There was a thread on the Blizzard forums tonight from someone who'd played for 10 years, just cancelled their sub, and was moving to Everquest II. Someone actually asked for some details on EQ2, and I was constructing a reply when the thread was deleted...funny that.
Not every one wants mergers, though. I don't really care much either way, just so long as PvP stays out of the equation, and the "megaserver" isn't up and down like a toilet seat like AB seems to be.
I hope SOE are over that now that EQN is in full development. Entirely different case, EQ2 was clearly a development of and extension to EQ1, EQN is not. As Dave Georgeson has said many times EQN is not Everquest. I for one will not be trying EQN. for lots of reasons. I actually expect the numbers of long term EQ2 players actually becoming long term EQN players to be trivial So go rage on the EQN/Landmark forums this forum is about EQ2. Agree with this bit.
For our family, the largest detraction of WoW was the huge amount of players. If only 2% of your players are annoying on a regular basis, be it griefing or simply being obnoxious, and you have 10,000 of them all together at any given time...well no thank you! We have a double edged sword in this game. Everyone wants more players to group with, but our smaller numbers also make for strong bonds and a great community. We get to know some great people that would not stand out quite as well in a huge crowd. It's going to a high school game in a small town verses seeing a professional game in a huge stadium.
For me, the largest detraction of WoW is the chat channels. I fully understand why there is no general server-wide chat given the non-stop scrolling and the constant childish attempts at jokes in the Trade channel when you're in cities. I tend not to even read chat there...If you have friends and a good guild, that part is alleviated at least. Part of my aversion to having PvP rolled into a megaserver with PvE is an expectation that general chat would devolve to WoW levels.
You're smoking crack if you're including those foreign countries and Test servers into this dumb *** idea of a MegaServer Those Foreign countries already have 1 PVE Mega Server!!! A MegaServer is the stupidest idea I've ever heard and look at you all arguing over something not possible or will want as a finished product. And Yes everyone here is smoking crack for continuing with this idea of Merging 18 servers into one!! The easy answer to this problem is we need 4 PVE servers and 1 PVP server. SoE knows how to do this they have done it before they just aren't going to do it, because they are hoping we will use Server Transfer tokens and Cross-Server grouping till they release EqNext.
I don't know about a MegaServer you gotta keep pvp on its own. I think it would be cool to be able to goto a real PvP server instead of grinding BG's. You could have the same limits as in BG's like not being able to trade items or plat if your not native to the server. No broker none of that just hunting and being hunted For PvE I would totaly be in on a big server. You could break what we have now into 4 US servers. I would say one but I dont know what they are using to run servers and it might cause a ton of lag.
Nothing kills immersion faster for me than getting a quest to go kill some named, walking through the caves past all the corpses people didn't bother to loot, and standing in line to kill the BBEG when he spawns. You want more population? Roll on Freeport or AB. It's not like it takes forever to level up a toon if you want to rush through it to get where you were on your old server. Save up some loyalty tokens so you can buy a bunch of bags o' plat for seed money and you'll be rolling in no time.
Perspective: AB is the only server that exceeds the max of 100 players with the /who all command during off peak hours. Many servers currently do not even reach 100 players during peak hours. So for everyone that thinks merging into 3 or 4 servers is unreal, you simply have no idea what you are talking about considering 10 years ago having under a 100players online would have been a laughable idea -- there were several hundreds on at a time 24/7 on Crushbone as I remember it clearly. Even if no technology was upgraded it's been shown that the servers could handle it with ease.
Well stated.....it's frustrating to pay for a game where nothing but roadblocks keep getting put up around us....I'm on one of the low pop servers and the few raid forces left are struggling to fill 24 slots....pugs are harder and harder to get.....I've never been a supporter of server merges but seeing the demise of my server over the past year has changed my mind....for SOE to hold out simply to milk server transfer fees out of their player base is only causing frustrated players to quit not open up their wallets.
I'm pretty shocked at how quickly Everfrost has quieted back down after the initial expansion surge. I'm always surprised when I go afk for 10+ minutes during a weekday evening or even daytime on a weekend and return to find that there has been zero new comments in the general chat channel (or any of them for that matter.)
I keep seeing this type of comment coming from exactly one person, you. Having toons on both Everfrost and much newer ones on AB I have yet to find any major difference in lag or server failures between the two. Repeating something ad nauseam doesn't make it correct. What I do see on AB is many, many times the opportunity for grouping both at the level cap and for those who are leveling. This includes DMs and agnostics for lower levels (yes, much of the DM stuff is PL fee based stuff but it's an option that's available to those who want it) as well as a far greater opportunity to join a PuG running new level cap content. I also have spoken with quite a few others who have started over or transferred toons to AB due to lack of opportunity on their own old servers. I personally have too many characters to transfer (by a long shot.) Since the launch of AoM I've been spending more time on Everfrost but I'm anticipating that the lack of activity there will land me back on AB for much of my playtime before long.
This makes me want to transfer to AB. It's like EQ2 AoM quality with a server density of 10 years ago. If I knew there'd be 100% zero drama I'd get my transfer token today.
Yeah, I'd be lying if I tried to promise that last part. There are a**hats on every server and AB has it's own share. I nearly crapped when I saw a group being advertised for Fallen Gate on AB a while back. That was pretty early on my new toon there so I had no idea if it was common (not really) but just seeing it at all was quite a throwback. I was also quite shocked at how many folks there are spamming to PL you in DMs for plat. Everfrost DMs are much less frequent but rarely are they charging a fee. So, each server certainly has eccentricities it seems. I broke down and paid for a couple runs (yay, for bags of plat from loyalty tokens) just to get my AAs up.
Thanks for the info. I'll just wait till EQN comes out and park my EQ2 main (this will be the alt game then) over on AB when all the Ringwraiths are gone. When EQ2 is the alt game I'll want to play instantly and not waste time on a barren server when I could be in EQN or playing something else on my game que.
On Target for the Thread for the Reds: As a player on a seemingly thin server... AoM feels the way ToV did in late spring of 14'. The thin server populations feel as fake as the equity markets and as rigged as the commodities exchange rate for gold and silver. Personally, I'm having a great time but what happens after mid-January when people start spending their time elsewhere? I recall logging in several prime time weekends late spring for ToV and couldn't even get 5 people to PUG Highkeep. There just wasn't enough logins. The AoM advanced solo zones are far more fun than the ToV ones (the sig line ones) so maybe I'll molo my way through the game during off season and catch up on all the solo stuff to do once the grouping season ends for AoM. If LON was on a tablet as it should be I'd actually play it more than just Octobers before expansions. My desk just isn't as comfortable as a couch or bed. _ _ _ A megaserver structure would never put any MMO in this situation as logins rise and fall.
If you look at latency and server down AB is right on top so totally out of the question to bring more people on that server. Secondly Freeport is starting to have same problem so the 2 top server US based dont have much room for more players,It might looks like they are ghost town but your perception might be based on PUG and its a fact that a lot of players are allergic to PUG and only play with people they know or with guildies. On the EU side Splitpaw looks pretty busy also. Third Everquest2 from what i can see are in the process of changing to enterprise from what i heard next summer so they might have architecture that can bring more players per server but this is speculation on my part for the moment. Fourth the EQ2 community is one of the best among all the MMO i've seen so i rather keep the toxicity out of EQ2 then to make general chat like WOW or RIFT. If that happen SOE would have to bring moderators for chat instead of putting their employers busy with improving the game. I agree that EQN would bring players from other MMO instead of your regular EQ! or EQ2 players.
I can't help but say MegaServer in a Japanese 2 English style overtone.... Meeeeegaaaaaaaah Servahhhhhhhh! You know all excited with deep vocals..lol Enjoy! Meeeegaaaah Servahhhhh!
That would work fine if the remaining few sadistic teabaggers would accept an "opt-out" option for engaging in pvp. But as it stands 99% of open world pvp players still cherish the gank squads destroying the lone quester.
