Lord no. EQ doesn't use instanced primary zones. Do you really want more people fighting over spots in static zones?
I think that some people actually like crowded zones with all the squabbling for camps, training and ninja looting that goes with it. I can't think of any other reason that there'd be any requests for merges at this time
I can think of a few servers it would not hurt and I would not be surprised if they do merge a few to cut costs as a new company and or merge a few and open a new form of progression server. That always seems to lure quite a few back for a while. I could see Vox and Trak being merged and merging the current TLP servers not sure what else could be merged without crowding issues
Yep, its about time to merge servers again. After people bailing over this bunk transaction, several servers will need a merge more than ever before. So might as well hit it off at the pass and do it sooner and not later. #Yestoservermerges
I remember getting the Mask of Deception on my bard. Ran him down to Guk and was able to go all the way to the ghoul assassin camp in complete safety. Hung around and waited till I could finally loot one on a rot. I couldn't equip it as I wasn't level 15 yet That was an overpopulated zone. The truth is that the levels of crowding like that totally break the enviroment for me. Instead of being immersed in a dangerous dungeon I was in a crowd watching football games and making real world jokes.
I remember a year ago, right before the swarming nerfs happened, PoK on Luclin had around 70-80 people on a week day morning and nearly 150 on a double xp weekend; now it's more like 20-35 on a week day, 50 on a weekend, Id say double xp weekend but good lord when was the last time we had one of those. And I would much rather have a 2 mob camp than a whole zone to myself. It's time for a merge too, imo.
Its not really been long at all since the last double xp weekend, Jan 1 thru 4th. And no, no merges thank you
No to merges! You see how small RoF-TDS zones are? For casuals, PoF epic 1.0 pieces will be impossible. Griefing as a result of overcamped spawns, for named or xp, will only force more people out. Even worse? Some level 9 necro from 1999 gets your main's name!
Merging servers won't address the underlying issues affecting the game. Even worse, it's only going to give a false sense of normalcy. In a year or so time, another effort will be made for another set of merges. Eventually, we'll end up at EQOA/EQ Mac life-support status. It's much deeper than protecting a sacred cow because, if you're right (it's too late or inevitable), then it's all in vain.
Unless you live on Trakanon of Vulak, you don't need a merger. Stop being cheap and server xfer all your characters elsewhere if you have worn out your options/welcome with the raid guilds on your server.
let me put it this way, if the zones I want or need to play in are so crowded that I can't find a camp and I'm lagging out due to all the unlooted corpses then I log off and don't play If that becomes the norm then soon me and others like myself stop playing all together. I completely stopped logging on at all for over six months after the last server merges due to the overcrowding. Overcrowded zones kill the game and ruin the fun for most people. If they merged servers every time the ninjagriefingcampstealers asked for it the game would be completely dead now with a single server and a handful of people whining about lfg
So you're used to underpopulated zones and playing in zones that rarely have nobody else in them but you I see. I guess it was a struggle for you to play EQ1 back during the flourishing golden days when the popular zones always had hundreds of people in them at all hours of the day. Or..... I could use the Abazzagorath statement and say: Stop being cheap and buy a new computer.
You know, you could reduce EQ to one server, and one zone, and there would still be people who could not get a group.
Better then merges would be some effective ideas to improve the numbers. I would like a return of Silver a simple method would be one month of All Access and fall back to silver instead of F2P. That would improve a lot for new folk, but, I doubt it would bring back many of the "retired". The thing is that a new Engine and upgraded graphics would probably only bring in folk to see what it is like, so more enduring enticements are probably required. We had Original, then Kunark, then Luclin, and The Serpents Spine, my thinking is that perhaps a new moon or planet with a full advancement from level 1 would generate interest within the game, and if advertised might encourage new and returnees to play through. Currently, EQ is a high level game, attracting folk to essentially start over might involve something tricky, so that the high levels don't just run over it. Still, ideals to get more players and keep them is better then collapsing server numbers.
Mind saying why you think each server is "fine"? Able to give a server by server run down and describe each ones population? Besides giving a blanket statement.
did a quick check of general chat populations and how many traders were up, it's really fairly even across the servers except for the usual suspects. Here is what I found (first number is general chat, second is traders up on each server) Antonius - 219 - 76 Bertoxx - 338 - 208 Bristlebane - 393 - 202 Cazic Thule - 399 - 197 Drinal - 379 - 169 E.Marr - 376 - 171 Firiona Vie - 401 - 295 Luclin - 403 - 168 Povar - 357 - 165 The Rathe - 371 - 159 Trakanon - 98 - 7 Tunare - 394 - 173 Xegony - 370 - 211 Vox - 309 - 76 Zek - 83 - 29 Vulak - 67 - 3 Fippy - 80 - 7
