Allow Free Transfers For All Servers

In your suggestion, you state that it's the chief complaint of the server population, based on the vocals complaining, not based on the casuals, that make up the bulk of the populations that are not complaining. Then of course there are guilds, on each server that thrive, yet those complaining often wish to not be a part of.

I'm more for seeing how cross dungeons effect the ability for those looking for a group than I am for seeing how a large influx of players effect the players that enjoy a casual game where they are not constantly competing for access to the content.

Look at the changes made to the game such as self mentoring, solo instances and mercenaries. That's all geared towards the more casual player and not simply some fix for a lack of groups for heroic content and raids. Yes, we will always need raids and heroic content. Simply put, you have people that enjoy running, others that enjoy marathons and still others that enjoy being a part of Olympic competitions. I'm fairly certain that there are more people that run on a regular basis than those that participate in marathons and even less that are Olympic class runners. If those that manufacture sporting products are focused only on the Olympic races and Marathon Runners I'm fairly certain they won't fair very well.

In this case, if you simply discount those who have no problem getting groups, successful guilds and casuals to facilitate the vocal majority, they may very well lose players in the end. If the majority of the existing population was interested in non-stop groups being readily available, there would be less of a problem for those wanting groups to find them. Clearly that's not the case. You're attempting to tell those that live in the burbs that living in the city is what's best for them. We should just have one big city and everyone would be pleased. I don't think that's the case at all.

you mean normal things that happen in every game? man that is crazy talk...can't believe a game crashes from time to time

So, basically, you'd be pleased letting people get free server transfers that want them? Or are you trying to make this about your preferred playstyle and forcing the majority of players that remain to live in your ghost town? Like I said, deal with true server mergers at a later date, if at all. Most people that have several characters do not want to spend a couple hundred bucks to blow in hopes a different server has more activity.

I didn't say anything about the newest hottest content, did I? No, I don't play it. I know I can count less than 5 guilds on my server that have enough people to raid the easiest, current content, several servers have less than 3. How many posts have I read in these forums from players that cannot find groups in the newest content or looking for a guild with active membership? Too many. Yes, there are some "successful" casual guilds with less than 10 people online at any given time in the game with levels ranging from 1-100. But this is, by definition, an MMO, unfortunately, due to concurrent online activity it is failing to meet the expectation of those looking for a vibrant MMO.

What part of...

Confused you?

Server population don't always stop the complaints of players not having groups. In my years of playing the Everquest franchise since 2000, there have always been posts lamenting the lack of groups, even when servers were split in EQ-1 for because of over population.

The best solution, but one they are unlikely to adopt due to cost is to create a new server and give everyone free transfers to that server so people can move there to create a large population. Cost is not the only thing that prevents players from moving. Guilds don't wish to lose guild halls and many players have created friendships on their server that they don't wish to lose.

Nothing confused me. I tried to tell you that your toon doesn't need to end up having x. But you don't want rename it either. I would've suggested to put a silent e at the end but you don't compromise. You seems prefer the game suffers from lack of population. And this little thing is the reason for you to quit then when times come don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Sorry but my server is doing just fine for now. So I don't foresee that day coming anytime soon.

I couldn't disagree more with Stormraven, even though he is one of the 3 people I will mention later that are still playing. I was going through my EQ2 screenshots folder for nostalgia's sake today. I recently came back, subbed and all, from a several month break. At any rate, I have always like taking screenshots of raids, because hey, they're fun, and usually give good chuckles after the fact. I found several different screenshots from full raids, dating back to Velious, some raids for COE, and some for ToV. Those screenshots were taken in the period of 2 years or so. Three different expacs, three different guilds I was in. Of those 72 people and 3 guilds? Only 3 people are still playing. Those 3 guilds all fell apart.

69 people gone from Crushbone server, all good people that contributed to the grouping and raiding population. I can't speak to anyone else's experience, but one person witnessing the loss of 69 subs (because none of them were FTP) is pretty disheartening.

I made an alt for giggles on AB, and am blown away by the level of activity there. People SLRing raid drops (love it or hate it it's a sign of activity). Constant LFG spam, not just for AoM zones but ToV as well, even saw a PoW raid looking for more today. I don't WANT to move servers. But, I want to group with people. I don't want to solo. I don't want to pay to sub to solo. I can solo in GW2 for free. What I can't do in GW2 is run dungeon crawls or raid. The few guilds that are raiding (actually it's more of an alliance on CB)..when it's raid night there is nothing going on in general chat or LFG. I try to find a guild that has activity and people grouping, and I find guilds of people that log in only for CRA raids and log out.

I won't speak to other servers but Crushbone needs...something. Maybe make it Lucan D'Lere again, and change it back to a RP server, and offer free transfers onto it and/or off of it (but NOT to AB because it is pretty full as it is). Let some of the RPers that left LDL when it merged with Crushbone come back, and some of the RPers tired of the server lag on AB come over to the dark side. The real gaming "talent" came to Crushbone from LDL anyways, let them take it over.

Evidently your definition of time to time is a lot different from mine and hundreds of other people who were extremely mad during the periods where we lost almost half a month due to the up for an hour or two and down for 4. Yes patches happen, and the occasional crash happens. But this is not regular. The difference of a year or two of you playing the game more wouldn't make you anymore knowledgeable than me or anyone else that posts to their facebook page complaining about this same issue. Allowing important things like this to go unrecognized is what leads the teams focus to fall on in-game items that do absolutely nothing but please 1% of the people who want to pretend they are actually playing something to the effect of WoW. The only thing keeping them from being down more frequently is the number of different instances of overland zones. Should get some info from the devs about how many characters it takes to create a second instance of that zone and they try to imagine how many there will be with cramming every PVE server into 1. It is not rocket science that when something is telling you that the load is "heavy" that you pile equal weight or more on top of it......seriously!

And I still have a bunch of people in my friends list from when the server was Innothule that still log in every day and play.

You guys are missing the point. We're already all on the same server after migrations it's just they aren't dumb enough to give up the 25 bucks a pop to have people relabel their toon. Now when "cross server" dungeon finder and raiding gets implemented it's also something they can get currency for.

It's real simple to change the code to allow all players to play together, but they will ignore it and deny it all the way to the bank.

people complain about when the patch says 2 hours and runs for 5 hours. So of course people are gonna complain about when the game crashes after a patch or something. That doesn't mean that it's a non normal event that occurs.
I get mad that gas is so expensive, I still have to accept that gas is expensive.
Lag is up now, but I doubt a few extra hundred people is gonna increase the lag to an unplayable amount.
Anyone that knows anything knows that the number to make a 2nd instance depends on the instance itself. But I am sure they tried to decrease the number manually in order to reduce lag (unsuccessfully).

If it brings more EU players from AB over to Splitpaw, Im all for it.

well i think it would be great to give every toon a free token transfer single use only. That being said what server to go to. I would think that dgb would say ok were going to x-number of servers these are the ones we are closing on x-date. then let said person move to a server not designated as being closed, they did this in swg, I had toons on intrepid that went to starstrider

"...influx of players effect the players that enjoy a casual game where they are not constantly competing for access to the content" - You're joking right? What game are you playing? The server populations have never been lower... there is nobody on Nagafen, literally... Also. You can be a casual player and still enjoy heroic content, raids, etc.

Where did he mention Nagafen? That isn't the only server in the game. We all know why that server died.

I don't see that as being the best solution. It is more like instead of DBG merging servers, here's a new server you're all free to move, and then hoping and praying people move. Low Pop servers will be afraid to move because they'd be worried that not enough people choose to transfer to it. High pop servers, really they're still happy with where they are. They'd be better off just merging some of the lower pop servers rather than trying to do something like this which is basically just throwing out a prayer and potentially just ending up with one more low pop server they'll have to merge down.

As to your first point, server mergers will not guarantee any decrease in complaints about activity. Increase in player pool does not signify an equal increase in activity. Even during the days when there were groups available at all ranges of content, you had people complaining about lack of groups, but these were the same people who absolutely refused for any reason to join a pickup group. You still have people who won't join a group unless they know the majority of people in it, and that's not likely to change even with server mergers, and they'll still be the ones complaining about lack of opportunities. Merging servers won't quell complaints about being unable to find sufficient people, but it will be better than allowing some servers to continue as they are. And in a more effective way than simply hoping the players do it themselves.

Nagafen was just an example... But the fact remains, servers have lower populations than ever and the idea that any kind of merge could have a negative impact on "casuals" ability to compete for content is absurd. I don't care what server you're on, most zones up to lvl 90 have very few people in them.

Please fill me in on why free transfers off empty servers or merges are a bad idea. And why few but higher populations is a bad thing? The casuals can't "compete for content" is a terrible argument.

Nagafen is a unique example as it's the only server that allows open PvP. It's got a distinctive ruleset that has a profound effect on who will and won't play there.

Your comment has nothing to do with mine. The question is : why are free character transfers only being offered to those in AB? Why force people on other servers to pay $25 to move from servers that we consider empty, but let other people on AB to move servers because they think its too crowded. Enough with the tunnel-vision already. It's an issue of fairness. We all know by now Moonpanther loves his/her light pop. servers, but many don't so why not extend the gesture to us? Whether my characters are on nagafen or not is irrelevant to this issue.