So, to start I did a quick search for "Server Merge" and found nothing so I will post this as a new thread. Sorry if it is posted somewhere else. Can we please get a server merge with the live servers. Population is becoming a real issue. Other guilds Not in the top 5 barely have enough to raid with. Grouping outside of guild seems to be a favorite pastime that no longer exists. Please merge the servers!
No, just no. Not everyone likes having to fight every player in the game for the one node or one shiny. Not to mention the mobs around the NPC's you need to talk to, so many people you can't see them let alone target them (think Frostfell and what they had to do with Santa Glug). I actually wait 3-6 months to start the new xpacs so I don't have to deal with huge mobs of rude people who are racing to get through it (and then complain that there is nothing to do after a month). I understand with the population divided between the few servers we have it's difficult to get PUG's or groups for raids, but really not everyone likes having to jostle around a hundred people for everything. Some of us play to relax and, in my experience, if help is needed on something usually (unless it's really old content) I haven't had an issue finding someone willing to join me.
Ok then AB for you and the other few like you and merge the rest together? If you think about it the servers add instances of each zone when the first gets to 20+ people so merging all the live servers wont be an issue other then hardware limitations due to budget old hardware. At the start of every expac the first zone always have 5-10 instances with 20ish people ine ach so you wont have to fight or joust around 100+ people.
You know... they are going to have to deal with this sooner or later. I've played all these years with only guild chat on so I haven't been listening to the EQII world until recently. Guilds are struggling to enlist. Players are changing, life is demanding, the game requirements are demanding and more and more players are Soloing. You're all in the game, can you not see the change? Server worlds need to be specific to the playstyle and not spread all out to thin. We cannot lose what the heart of EQII is, teamwork. A change is coming, you can see it coming. Actually, it has already arrived.
Population is so dead right now. Even with the new content drop, you might see 20 people in a contested instance and a new one opened around pop25. That's great for contested and makes it much more fun. But the fact that there are 2 maybe 4 instances means the population is super low. When I go out into the world it is mostly even less and this is on HOF. Not sure about other servers specific numbers as I am my own, but I can tell you HoF seems to be getting pretty thin on player base. Wish they would just bite the bullet and merge. Or do a 50/50 merge if they want, anything to inject some life back into what's left...
Sorry but I agree in all respects with "No, just no" Some of us like lower population so we don't need to wait on line and take numbers for our turn to kill a mob or harvest a node. Plus, lower population servers tend to have nicer communities as a general rule. Please let players have a choice as to whether they want a higher population server or a lower population server. If there is a real issue - and I am not sure there is - it may be more that people don't group as much as they used to more than population - let them give free transfer options. That allows us to decide whether to use them. A forced merger is the worst possible thing for them to do.
I see why your not sure, you posted today that you have returned to the game after a few years away. What's your playstyle? Do you raid?
Feara - sorry if I wasn't clear. It would be foolish indeed for someone just coming back to comment on how easy it is to get a group or form a raid and that wasn't my intent at all. I had been reading that it was harder than ever today and I assume this is absolutely true. Some people on these forums attribute it to lower population but some say that people do not group as much as a few years ago - and PUGs in general are in decline even where populations are static. My point was intended to be that it may not be clear whether the problem is caused by populations that are too low or by people being less interested in grouping. I do not doubt that groups are harder to get now - this is a pattern in other MMOs as well. If part of the problem or even most of it is increasing reluctance to group - this argues in favor of free transfers so that the people that want to group can congregate onto one or two servers. I have seen this happen even without free tansfers in other games where certain servers are now the unofficial "raid servers" or "pvp servers". Having the right kind of people on the server with you may be more important than simply having more people - so free transfers may be better for everyone. Other than the stubborn holdouts on a server that gets too small to survive - a risk I am willing to take.
In regards to the free transfers, sounds good but you couldn't move an entire Guild without a merge right? This is why I'm for a Server merge for the Raiding Guilds so they can carry on.
Sure they can, they moved entire guilds back and forth to and from test years ago if I remember correctly, certainly they have figured out how to do it well by now. They can do a lot of things they don't/won't talk about, even if they say they cant
I will have to politely disagree. Only because I raid maybe and grp and run contested. It's an MMO - Massively Multiplayer Online Game and not an RPG. If you want an RPG I can DM you some suggestions. Nodes are available in huge abundance. I never have issues harvesting, and I support a lot of friends with crafted items. Overlands have always been contested and that's the nature of the beast in an MMO honestly. I whish there was more contested. As many have mentioned there are a number of ways to go about merging and getting raid guilds and those that want to "PARTICIPATE" in socializing and grouping more. HoF is full of good people. It's up to you who you game with and chat with, that's why they have ignore in game and block on discord. I have quite a list of my own. Learn to use the tools at your disposal to create the environment you want to participate in I think is a better answer than just shooting down what in my opinion may be the biggest in game problem for population right now on servers.
I would also venture to add that having folks who don't raid but promote commerce on a server by other means adds to a servers viability. So while you think living in a small populated server is good because there seems to be a mentality of "The world is mine", is never healthy in any MMO. Just sayin...
I would like to also see a server merge! Last expansion the chats were blowing up with people looking for group and trying to put groups together. This expansion it is crickets... I would love to think this is completely based on server population, but I think there is another key issue at play here. I believe there is too much of a gating aspect that has left so many good players behind and without the resolve and being able to get into the groups people are trying to put together, without being a detriment to the group and constantly getting one shot. This seems to force the people to stick with the people they know instead of pickup people from outside their clicks, because they don't know what they might be getting. Lots of players have quit due to the difficulty in finding the gear to get them resolve in order to get into groups that are being put together. The worst is for a DPS class... groups look for a DPS class and if you are not at resolve, you are not contributing at all. With the changes this expansion, if the T1 DPS you picked up isn't doing damage, then the chances are your group will not be successful, or it will be a huge slog fest, taking way too long and players tend to go Linkdead because they don't want to take 3 hours to do an h1 zone... then the group struggles to fill the slot again or it just breaks up completely.
From a raider/grouping perspective, merging is needed, desperately. Even the highest ranked guilds are recruiting, and not just occasionally, for MONTHS for players. These are guilds that in the past had people lined up to join and yet today, they are struggling. I've seen several gung-ho folks try to start a new raid guild and eventually just give up. As also a crafter, soloer, because I participate in most aspects of the game, I get that a low server population has its perks, but like was said, this is an MMORPG, it's intended to be more than a RPG with a chat room. Doesn't mean I'm criticizing anyone's chosen playstyle, but for me, I vote merge!!
I recently transfered to Halls of Fate from Skyfire, not because my guild was bad, they were awesome, but because grouping was dead. To my surprise HoF is almost just as dead when it comes to grouping and pugs as Skyfire. I think server merges would help increase the pool for sure, but I think future expansions need to make more content easier when it comes to stat requirements, gear, lockout timers and encounter mechanics. No, I dont want everything to be tank and spank and I dont mind mechanics, but I also want content I can do when I login and improve my character without having to spend 3 hours spamming LFG for the group to fail either way. I personally stop doing solo instances once I finish my META collection and from then on I want to play with other players on non raid evenings. Non PUGable content should in my opinion be limited to T3(at the start of expansions)/T4/T5 raid content and challenge version of heroic content (H3 this expansion)
