I'm not sure what you've been arguing about with the other poster, but if you don't think certain servers need serious help please log on to mine sometime and check it out.

I think you've got me mixed up with somebody else. My server has a ridiculously low population and people keep telling me I'm making it up. I'm in favor of merging it with another server.

That was after a server restart though, this is almost primetime.

Anyone who thinks I'm lying please I invite you to log on my server (the Defenestrator) and see for yourself.

I'm not even sure if you're serious, but if you did not know: Log onto a server. Type /who. In the search field type a level range. So if you typed '1-5' it will show you all people online leveled 1-5. I did this, added it up, and came to those numbers. There is nothing 'magical' about it and I am not making anything up. If you want to see how many level 50s there are, you put '50' in the box. If you want to see all the people on Hoth, put 'Hoth' in the box. For most 'heavy' to 'full' servers you will put in 1-10 and it will cap out at 100 results, but my server is so low in population that I can typically go from 1-20 without even reaching the 100 person limit on the search.

It is now 6:30PM EST and there are: 11 people in the imperial fleet. 89 people leveled 1-25 74 people leveled 26-49 2 level 50s For a total of: 176 imperial players Something needs to be done!

At 5:30PM EST my server, the Defenestrator had 3 level 50s online and a total of about 160 people online. I'm happy that your server is active and fun, but this server desperately needs to be merged with another server.

I've had to abandon nearly all of them. Of course there are usually only about 10 people on any planet I'm leveling on.

Long post ahead. Skip to the TLDR at the bottom for the gist of it. Lately my server, The Defenestrator, has become a ghost town. At various points last night I counted (using /who results) a total of slightly over 200 imperials TOTAL online across all planets and levels, with typically around 20 in the fleet (this is on the imperial side). It is my opinion that this makes for a poor gameplay experience with those people who rolled characters on this server, but I have seen a whole lot of pushback from people who either don't fully understand the issue or refuse to believe it's a problem entirely. These are the primary arguments I have been seeing. 1. You are exaggerating. There are always a lot of people online on my server. I am happy that your server is busy and doing well. That is how I would like my server to be as well, but unfortunately it is not, otherwise I would be happily playing instead of writing this post. Also, I am not exaggerating. At the moment there are 13 people in the fleet, including me. It is 5:26PM EST and this is an east coast server. 2. It just looks like there aren't many people, but really they are spread out across all the planets. I am not basing this on casual observation of people I actually see in the game, but instead based on /who search results. For example, at this moment (it is now 5:30PM EST) I did a "/who 1-25" and came up with a number of 74. I then did a "/who 26-50" and came up with a number of 79. That leaves a TOTAL of 153 players who are online across all levels and planets at this time on this server. 3. Ok so your server sucks, suck it up and reroll. This is a shortsighted way of fixing the problem. For one, I will lose all progress I have made on all of my characters. I will have to start from scratch with my many alts, try to recreate everything I have done with them, and redo entire storylines for all of them that I don't really feel like doing. That aside, the main problem with that idea is that the server will STILL be there, STILL be low population, and now will have even one less person playing on it. This is what has caused the population to spiral out of control the way it has. People got used to the super 'full' servers with 150+ in the fleet at all times and did not like seeing only 60 people in the fleet and therefore they left and/or rerolled. 4. This is what you get for rolling on a low pop server. This server opened on launch day. At the time, Bioware was attempting to direct people to these new servers by artificially setting the cap on the old servers really low, thus causing long queue times for everybody. I had convinced several friends to give it a try, and rather than wait in line for a queue we decided to start on one of the many new servers. The server was not low population on launch day. No servers were. In fact, over the first few weeks the server was fine, with fleet regularly having over 60 people in it (horribly low for some people, but huge from my point of view). Over time people left. I don't know if they quit or went back to their old servers, but the population has plummeted and the game is suffering because of it. 5. It is too early to merge the servers. Give it time for things to even out. It's interesting that I see this point of view from people on high pop servers. What is happening can easily be seen from people using argument 3 (reroll). The former players of these low pop servers are migrating towards the higher population servers because that's what everyone keeps telling them to do. Over the past few weeks things have spiraled out of control. Does anybody honestly think that it's a good thing that my server has only 153 imperials TOTAL online at 5:30PM EST? Most servers have more than that sitting in their fleet. 6. If they merged servers people would complain about a queue that didn't have one before. These argument is from people that don't realize just how LOW the population is on some of these servers. Do you think you'd even notice if there were 153 new imperials playing on your server in one evening? Aside from that, I do not wish to merge low servers with full servers. My recommendation is to first merge low pop servers together, and then if necessary merge them with a normal server. 7. If they merge I might lose my name or guild name. I agree, this is never fun for anybody. Odds are though that it's the 'low' pop people who would have to change their names to fit into your server, not the other way around. I would be disappointed in changing a few names, but I think it would be worth it for the long term health of the game. 8. Merging servers is bad PR. I understand this, I really do. I know that some of the game's detractors would have a field day with this. But do we really want marketing controlling what happens in this game? The thing is, I don't really care what those people think. I want what's best for this game. If I keep happily playing on this server and find that there are only 3 other level 50s online (as of 5:48 PM EST), I imagine it wouldn't be too long before I would find something else to do from frustration. Three level 50 people total. At this moment, the whole sith side of this server can't even get a single flashpoint going. 9. There are more important issues. Nobody cares. It is easy to not care about the situation on these low population servers. It's the same thing if the game constantly crashes for users of a certain brand of graphics card. Yours doesn't crash, so who cares right? At the end of the day, all of these things matter. I love the game so sooner or later I'd probably suck it up and unhappily reroll, but I guarantee you that there will be some people who have invested enough time that they will decide to just quit. Also if the server remains as it is new people might purchase the game and unknowingly create characters there. They will play and have fun for a while, but might wonder why they are playing a subscription to play a game with nobody else around? Why can I never find anything I need on the market? Why does nobody ever buy anything I list? Before you know it, you may have lost another customer. TLDR: Some of these low pop servers (particularly the Defenestrator) are HURTING and need HELP in the way of server merges. I love the game, I really do. I just want to play it with other people.

I see this over and over. How exactly will an additional person LEAVING a low pop server help solve the problem?

This is incorrect since my server was light and it is an east coast server. I think some people are getting the two issues confused. Server merges would help fix the unpopulated servers, but would not help faction imbalance which is a completely different issue.

I don't think you understand just how low a population my server is. I'm not talking about combining two 'heavy' servers into a 'full' server, I'm talking about joining my server which barely has 20 people in the fleet during primetime to another server which may have 80 or so people to make 1 'standard' server. It is one thing for a server to be 'homey', but a completely different thing when it is practically empty.

Yes I think I am coming to that conclusion as well, which is a shame because I really do not feel like leveling all of my crew skills again. I like my characters, and the few people I've met have been great people as well. Also, when I convinced a few RL friends to give the game a chance I told them to roll on my server (back when it was more populated). I don't know if they will want to move with me or not.

It was not low on launch day, no servers were. I did not roll on the server expecting it to be low. Yes, we can reroll (and I just may) but, as I've said many times in this thread, that does nothing to fix the problem. The server is still there, it just has one less person on it (making it even slightly worse for those left behind). If you are suggesting that everyone on that server reroll elsewhere then what's the difference between merging it with another and shutting it down? Would it be better for everyone on the server to reroll and leave an empty server on the list for no reason? I just logged and there were 9 people in the fleet. NINE PEOPLE (well until I logged, then 8). It's 10:40PM EST, there should be loads of people playing now. Something needs to be done!

Not to mention I might be able to find something I want on the market, or actually have people around to buy what I post.

No, it's not common sense for those of us who rolled on the server on launch day when Bioware purposefully throttled the full and heavy servers into having hour long queue times to move people into the newer servers. Plus, there was a time when this server actually went to 'heavy' at primetime, but that time has long since passed.

Haha, I think some of us on the low population servers are a bit testy because people from other servers keep telling us that there is no problem.

Look, I'm very happy with you that your server has a high population, but that does not mean that those of us looking to get our servers merged are making things up. I love the game, but it's hard to play the 'MM' part of the game when there are slightly over 220 people TOTAL across all levels on my side during primetime. Despite that I'm enjoying myself, but I realized that I was basically playing a single player game. I can't make use of the market and I can rarely find flashpoint groups because there just aren't enough people.

Sadly it appears as if my server is one of only 2 'light' servers in the game (at the time of this post). Bad luck for me and anybody else who rolled there I suppose. It was fine at launch, but for whatever reason everyone has left.

Ok, it is 8:34PM EST and there are now 26 people in the fleet and 224 people TOTAL across all levels and planets (sith side).

That is very easy to say when you are not playing on an empty server.

I think you presume too much. First, I never begged them to open servers (check my post history). Second, I, as well as many others, believed that the super long queue servers were too full and tried to do the right thing and balance the population out by starting on a 'new' server on launch day.

There are currently 6 level 50s logged on. It seems that there are certain servers that are just ridiculously overpopulated and other servers that are nearly empty. I would be thrilled to see even 60 people in the fleet at once.

Many have said this, and believe me I just might end up doing that... but that would not fix the problem, it would only make it worse. The server would still be there, just with one less person on it. Edit: Had the wrong quote in there.

I said that in the title of my original post, and it was true at the time. The only other place I went to at the time was Taris, which had 2 people on it (including me). I could maybe understand that at 5am, but not in the middle of the day. If you are curious, it is 8:04PM EST and there are now 20 people in the fleet and 205 people total across all planets and level ranges (sith side only).