SERVER MERGE PLEASE

SteelPiston wrote:

Or just make the bard/chanter buffs raid-wide instead of group reducing the necessity for the current 1/3 representation in a raid. This opens more spots for classes people wanna play.

I miss the days of actual emersive control effects. Coercer was a lot more fun in early eq when mezzes actually helped.

crazyeyes321 wrote:

I have plenty of situations where mezzing helps. Problem again is is if you mez the group flips out because they do less dps and just "burn it." Any fight mechanic can be fixed with "just burn it."
The game hasn't changed much. The egotisitcal dps nuts changed it.

Nagafen: pvp
Splitpawstorms, valor, harla, bs, seb)
AB:RP ( Butcherblock,unrest,perma)
Badport: Guk, Oasis, Everfrost,Crushbone.

I can see a couple of server merges but not all. Some servers are just fine while others are struggling. Keep an open mind.

I'm totally down for server merges.
Another game just merged its servers and it was the best thing that could happen.
The server now feels vivid and has returned to a healthy economy.

Sadly, a lot of shortsighted people actually believe that a merge always equals the downfall of the game
which is just plain stupid and from a producers point of view I would even say it's just incompetent thinking.

Companies need to wake up and start making the right decisions for long terms and not just for what's in the gaming headlines tomorrow and maybe the next week...

Server mergers are just a short term fix. I was on The Bazaar when Shadowhaven was merged into it. The Bazaar was then merged into Freeport. It increases the population temporarily and generates a lot of ill feeling,mud slinging and name calling for the first few weeks. Eventually the population will exist on a handful of servers with only the diehard players left.
I think the route cause of the current downturn (apart from the Panda expansion that just came out) is the huge amount of choice these days for players. There's little loyalty to one game anymore and the game butterflies just flit around from one game to another. The F2P model has only made it worse. Most players couldn't afford to sub to multiple games, but if they are all F2P, they can go to a different one every night.

Actually, if some of the guilds would merge they'd have enough people. The issue isn't population, really. Merging servers won't get peoiple to group. It will not encourage existing guilds to merge with other guilds for a full raidforce. It just adds lag for a while.

I support Server Merges they are needed.

Also sony-SOE has super server Tech now which means for PS2 and eq 3 next and games like dc online they be able to have tons more of population per server.

So again I support server merges please.

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Saw an interesting solution to this issue on crushbone - might want to look at the voluntary model they are using, no idea how well it works but it is a interesting practice
Merging will do nothing, it just give the ability for more people in one place about the lack of groups

It is short sighted to suggest that server merges will 'do nothing'.
The key point to remember is that server merges are NOT for existing players, they are for NEW players. If, as a new player, I rolled a toon on pretty much any server I would see die hards, and a smattering of new players per server. I'd quickly become disillusioned about the prospect of having to level up alone in a new game to me, and seeing an overall lack of chat, trade and pretty much anything, I'd put my money elsewhere.
If however there were only a couple of servers, I'd have more chance of meeting other new players, and therefore more incentive to stay playing, and to maybe upgrade to gold, and stay.

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Yea, I think this is a better idea than server merges.

Freejazzlive wrote:

Again, avoiding the point. New players need to see other new players, and have people to play the earlier game with.

Cagefighter wrote:

I didn't read the OP as a 'raid focused' desire, but since the OP has clarified it to be a 'raider population' issue. it would indeed help that player to merge as it would give them more guilds to try and skim cream from.
Guk is sure enough dead, we have about 5 decorators in public channels all night talking shop and thats it.
New players? Where? The corner they have painted themselves into with the lower game, the grouping XP penalty, the overscripted zones is more prohibitive than anything else.

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Merging does little, they'll just have even larger pools of people unable to progress cause no one wants to play needed utility classes.

Ulrichvon wrote:

Actually a few of the better guilds will cherry pick the needed classes from guilds that can't quite get over the hump. Making those few more successful, and shattering the ones that give up the utility players.
It would be wuccessful for the OP. And there is no reason not to merge at this point since pops are in the toilet.

NO NO NO NO NO --- NO MORE SERVER MERGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Even alts are sparse. I've been leveling an alt on AB and in the lower tier zones it's rare to see another player, let alone ever dream of grouping. Once in Stormhold I saw some folks but they were just doing a drive-thru, being powerleveled by a 92 SK. Other than that it is just a rare passing of someone with his mercenary. Level chat, other than 1-9 and 80-89/90, has been dead for so long I don't remember when was the last time anyone ever used them.
Maybe SOE wants to keep the game in an induced coma?

it's an 8 year old game. most people with alts have long since gotten them to level cap if it's not a BL or something that thier guild is asking them to level up for a raid spot. most players are in the endgame. it's what happens after 8 years.
merging the servers is not going to magically make it look like there are a bunch of lower level players. it's not going to make people playing alts group up. or seem more common. it's not going to make the super guilds suddenly able to fill out thier rosters with utility classes that are just no fun to play in a raid setting.
all a server merge will do is give everyone a few weeks of headaches as the trolls/jerks estabilish themselves in thier pecking order of annoyance, and give you some more guilds every evening spaming for bards/chanters for thier raidforces.

Where should new players go?
New players who want a population with lower level active players have a place to go. It's called Antonia Bayle.

Filling raids
On Crushbone, the guild I raid with regularly fills three solid groups, plus 2-3 more folks who show up late and die a lot in the fourth group. We clear stuff shorthanded and we're in the top ten guilds in raid progression on our server. We really need about five solid players who can commit to the three nights a week our guild raids.
Our big problem, just like everyone else, is that what we NEED are three chanters, one of them an illy, and two dirges, plus maybe a warden. That and 2-3 more DPS would allow us to fill a raid even when one or two people are sick or on vacation or their kids are graduating etc.
I do NOT want a power-leveled chanter. I want a chanter who knows how to play their class with skill and finesse. Same with bards: yeah, you can take a bard on a second account, put it on autofollow to your main or a healer in the raid, and at least get the buffs. But a live, wide-awake, skillful player on that bard contributes a whole lot more to a raid, DPS for starters.

Why I don't have a raid-ready chanter
I have an 82 fury, who I could betray to warden and level. But I'm crispy-fried from playing so long as a healer on my mystic. I also have a 58 illusionist, and I'm about to the point where I'm gonna level her so we have one more power feed in raid. But I *LOVE* playing my conjy, RP and raid both. She's just awesome wicked fun.
Like everyone else, I have a couple of tanks and a couple of scouts, several flavors of healers, and then there's my stranded warlock and illy who I got halfway leveled and then stopped. I haven't tried either with a mercenary yet, so maybe levelling them won't be so bad.

Analysis
Server merges? NO. The solution to all of this is NOT server merges. People wanting more population can already move themselves to more populated servers. Newbies especially don't need server merges, they just need to roll on high population servers.
Forced grouping? NO. The steady trend in EQ2 has been people whining that mobs are too hard, that grouping is too difficult, wahhh QQ me a river.

Soloing? SOE has responded by making it idiot simple to solo from 1-92.When that wasn't enough to silence the whiners who wanted to solo ^^^ heroics and even raid mobs, SOE introduced mercenaries. There is STILL whining. Dungeon Maker was introduced so people could have soloable dungeons, and no one uses them unless they can use them to mindlessly grind a PL character.

Grouping? For the people QQing about no groups, SOE started with the LFG tag. No one used it. Then SOE dumbed down dungeons so you could run an on-level dungeon with three people pretty easily in decent gear. Nope, not enough. Lately. SOE tried introducing Dungeon Finder, which worked great for one week before people decided they didn't want to randomly group with people who might be /gasp! idiots.

Conclusion
Boys and girls, the problem isn't server population, it isn't grouping, it isn't soloing. The problem is WHINERS. There are good solutions for a number of issues that we could be using and that almost no one chooses to utilize.
Merge Guilds. For raiders especially and also for low-level players, people need to merge guilds with other players who have similar playtimes and playstyles. If we are unwilling to make those merges, stop QQing, it's your own fault.
Ditch "Perfect Groups". Seriously, when your group has to have a tank, a chanter, a bard, a DPS and two specific flavors of healers, you might as well be in a raid. We used to group with weird combos depending on who we could get to come with us, so while we might kill slower, it wasn't FATAL if a group lacked a chanter or a bard, or if you took two tanks, or whatever. Non-ideal groups should be able to play group content, so long as you have at least one tank, one healer, and one DPS, the other three should be able to be ANYTHING.
More Raidwide Utility. It's kind of nuts that a raid, to be really effective, needs such a precise composition. Everything power drains now, so we need ideally four chanters. The DPS needs buffs, so we have a bard in each group. We bitched because it was hard to find a raid role for more than one or two tanks per raid, and now we have scripts that require three or more tanks to really be successful. Since OBVIOUSLY we have more assassins, beastlords, and wizards than we know what to do with, and many fewer chanters and bards, maybe we need chanters and bards to have more raidwide utility.
Don't Dumb Down Content for the Whiners. The other answer would be to dumb down raids so there aren't excessive efffects. ROK was whack-a-mole curing. Now we need whack-a-mole power regen. But I really don't want raids dumbed down. I want them challenging but fun, whoich means it should take you at least a few pulls before you can kill something the first time, but that once everyone groks the strategy and has the feel for the timing, you can kill it.