Allow Free Transfers For All Servers

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Cinnamon, Apr 21, 2015.

  1. Cinnamon Active Member

    My idea is they could go down to two regular servers with one pvp and not really have to do anything other than grant 1 or maybe 2 free tokens for each character as a claimed item within our rewards for all accounts no matter what the status is. Guild's can transfer with the leader who transfers first or possibly add a token to allow this.. Time could be limited to 90 days, then close down the servers. After the 90 days someone who logs in, will be kicked in away similar to how the Frostfell event is over to Thundering Steeps and once there, they can claim a transfer token. If not thundering steeps then maybe a place(zone) that will allow transfers to work.
    Feldon and Hushnoob like this.
  2. Wurm Well-Known Member

    You want to move? Then do so.
    *edit* Not everyone does want to move, nor should they be forced into it.
    Kuulei, Deveryn, Griff and 3 others like this.
  3. Dulcenia Well-Known Member

    Agreed. Anyone who dislikes their server is free to do something about it. Suggesting that everyone else be forcefully thrown off their servers also, is unreasonable.
    Kuulei, Griff, Moonpanther and 2 others like this.
  4. Atan Well-Known Member


    I'm not sure that is the right word.
  5. Wurm Well-Known Member


    True it does cost money, if anything they need to get rid of the subscription requirement, using a krono + the fee should be enough.
    Griff likes this.
  6. Mermut Well-Known Member

    Exactly. And if they were going to do that, a server merge would be much more cleaner because of all the guilds, houses, shared banks, etc
  7. Atan Well-Known Member

    This all goes back to a philosophical difference between some players.

    Players like myself feel it is the game provider's responsibility to retain server populations at a level for them to be viable. As such when servers become non-viable they should be merged by the game provider to keep the game play healthy.

    Other players seem to believe it is the responsibility of the player to pay to move each of their characters they care about to a server with a viable population if they desire to have viable multiplayer game play.

    I believe it is in DBG's financial interests to take a more active role in ensuring their populations are viable, as I believe players are far more biased to finding a new game verses spending 20-100 or more to move servers on their own. Additionally players are conflicted about breaking friendships they currently maintain on non-viable servers in order to be in a viable server population.

    Other players believe having paid transfers available equates to more revenue for DBG vs my belief that the sub revenue from having viable populations far out earns the revenue from server transfer tokens.
  8. Wurm Well-Known Member

    I see it as having nothing to do with revenue.

    If you think they need to merge servers to keep pugs up and running, well then I disagree. A good player can always find people to play with. It may mean them moving to another guild on the same server though, something it seems people are even less willing to do than transfer.

    I also know that if my toon ever ends up with an X behind her name, that will be the day I stop playing for good.
    Griff likes this.
  9. Mermut Well-Known Member

    I'm on the fence about the 'need' for server merges.. but I think merges would be better then offering transfers and the just shutting down some servers for the reasons I mentioned above. It also keeps existing communities together.
  10. Atan Well-Known Member


    You might be surprised on some servers, unless you consider it reasonable to take more than an hour to build a group. But its not just about pugs. If only pugs mattered, then cross server dungeons would be the magic pill to save things. But that ignores the fact that to support raiding still requires a minimal viable level of active players in a given set of time zones.
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  11. Atan Well-Known Member

    As long as I get a free rename, I really don't care.

    I would bet that the number of players that will quit due to an x are far fewer than the long list of people Ive seen quit cause the population isn't viable. But I have no way to prove that.
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  12. Wurm Well-Known Member

    If a server doesn't have enough people on it that when doing /who all during primetime doesn't show 100 people then it might be time for a merge. Other than that, I think its probably the player.
  13. Finora Well-Known Member

    Really isn't the OP just asking for a more complicated server merge?

    Whenever Daybreak decides they need another server merge (eventually they will unless all these database changes produce some sort of miracle fix for the issues seen on some servers) I think it'd be far more simple for them to just pick the servers they want to keep and merge the rest into those. No need for transfer tokens to be issued and claimed. No need to worry about breaking up guilds. No need to worry about dealing with people who didn't log in in time to claim the token.

    To take into account people you didn't care for where they ended up they could offer free transfers between servers for X amount of time post merger, after perhaps a 2 week cooling off period.


    I'm kind of with Stormraven about the dreaded X though. I've had the names of my characters for many years, some of them are names I've used since before Everquest 1 even released. I hate that freaking x with a passion and dearly hope they think of a better way to handle it. Let people have a _ or - or something front or back instead or something. There has to be something better than that stupid X.
    Mermut likes this.
  14. Sunje Active Member

    Valor is death...

    Need a transfer to another server with more players!
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  15. Oakenn_TZ Member

    Heard cried on EQ for several years about "omg the game is dying server merge!" the whole while 4-5 guilds per server can field 70+ people on a raid night.

    I join EQ2 a couple months ago.... hear very little doom and gloom but.. HOLY HELL YOU GUYS THIS PLACE IS A SINKING SHIP. I don't know how the game was allowed to get to the state it is in. Can watch general for a whole night and see less than 20 people LFG and less than 5 groups forming up. It is bad when I, someone who sucks at names, can recognize just about every tank/healer in heroics when I play an alt when friends aren't around.



    This is the most ignorant statement I have seen in a long time.

    200 people doesn't mean anything if 1 tank, 1-2 healers, and 3-4 dps/sup aren't all on, not busy, of the same caliber, and interested in doing the same content.


    Lets go with a hypothetical scenario of 200 lvl 100 people online...


    -30 are misc (only on chatting, about to log, etc)
    -30 are crafting/doing tradeskill related things (gathering etc)
    -25 are raiding (counting some benches)
    -20 are the top end people who aren't raiding but also don't do content unless they get a stacked group of guildies for kicks.
    -30 are boxes of other people
    -30 are in close knit friend circles that do everything together (such as myself who has 5 other friends to group with most of the time)
    -35 leftover (unless someone can think of another subgroup of people)

    so of these 35 people...

    25 are "dps" (say 7 of them good enough to do Threshnets/Sanguine/Inner Sanctum)
    7 are healers (say 3 of them are good enough to do ^)
    3 are tanks (1 of them good enough to do ^)

    so 1 group of non raiders who don't have dedicated groups of people can do all the group content available IF they get the right class combinations (such as a enchanter for sanguine), 1-2 can do green zones, and the rest are just SOL because they can't get a full group.

    saying that 100 people online at ocne is a viable community in an MMO is laughable at best. Maybe 1000. Hell people scream of hellfire and damnation on EQ and there are multiple guilds per server with 80+ people online at once.
  16. Sunje Active Member

    11:30 PM Valor

    1-9 -> 5
    10-19 -> 17
    20-29 -> 6
    30-39 -> 3
    40-49 -> 6
    50-59 -> 2
    60-69 -> 1
    70-79 -> 0
    80-89 -> 5
    90-100 -> 61

    = 106 Players active on the server. + the anonymus players

    Month ago we had in the 90-100 ~250 players at this time, years before we had more than 400 players at the same time.

    Its time to change anything SOE/Daybreak
    Kraeref likes this.
  17. Wurm Well-Known Member

    100 is the max number the /who all query can show... sounds like you didn't know that.

    And you are talking about pugs. mergers are not the answer for pugs, cross server grouping is.

    It has been promised for a while now... it is the reason they gave for the DB change.

    I'm in wait and see mode for now, and see no reason for server merges until it is implemented and we've had a chance to try it.
    Griff likes this.
  18. Atan Well-Known Member

    I agree 100 isn't a good number. Maybe if I could filter all the bots and afk's out of the list and only 100 active players then maybe, but we can't do that. 250-300 would be a fairly good min from my perspective. But first, you'd have to agree on what 'prime time' is ;)

    While my basis is as arbitrary as the previous poster, but if there isn't enough active players on a server to support at least 8 raiding guilds that raid within a 5 hour 'prime time' window, then there probably isn't enough players on that server for it to be 'viable'.

    Sure, there is a lot more to the game than raiding, but that particular playstyle requires the most player coordination and I find it to be fair flood gauge on whether or not a server has a viable population, as I don't think there is anything that makes one server to have more of a raiding population than another. In the end, it requires little to support solo game play, cross server dungeons can probably address the population needs for heroic gameplay, but in the end, if there are enough players on a server to build a few raid groups, there aren't enough players to support the playstyle and in my opinion it means the server is no longer viable.
  19. Wurm Well-Known Member

    Raiding isn't an issue on Crushbone.
    And if /who all shows a 100% it means there are at the very least that many players on.
    Someone should ask SOE why the filter is set so low.

    *edit* Prime time is the evening during the work week and all day on the weekends.
    Griff likes this.
  20. Oakenn_TZ Member



    Unless you played EQ in 99 I promise I've put more time into these games than you so lets forget the patronizing.

    You said if it doesn't show less than 100 then it is the players problem. Which suggests you think 100 is an acceptable number. I doubled that.

    Mergers answer any low community issue not just "yay we can queue for heroics". Also cross server grouping has the same problem it has had on every game it has been implemented on. Reputation ceases to matter which I'm sure many agree is one of the biggest pluses to EQ and from what I've seen so far EQ2. Trolls don't make it far in the group game when they have to play nice to be invited to groups. When a button press throws them into a group of people who haven't seen their name pop up every day for weeks/months/years on their home server that all goes out the window.