The consequences of server transfers vs merging

Merge merge merge

At the very least, they could do what SWTOR did and allow one free transfers of all of your characters to a specific server, then they can analyse which servers need to be merged and force it.

I agree, no server should go below high pop at primetime. Few servers are even making it to medium these days. I play on mattherson, one of the most well populated servers in the game and we cant even max out one cont. I can imagine how low pop srvers feel, amerish on all conts ugh.

Merge the servers SOE, merge the servers. Just admit you made too many servers.

negative

The over-riding issue here is the WHY they are offering it at all. This isn't some option of little import or because a few friends want to get together.

No, the whole urgency is population imbalances. THAT should be the priority fix... leaving it up the customer base to solve the imbalance is what put SOE into this position. Taking a little more money from me to perpetuate the problem is not a fix.

All they are doing to taking a bigger cut from the chaos.

The only reason NOT to merge servers is because of the perceptual negative press it might give everyone who isn't playing that the game isn't the huge success SOE and other pundits claim it is. This means SOE will do the same thing Anet did... and drag it out 6-12 mos before finally taking action. It's the "Elephant in the room" all over again.

Well it's unlikely they're going to change their minds, but the best chance we have to convince them is strong community support on this issue, so keep this thread going, add your thoughts.

The sad thing is - is it more important that the press and people who don't play your game are concerned it's dying, or that your very player base is concerned because they actually see it dying?
People on low population servers are getting bored and leaving the game. I have a hard time motivating myself to log onto Genudine and looking for a 10v10 fight somewhere. And I like playing on my Connery account, but after 15k+ certs in my main character I don't want to start over again.

Every day we delay merging is a day you lose more people. In an effort to avoid the impression that your game is dying, you're going to make it actually die.

So a game that is 'free' to download and 'free' to play should also provide 'free' server transfers???? You know WoW used to charge for transfers (probably still do) and they make you pay for every expansion and charge £12 a month to play their game.

WTF is it with you people that seem to think everything should just be free!!!!

Managing server numbers and population is a fundamental part of the game that they're screwing up, so yes, it's unreasonable to ask us to pay to do the job they should be doing. They have rightly recognized that the F2P players are basically the content to people who play, but if they don't let F2P players move, and servers die, then those players just quit. And having people quit is bad for the game in general, for both F2P and pay players.

I'm trying to look out for the long term health of this game. I've probably put at least 5x as much money into this game than you have, so don't talk down to me. If it was just me, I'd pay 3000sc for a transfer easily. But others won't. And those that won't will quit the game, which is bad for me. And you. And everyone.

Transferring from a dead server to a live one isn't like asking for some cosmetic upgrade or an unlocked gun. It fundamentally affects whether you can play the game as its intended to be played or not. It's an issue that will keep this game on its current path to losing players unless they do something to fix it, which hurts the paying players just as much.

Just let people transfer for free asap and as many times as they like. SOE (especially Smedley) already have a terrible reputation for killing off their games and this will be the last chance many people are giving them as they said they were doing things differently this time. It's quite clear that they were expecting this to be a much much bigger game than it is and were expecting it to grow too based on the server list (many servers not even up yet). So it hasn't worked out as you expected SOE, move quickly and it's still salvagable, don't and it will become so niche that only two 'hardcore' guys from each faction will keep playing (who btw will love the fact that all the 'COD kids' and 'whiners' have left).

WoW has content that isn't entirely dependent on many other players playing the game at the same time (and has managed to retain a playerbase). PS2 needs free players as they are the content. SOE realise this which is why the game is f2p. I've spent around $70 on it but I won't spend any more until I feel like it might last a bit longer.

Pure speculation, but I'm guessing that they will give it a couple of months after introducing paid server transfers for people to use those, then start looking at merging the servers that still have population issues.

What is it with you people that completely ignore the point that is population problems(tokens are a bad solution) and choose to rant about "entitlements" instead of simply not saying anything? Are the entitlement guys harassing you so much you have to come and randomly vent about it on videogame forums? I'm sorry, man.

It's not gonna die just because some people who got stuck on the bad servers don't want to pay for the transfer. That is assuming SOE doesn't attempt to create a influx of new players to the lowpop servers specifically which they pretty much have to if they're not dumb and have the means. But that will take time.

PS1 was the same and was P2P. F2P exists because it is more profitable nowadays.

Do you really think they would devalue the tokens so soon? They got to wait to do that, I think.

It's a bit past midnight. I did instant action on the hottest hotspot in the game (Regent Rock Garrison at the moment) - and did a /who after I landed.

I am attacking as VS - there were 3 other VS present. In the BIGGEST battle of the game currently. This is on Connery, the most populated US West coast server.

At this time of night there'd be more action in Planetside 1. As a matter of fact, there are more people logged into Saga of Ryzom right now than logged into Connery.

Merge the damn servers already. Please.

If I was SOE... I'd sit tight on any server mergers until I got the rendering in order.
I play on the same server as the OP.
It's not the busiest server.
Getting smooth frames in the larger battles and still noticing rendering issues even though it's NOT a hopping server.
How are the busy servers? Rendering issues a daily occurence?

I found out this game just a couple of weeks ago and loved it right away... I came from COD, than BF but this is much more interesting, maybe because I'm 40
I don't mind much for the OP weapons, vehicles and so on, those are problems which get solved sooner or later.
But I really think that Merging servers is at the moment the only solution to save the game from sure death....
immagine 2 Pubs, one is small but crowded, the other one is big but almost empty, maybe there is more people in the big one but the other one is the one you will suggest to your friends, so pop will soon grown, the destiny of a almost empty pub is to Close.
I like F2P games but I do lime invest money on fun, but like this I believe I'll be wasting it.
Please Merge! ..... really..... please save this game

They don't have a couple of months. On the lower population server this game is dying fast. It becomes a cycle - people stop being able to find big fights, so they leave, which leaves even fewer people around for big fights, so more people leave.... Genudine is rapidly imploding. I'm having trouble finding fights with more than 10 people involved even during primetime. It may not even last 2 more weeks until the patch, let alone several months.

It's already dying even before the tokens are available. One tokens are available, and half the population of Genudine transfers, there's no way the server survives after that. There biggest fights in primetime will be like 8v8. No one is going to stick around for that.

And SOE shouldn't incentivize joining low population servers. If you have too many servers for your population, telling people to join the low pop ones doesn't help.

Let's say there were 3 servers. One has 1500, one has 1000, one has 500. The solution isn't to give a bonus to the point to join teh smaller ones, otherwise you just end up with (ideally) 3 servers with 1000 people. The solution is to merge them, so now you have a decently active server with 3000 people.

But what if merging isn't a possibility? I posted that assuming it isn't. Because if it isn't a possibility the servers' only hope is a influx of new players. Which of course has its own inherent problems, but may be the only solution. You could interpret the tokens as temporary abandonment(/genius free cashgrab) of the servers until they can work on getting new players to populate them. But I might be wrong, maybe they are already trying their hardest right now to get new players despite how stupid that can be considering the state of the game, I don't know. Doesn't make sense to leave severely underpopulated servers open, anyway. Don't listen to my conspiracy theories.

SOE is under the false impression, that people will come back or they can intice new people to the game.

Maybe after a huge amount of patching and PR, but i doubt it. You only get 1 chance at a First Impression

Wow was a success unlike PS2 which is dying.