The game needs server merges

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by dirgenoobforreal, Dec 18, 2019.

  1. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    This is an MMORPG and you need people to play this game. Yes its nice grouping with a guild but sometimes guildies cant be on so you turn to pugs. I am yet to see a single PUG announcement on my server. I went to check on server status just now and surprising (at least to me, not a single server report a high population). This is on day 2 of a brand new expansion. This was during US prime time, Thurgadin had 58 who all returns at this hour (4 (my server) and during prime time it was medium. Obviously merging Thurgadin isnt an option, but it would allow players to transfers to another server with more players and there are already europeans and aussies playing on NA servers.

    Please just take the PR hit and give the players players to play with. Its been asked for years and I firmly believe its for the better of the game to do so.

    [IMG]
    Feldon likes this.
  2. Kittik Well-Known Member

    So at 11pm on a work/school night server population of actual servers are medium and test/beta/Rivervale (we all knew that was going to fail) servers are low?

    Not sure what the issue is here.
    Dude likes this.
  3. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    This was at 9pm EST on day 2 of Luclin.... If you dont see an issue I dont know what to tell you.
    Feldon likes this.
  4. dorotea Well-Known Member

    I am too newly returned to have a valid opinion about population densities. But I do have an opinion about forced mergers and that opinion is please - no!

    Lower population servers have many advantages. On average people tend to be nicer and more helpful. You don't need to stand in line and take a number before harvesting resources or finding mobs to kill for a quest. As with any MMO EQ2 has some people that prefer a quieter and less competitive home in the game and some people that care only about raids or the most difficult group content at level-cap and therefore fixate on finding a lot of people on. Quite reasonably for *their* playstyle but quite *unreasonably* from the perspective of many other players.

    So leave a variety of choices available - those that want high population can play on Maj Dul if that is still the highest population server. Those that prefer things otherwise can avoid it like the plague.

    Mergers cost people and guilds their names and destroy communities. Many people just leave - so you can have half the servers but they will *not* have double the population each. Just ….no.

    If you the developers feel you should do something about population - I highly recommend a less intrusive approach. Deeply discount transfers for a few weeks or even make them free. Let people on servers that are too "dead" for their personal styles leave. Let those on servers that are too crowded for them also leave. See how it all works out. If at the end of the process a server is so empty that you feel it is too expensive to maintain it you can always shut it down. Bad for those that stayed there but no worse than a forced merger and at least the server had *some* chance to survive.
    Dude, Siren and Fangrim like this.
  5. Vunder Well-Known Member


    Don't waste your time on him. He trolls every post.
  6. Vunder Well-Known Member

    You could safely merge everything into a mega server. Or at the very least 2 servers.
  7. Errrorr An Actual EQ2 Player

    I'd personally never trust the server status page. Unless there is some info on the metrics behind it, it's all guesswork.

    I'm not so sure the issue is server population, more the fact that the game has become less and less friendly over the years to;
    • Casual Players
    • Players forming PUGs
    • Content longevity beyond grinding.
    • Alt unfriendliness
    However I'm not going to hold my breath on any of the above, so perhaps server merges are the future. Although what do we suggest when only 1 server left?
    Dude likes this.
  8. dorotea Well-Known Member

    >. Although what do we suggest when only 1 server left? <

    Pantheon. By then it may have launched.
  9. Silver-Crow Member

    I've probably played more EQ than EQ2 of late, but this is an interesting point that applys to both games.

    First up, i would always take the population charts with a pinch of salt... what is low/med/high.... well anything they want it to be. In the past it could have been 1/400/800, today it's probably more like 1/100/300. I would just log on to the server and have a nose around and get a feel for a server, rather than trust the charts for anything other than a quick comparison between servers.

    As to the server lifecycle.

    When a server opens, no-one really knows anyone and content is usually pretty easy and relaxed. As a result pugs are prevalent and if you get Drongo the "Mighty" or Ninja_afk the healer in your team, you can usually get away with it, or at a push kick them and get a replacement.

    As servers go on and you enter the mid life of the server, content gets harder, and people just don't want to risk getting into one of those bad drongo/ninja groups, so they gravitate towards grouping with people they know, typically your guildies or boxes, and rely less on pugs.

    The main problem with later expansions is that they're much smaller than they used to be, and the server population is usually top heavy. If you have too many people vying for the same spawns, then you get alot of annoyed players as invariably there are some entitled asshats that don't give a monkeys about anyone else.

    On the other hand when you get to a servers late life, where the rate of players leaving the server exceeds the new blood, and guilds start folding, for me, is the point that something needs to be done.

    Server merges are always contentious affairs... names being unavailable, different economies, and generally people feeling they've been pushed rather than it being a choice. I've always advocated for free server transfers for all players when a server gets to life support. That way it's up to the players if they want to jump ship to a more populated server. This would mean guilds could move as a whole, and keep the tranches of the population together.

    I've also suggested in the past when servers reach the dead status e.g less than 10 players at peak times, then the old server should be 'sunsetted', and instead of being able to log into that server, the only option you have at character select is to transfer your character. This would allow you to decom the servers in the background as necessary, but returning players would still be able to retrieve their characters and go to whicher destination suits them.

    At the end of the day it's probably down to bean counting as this is a business and needs to pay it's way. it will be interesting to see if anything comes of the Darkpaw Games thing, as if that's in the pipeline, i doubt DBG will do anything for now.
  10. Kittik Well-Known Member

    Out of the first two pages of these forums I've posted on two threads. But if this is your way to justify not listening to people then good for you. We all live within our own reality.