Server Mergers - Announced by Email

Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:

well theirs a couple things you have to take into concideration.
1. though raiders are probobly still in the minority it also has to go off your definition of raider and the fact this game is getting older ad the gap is closeing. i would say a minimum of 70% of people have raided something and atleast 50% have set foot in a zone of current teir and probobly 45% have set foot with their own guild and killed something but your still looking at only 5-10% who have a set schedual like raiding at 7pm cst mon thur fri and sun or whatever. (note made up numbers people i dont acually no so no ned to flame.)
2. /who all only shows 100 people
3. you yourself pointed out most guilds raid right about the same time if you do a /who all tuesday at 3pm est it will be a diffrent story
4. Channels in genral are often extreamly skewed to raiders as they are genrally more active in channel chat, i was in a super casual guild for years we had over 300 accounts at one time and i was one of maybe 3 people who said a single word in channel more then once a month and most of theirs were mistells.

feldon30 wrote:

1. The Random() function from most programming languages uses a pseudorandom number generator already, albeit sometimes a relatively bad one.
2. I've never heard of a PRNG that tries to self correct any bias it might have. Saving the generated output sequence isn't feasible unless the period of the PRNG is very small. Could you please tell us which PRNGs do this?

feldon30 wrote:

Granted... except to read some of SJ's responses here lately, I gave up on this thread many, many pages ago.... but I have to ask.... just how did a thread that started out discussing the planned server merges morph into ^^ THIS ^^ ?
LOL. It's funny how the small meaningless threads started by some people here get moderated to the hilt, while admittedly "official" moster threads like this one continue on getting bloated and breaking every forum rule with no moderation

Therodge, u are right on many of ur points but I did similar checks on Mondays and Sat. (Least raid days). LdL is lucky to have 40 odd people during a who all and I am pretty sure I have seen more than 100 on the raid nights /shrug. Again with the 40 odd people at least 10-15 are raiders either via reputation when I see the name in lvl chat or via my firends list. I also consider a "raider" to be somone who is in a guild that is on a certain forums progression thread. I know at least 1 guild who raid regularly that is not on the thread and I did not count them in my test. I am not saying btw that raiders are the majority of subs, only that they appear to, at this point, make up the majrity of regularly active players. This to me is not good for an mmo because there are not enough of us to justify the expense a game like this costs a Corporation. The server merges are really more a way to preserve the other players. Raid guilds will still have the same recruitment problems you will increase the number of players but u are lso increasing the number of raid forces so its break even. The casual player though, who logs in when they can and just wants to find a group asap, they are the majority and the ones most likely served by the merges that have yet to be.

... why are people talking about item drop rates in this thread? It is about the server mergers, which are taking forever to happen by the way. Start your own thread about drop rates if you wish to rant.

SmokeJumper wrote:

I'll agree with you that at this point in time, you're not going to get a good return on investment out of TV ads for EQ2.
But you're downplaying the impact advertising can have by claiming WoW got it's masses from the millions of fans of Blizzard games. That would account for the users in the first few months or so but not for their growth since. They launched in Nov 2004. In Mar 2005 they had 1.5 million subscribers. That would probably cover the time needed for their loyal fans to flock to WoW because of their previous games. That even includes Christmas so those fans could get the game as presents. In Dec 2008 they hit 11.5 million subscribers. I find it hard to believe that 10 million of their loyal fans waited that long to buy the game. It's a lot more likely that they picked up a few (pronounced millions) here and there from advertising in places other than gaming websites and magazines.
Regardless, you're right that it's pointless to spend the money on TV ads right now for EQ2. But generally speaking, with any product, it doesn't matter if yours is better than the competition if those making the purchases don't know it exists and don't know it's the better product.

feldon30 wrote:

Uuh .. You are wrong and I am write !!

The problem is how good does it need to be in relation to how many CPU cycles it takes to calculate the number.

Apparently this is the "Discuss everything except server merges" thread. I have no idea where to go for an update on when the server merges will occur, because any other thread started about server merges gets locked and points toward this thread.
So, has anybody heard anything about server merges?

Back to topic. The first server merge was originally announced for 17th Nov. Then the week after, and another week after and here we are on 6th Dec. We've been told the last test was declared clean, unofficially mind you, the Official News forum remains SILENT on merges.
So Smokejumper, Amnerys, Rothgar, WTF is happening? Heck at this point I'd even consider a post from the janitor an update.

Will free transfers of all toons be allowed

Traxor@Lucan DLere wrote:

Nope. Server Mergers 2010 (EQ2)

Traxor in another thread they said no free transfers. They also said no plans atm to merge our server. My not wanting to pay 25.00 a pop per toon is the main reason why I did not transfer to splitpaw with the rest of Transcendance. I figured why pay 100.00 now when there is the chance Velious is underwhelming and Rift is good.

SmokeJumper wrote:

I started playing WoW about a month and a half ago. Hate to burst your bubble but there are a lot of things that Blizzard does a ton better then SoE. And it's hard to compared WoW and EQ2 since the two companies have different philosophies on how thier games are to run. With running a lot fewer classes, Blizzard has avoided a lot of the class balancing problems that SoE never has been able to contend with. Blizzard is a million times better at addressing thier player base. They also tend to listen to thier player base (a completely foriegn concept to SoE).
Yes they had millions of Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft fans waiting on WoW, but had Wow been a piece of junk they would have fled by now, and a lot of those people would have eventually ended up here. That hasn't happened that much. There are a few converts to EQ2 from WoW, but nothing like converts the other way. With a huge amount more servers for WoW, I have run into a large number of ex EQ and EQ2 players over there. Wish I could tell you exactly what got them to leave EQ2 for WoW but can't. Almost every one had different reasons for leaving EQ2, although losing interest or not happy with the changes to the class that was thier main seems to be one common complaint. A bunch of ex Guardians and Rangers over there. WoW has more money than God for a reason. They have been keeping a large portion of thier player base plus gets a lot more new players then anyone else.
It doesn't matter if they blatantly "purloined" (nice, politically correct way to say plagiarized) artwork and design. Many of the changes in the last year to year and a half in EQ2 was plagiarized from somewhere else, like WoW. So what? If if makes the game better, go for it.
Bottom line, is EQ2 a great game? Not sure great would be the correct term, but it is a really good one. It had the potental to be great, but just never was. Who's fault is that? I have no clue. Due to the lack of communication that SoE is so famous for, we will never know and it doesn't really matter at this point anyway. Can it still be great? No. Not with so many "new ideas" being forced upon us that we are really opposed to and SoE's willingness to force us into competition with EQ2X. I'm still waiting for epics' on SC so my alts can buy thier myths. No one run the zones needed for them anymore anyway.
WoW isn't the answer for me either. It's fun to play but don't find the challenge and complexity there that EQ2 has. So I'm still waiting. I'm just sitting around waiting for the "right" new game to come out and I'll bail if I don't get burned out on raiding before that. For now, all I do is raid. And only raid because I really enjoy the people in my guild. If it wasn't for the guild, I'd been gone a long time ago.
Personally I think EQ2 would be in a lot better shape if it was run by some other company. One that puts it's customer at the top of thier priority list. I just don't see it happening with SoE.

Jeepned2 wrote:

The EQ2 devs listen to the players all the time. They may not always do what one player or another wants specifically, and sometimes the changes they make are not what players really wanted, but more often than not, changes are a result of player demand.

Jeepned2 wrote:

Rule one of the modern corporate world. "The shareholder is always right".

Yeah. The problem SOE has is communication. I have to give SJ kudos for actually responding here and while vague with at least a real sense that he is invested in this product and thus with us. I rember the one response that Brenlo gave us last year where he basically said "god u guys got so emo I have to interrupt my time off to basically tell u to suck it up." That was brilliant public relations let me tell ya.

Their PR skills are terrible. I'm guessing it's because the people in charge of "Community Relations" (or whatever they call it) have no understanding of the game, while the actual devs have no understanding of PR.
Remember that post before GU57 about how they were removing a bunch of skills from auto-grant at low levels? It wasn't like the idea was so amazingly bad for the game (you can still go get the skills if you really want them), but it was presented as something veteran players should be happy about...when there was really no reason for veteran players to be happy about it at all, which got many forum posters all up in arms.

Jeez........, I realise in your eyes that this first server merge is totally unimportant to you really, since we are still waiting for word of when it is actually going to happen.
Me wonders now if we can expect that Vellous will arrive on the scene in February, or with it being more majorly important to you to have right, whether it will not be ready and online till September !!!

Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:

I had to say first time in months that we had heard from smokejumper, I mean like about 20 post in 2 days on this thread, and then he went silent again. I know he post every now and then in live forums, but wow he something really got his attention in this thread.
I was starting to have some hope that he might be vested in us again, but I think his main baby is the ex2extend.

Wolfspeaker wrote:

I lol'd.