playstyles (aside from "I do it all alone and never buy anything from baz") --once a server gets too low in population that there is no player economy it becomes tedious Con: -name issues enrage people -your home server gets merged with your old server and now you have a giant character list and are back with the dominant guild you couldn't stand... or some similar doh -Vulak to Fippy wasn't smooth and is the only modern server merge to reference --this would be a huge deal if it was live servers with far more caring players than Vulak had -many servers are actually fine for raiding population in prime time, merges can increase conflict over specific content by causing overpopulation despite 90% of the world being empty. Part of the reason the world feels empty is instancing --instancing required to share the content. People don't argue over raids anymore, its the quest/keying zones in newer eras that become drama. -You have to look up where you oldest servers got merged already (why can't it just be a hover-over that shows you that Povar has 3 other servers merged into it?) Solution I would try? -Pick 3 of the lowest viable population live servers and offer free transfers to 1 mid-density live server. See what that does. -When Phinny or Selos catches live, keep all the bonus conditions in place and make it the "sub to play" premiere live server. Maybe even add bonus conditions --then allow paid transfers in. Or... make a new live server that character creation is disabled on for the first week. You paid transfer on to save your name. Some would do this for a normal new live server, make it special conditions and you increase the interest. -revamp more of the sub-85 content (85 is the new tutorial/newbie start) to make it more viable to be able to merge the larger population servers because there would be enough diversity in content to support it at peak times.
