Server move poll on Antonia Bayle

My understanding is that each account only get 1 vote and its flagged for such. At least that is the way it was explained when asked in regards to one of the housing poles.

I see this as chance for everyone. If this pole goes well it may cause DB to consider this an option for other servers. I know that many on AB have said they will not leave but there is only a small portion of those of us that play the game that come to the forums here and post. So with that in mind I know that Naggy could use more people there are guilds clearing heroic content and a raid alliance on FP side working on the raids. So any of you that are looking to push into the new content with some new people come on if you get the chance and see what we have going on.

Completely agree with the above.

Thanks to Feldon/EQ2U, the information below is easily accessible to anyone!

Population estimates* for US servers:

*** West Coast ***

Antonia Bayle - 259,454
Freeport - 257,933
Guk - 244,957
Unrest - 233,056
Everfrost - 199,418
Butcherblock - 154,259

*** East Coast ***

Permafrost - 243,085
Oasis - 174,074
Crushbone - 163,593

IMHO it wouldn't make any sense to merge West and East coast servers, or even different language speaking servers, for that matter. That been said, after looking at the numbers above:

We'll take West Coast's (since Antonia Bayle is there) two lowest population servers as an example. A "newly" merged server out of these would result in population numbers well over 300k. Regardless of how active or not characters (accounts) in this servers are, that is A LOT of data we're talking about. Merges are not as easy a pressing a button. There's A LOT of work involved and there are steps to take in order to make the transition for most (we all know there's no pleasing EVERYONE ) of the playerbase as painless as possible. If people bothered to do a little research they would find that performances issues, ways to reduce the size of character data files (which was talked about in the AMA back in February) among other things, would HAVE to happen first in order for merges to even be considered.
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* I noticed some characters show even though they no longer exist..

Perhaps they could just establish a cut off date for account creation. In other words, they could make it where only accounts that existed prior to the date of the announcement could take part in the poll. While there may be a few truly new accounts that have been created since the announcement, if that number was statistically significant, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.

/agree

Had to fix that sentence but couldn't edit..

Probably should have launched the cross-server dungeon finder and see how it plays out for a couple months before doing this poll. You want us to believe that finding groups won't be an issue, but are people going to risk moving all their toons without seeing it for themselves first? Probably not.

OMG why is this even being considered ...... don't like the population either too big or too small then pay and Move like the rest of us player s had to !

Those numbers don't mean anything, I could care less how many accounts have been created on each server.
Try this:

Across all servers there are 46,777 level 100 toons
AB: 8331
Barren Sky: 2061
Butcherblock: 3503
Crushbone: 3785
Everfrost: 3079
Freeport: 3755
Guk: 3001
Harla Dar: 306
Nagafen: 644
Oasis: 3066
Permafrost: 2564
Sebilis: 944
Splitpaw: 3904
Storms: 1042
Unrest: 3593
Valor: 3142

Granted this does not include those that have census turned off. Also take those numbers and divide them by 6 because it seems everyone has a bot group these days.

If you were to bring back the transfer token then some people would already have moved to a less popular server, I for one like to solo play this game a lot so it would benefit me. I moved from Oasis to AB, and really wish I had stayed where I was because AB has a lot of spam..... I would even be willing to move to a lower populated server, if I could move all my characters, I have 2 accounts.

I believe you misunderstood my point. Scroll up. I hear what you're saying and totally agree.

You're obviously missing the point. Those numbers do matter, whether you care or not. The fact remains, regardless of being active or inactive each and every one of those Characters = Data files, and A LOT of 'em (which, in case you didn't know, are BIG). At this point, without sorting out issues in the back end (database and such), merges can't even be considered.. Nor any plans that might be in store for the game, in the future. I for one, want to see this game around for another 10 years.. heck, even more than that. I did my research.. understood some things have priority. So, I'll sit back, be patient and let the Developers do what they must. In the famous words of Ricardo Arjona, "♪♫♪.. Aqui no es bueno el que ayuda, si no, el que no Jod*.. ♪♫♪"

I prefer low population servers, so the suggestion of the server list of "which one would I chose" would be any of the light load servers. I do that on every game I play. I'm not fond of massive loads of people fighting over 1 or 2 harvest nodes, or mob. not my idea of fun at all

I would totally support this. I started before F2P, when AB wasn't the top server. I absolutely hate how crowded it is and would love a free transfer off for my characters.

Even if a lot of those characters don't exist - or if they do but the players have not played in years - I wonder what the number of ACTIVE players on each server is. Sure sure, the data still exists even if these people aren't playing - but really, there's no where near 175k active people on Oasis, I'll tell you that!! I'd be surprised if there were 1000. (players, not characters - I get that this represents characters. I know, I know lol)

I have to be honest - all this thread has done is make me consider moving from Splitpaw to AB!

Well, you could look up this information on EQ2U. Which, again, would only be an estimate. Might take a while though..

Hello everyone i would like to say a few things from the time i have been playing this game since day one till just before last expac. I have played on every sever in this game this game had people on every server up untill the end of TOS expac. It was around this time i stopped raiding on 5 servers and moved to just permafrost middle of SF. SInce then population has been dying day by day more and more guild left permafrost to other servers. Before i took a break a good 8 months before the current expac at least 6 out of the 9 guilds worth raiding in left for AB and a ton of players who wanted more left to AB. There is no way you will get enough people to leave AB for any reason at all. Even if half of the whole server left and split on all servers u still would not have enough to do a thing period give it a few months and they will just go back to AB. Merge the servers as people said 3 to 4 together Keep PVP , RP , and only 2 more servers and u will not need to invest into cross server groups or any of that. The server would fix itself at the point. i used to stand around for hours see no more then 5 names in chat that is a joke. Just standing on a lvl 1 toon in AB u will see more names then u can count. Get your act together Daybreak and do what is needed and Merge stop wasting time on pointless transfers. Before all the low servers just quit playing or move to AB anyways.

Also last time u guys merged servers people played more because there was more to do Raiding, Groups, ETC it was a good 2 years before things died down again that was due to server drama why a core left to begin with. If you give people less servers to choose from you will force more people into them and fix the population. I understand how much work is needed to do this but if you really want to fix the issue not beat around the bush Merge servers Problem will be fixed.

This continues to be ignored (mostly) but I am gonna keep reminding you all until a dev tells me I am wrong, because I read Holly's post very well, and it seemed well-written and clear:

The intent of allowing people to transfer off AB is not to repopulate numerous other servers. So the entire conversation about server merges is moot. But I have been around here long enough to know that those who want servers to be merged will use any opening at all to, once again, call for server merges to "fix" the perceived "problem" of not being invited to group, and to exaggerate the "problem" of all the "dead" servers.

This is wrong on many fronts. First, the server I play on (Guk) is anything but dead. We have a smaller community than AB, but not so small that groups cannot be found. There are several end-game raiding guilds, several fairly large casual/raid/group/do-it-all type guilds--one that even offers tutoring for new or inexperienced players!--smaller guilds that are constantly dinging levels as they level-up, amazing gear constantly being auctioned in Auction channel, mythical acquisition announced almost nightly--and even a level 100 guild with an awesome guild hall made expressly for solo players (WooHoo!! Solitude!!). The Guk community is first-rate, friendly, and proud of who we are. The idea that a new player entering Guk would find a desolate wasteland is beyond absurd!

The idea that throwing players into the same "playground" will make them play together is false. If I do not like you, I will not play with you, no matter what. If you are playing with Tonka trucks and I am playing G.I. Joe, I am not going to start playing with Tonka trucks just because we are forced to play in the same sandbox. I will only be irritated because your Tonka trucks keep getting in the way of G.I. Joe.

Belenos said: ↑
“Forgot to add: If everything is so peachy on AB, why are toons coming to Guk from AB to try to poach raiding toons? Happened twice over the last week....”
Atan replied: "Cause frustrated raiders are ripe for the picking on the lower servers. Recruiting cross server can be more productive use of time and less competitive."

I guess we don't have many frustrated raiders on Guk, as this recruiter from AB ran straight into a meat-grinder by coming to Guk with a condescending attitude and trying to poach players ("Join us on AB! Only losers stay on Guk!" Must have forgotten to read Carnegie's How to Win Friends....) Only spammed his message once, then slinked back to AB with his tail between his legs like the whipped dog he was. Rather funny, I thought!

OK clearly you cant read between the line of what is being asked... lets put it this way u have EXP only on one server? good for you play on the rest or understand the back history outside of just yours. Moving players from AB will solve what ?. Less people in contested zones easier to quest not have 100 people killing your mobs. so what you can move just yourself not your guild or anything else u worked years for you with you? sounds fantastic NOT!. The reason why people bring up merger is all servers are dead you can stand there and say not dead all day long. If the current game was populated on all servers this whole thread would be about sure i would move without an issue besides guild hall. Guess what it is all about getting more people on the servers so they don't have to even attempt a merger again which went so bad for them of months of fixing it but in the end saved the game for a few years.

As more people leave and go to WoW,SWTOR,RIft,Tera,GW2 and whatever game they want the servers are dropping again. No one in their right mind would leave a server like AB to go anywhere else if the reason why they play is to have a community simple fact. u have 100 active players per server at best these days active as in ( raiding / grouping ) what are the chances of you as a player getting a group? VERY damn slim over the years AB as always been fast to group compared to other servers but wait you can bring up the i group with my guild i have no issues getting a group.... if that is the case what the hell does it matter which server you on if u only group with guild u can be on a server with 25 people and just your guild you would be happy. for most of us we want more then just the limited people in a guild.

You can Raid, Group, RP, PVP, on any server all this does is lower the population on one to give a very few mount to others which will only help with server lag for them period. Less of us complaining and after this is all said and done u will have less people on AB and make that server more in line with the rest dead.

Lets make everyone happy. Give people free transfer to leave AB ( what Daybreak wants ) and lets merge a few servers and give what the people who pay for the game wants for over 2 years.

I would have to agree with the majority of posters here... The most enjoyable option for the players, and probably the wisest option for continued longevity of the game would be to merge servers rather than offer character transfers.

Personally - I would say to take it a step further - merge everything into one mega-server with instancing for more highly populated zones and the ability to change to your friends' instances for grouping purposes (or automatic instance transitions for groups/raids). This would liven up the in-game economy and give everyone the opportunity to explore the content they want to explore - which there is a LOT of by now..

...

Granted - there is a lot more time, effort (and therefore $$$) involved in implementing such a thing than there is in just opening up some free character transfers, and I'm sure that is one of the factors here, on a game that is well past its 'golden years'.

I am sure this has been said but I wanted to state my own case and experience.

I moved about 6 toons from Everfrost to AB because EF was deader than a door nail. I would spend hours sometimes entire days LFG. Most of my guildies (The Art of War) moved to AB and formed another guild. I had already decided to move my raid main to AB before that (because EF has like 3 HM raid guilds and I know AoW had a hard time recruiting people because the same people were just trading back and forth in those other 3 guilds.
I like AB, I like that I can get a group without looking for the whole day and actually manage to complete zones.
I still have a guild and toons on EF (One Tree Hill) but I wouldn't take my toons from AB back to EF not unless there was a merge of some form. I saw the numbers something like close to 200k people estimated on EF but someone would have to tell me where these people are. 90% of the time most of the chat is trolling and arguing, there's hardly ever anyone in the new AoM overland zones.
It's nice on AB, there are usually 2 or more instances of the overland zones. It's not hard to find a group etc. While I may love my current guild mates and we group a lot together that's not the only reason for not moving.

Why can't DBGs simply merge 2 of the least populated servers together and THEN offer a move? It makes no sense to expect the thousands or so of us who've moved to AB for population reasons to move when nothing on the other servers has changed.

I understand that some people MIGHT take a transfer but I personally don't see a good reason to do so if the other servers are still slow.

*Based on my own experiences and only on EF but I also know folks from Nagafen, Unrest and Crushbone who've moved to AB for similar reasons.