Server Merge Arguments

[Apomf]

I agree with the OP. On my server (EU PvP) Rep population is just too low for an enjoyable gaming expierence. And this server is one of the better ones population wise. Please let this sink in.

 

BW messed up here at launch, but stuff like that happens. I wouldnt be angry about this if they just would admit it and move on to ways of fixing the problem.

[Wizzrobe]

This game also provides something that many MMOs out there dont have and thats companions.Its perfectly viable to solo without the help of any groups all the way up until level 50.If you cant then youve somehow managed to gimp your character or you really suck and thats no one elses fault but your own.

 

There are other options out there but you refuse to take advantage of them.Last point I want to make is that if you'd devoted a tenth of the time starting a character as youve done lobbying on these forums you could be level 40 by now.

 

This is ridiculous. Why would people pay a monthly subscription to play to level 50 with only their companions around? I can just play Mass Effect (or most any other RPG) and get the same experience without paying a monthly fee.

 

And I seem to have annoyed you. Tough. The low population problem is not going away, it's only getting worse. You can stick your head in the sand if you want, but it's obvious you play on a populated server and are not concerned about the issue. Ironically at the beginning of your post you attempt to call me out by saying I'm selfishly looking out for my wants when it's apparent that you are the one only concerned about your own experience.

 

Guess what, I've already rerolled to a heavy server... and I still think it's a problem that needs addressing. So how is that me only caring about my wants? If you think the game is great with only your companions around I recommend starting a character on my server (listed in my sig). You should have a blast.

[Mannic]

It's 7:45 PM PST. Across all NA servers, 15 are heavy or better.

 

There are more Light servers right now (16) than heavy. Over 100 servers are "standard' or "light" right now. Even on the West Coast, where it is undeniably prime time, only 1/3 of the servers are above standard.

 

2 weeks ago, there were over 50 heavy servers in NA at this time. If anyone tries to argue that the activity level hasn't dropped WAY off in this game they are being totally disingenuous, or else they are just ignorant.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Mannic

[Valin_Thren]

I support server merges, but I would like us to wait another month or so. It's still less than two months from launch and server populations are nowhere near stable. I realize it'd suck for some to wait a month or two to be able to do anything, but I'd rather be too careful than suddenly have ten servers with hour-long queues.

[Vaalix]

But... But... They have 1.7 million active sunscribers. How can this be?

[Wizzrobe]

I support server merges, but I would like us to wait another month or so. It's still less than two months from launch and server populations are nowhere near stable. I realize it'd suck for some to wait a month or two to be able to do anything, but I'd rather be too careful than suddenly have ten servers with hour-long queues.

 

I agree that the server populations aren't stable, but I would argue that the populations are moving away from the low pop servers towards the heavy pop servers.

 

At least that seems to be the case with my server.

[kerviz]

15 is a lot at my server Farakhan Crystal at 5am EST there is maybe 5 people on repub fleet and even less thats right less on imperial side o.O

[Mannic]

I agree that the server populations aren't stable, but I would argue that the populations are moving away from the low pop servers towards the heavy pop servers.

 

At least that seems to be the case with my server.

 

Nope. If that was the case, the heavy pop servers would be seeing increased activity level, or at least hold steady. They are not. Even Swiftsure and Harbinger right now are only "heavy" and before this they were Very Heavy or Full from about 5:00 PST into the early hours of the A.M. every night, even on weeknights.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Mannic

[Wizzrobe]

Nope. If that was the case, the heavy pop servers would be seeing increased activity level, or at least hold steady. They are not. Even Swiftsure and Harbinger right now are only "heavy" and before this they were Very Heavy or Full from about 5:00 PST into the early hours of the A.M. every night, even on weeknights.

 

I've just observed that the population on my server has decreased rather rapidly over the past 2-3 weeks. I began the process of rerolling on a large server and there has been a decent amount of chatter in the low level zones of people rerolling from low pop servers.

 

Anecdotal evidence for sure, but since I'm basically doing the same thing it's believable.

 

I tend not to pay too much attention to the server status's since they are arbitrary designations that Bioware can readily change without any of us really knowing about it.

[kerviz]

and yea most of the players on my server are talking about rerolling to a high pop server and a few have already done so

[solo-nite]

They do need to merge servers, the EU server i am on Progenitor is a really ghost town. At first (before they added more servers) yes it was full but it was amazing even til late but after they added a ton of servers our server population has gotten worse.

 

They need to merge servers together and have less servers with a great population, I mean before they added more servers on it was a pain because of the queues but that's because the server's populations were low now the mad rush is over with merge the servers back please.

 

If BW are not willing to merge servers please allow us to transfer to as higher populated server - I haven't got to 50 yet but i am close, I don't want to lose my toon and legacy, thanks

Edited February 3, 2012 by solo-nite

[terminova]

Like many things, give it time. Server merges will come when Bioware deems them necessary.

[marshalleck]

It's fine guys, there are 1.7 million subscribers!

[PeacefulViolence]

I say eliminate sharding altogether until the games population starts to go up. Edited February 3, 2012 by PeacefulViolence

[GalacticKegger]

Server merges are an absolute last resort as subscribers should have their choice of where they want to play. But they can't make that choice until BW stops dorking around with the server status thresholds. They should spend a week making light, normal, heavy and full represent the exact same population range on every server, then allow a free 3-week one-time-only voluntary main account transfer. They do that and the community will all but fix this mess for them. Edited February 3, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[NateCG]

I'm on Telos Restoration Project. I joined when it said Standard population with an IRL friend and planned to start a guild and make it our home server. Now it's Light population and near dead all day. On each planet beyond the lvl 1-20 zones, you'll often see 2 people when you type /who and that's including yourself. I'm already feeling the boredom set in. Yes the leveling experience is the best out of any MMO I've played. But with no one to talk to and run with, it gets boring quick. If they don't announce a server merge here soon, I'll likely unsub.

 

I checked other servers via torstatus to see how their populations are trending and almost everyone is trending downward. So the only option for us is to jump ship to the higher populated servers. But this forces us to start new characters which most don't want to do. I know people will say, "It's only 50 levels and not that hard to do it over quickly. You're just complaining." Understandable, but I'd rather not have to use up that time doing something that has a more simple remedy, which is optional server switches or mergers.

 

I love the storyline and concepts and all. But I did sign up for the MMO part of the game, not just the RPG. I'd like a Massive amount of people rather than 2. If I missed a Dev talking about upcoming server merges (as in the next few weeks) let me know.

 

Thanks for reading. Take care guys!

[Jett-Rinn]

OP You don't need to convince us....we have nothing to do with it; Bioware doesn't feel it's a wise move at this time case closed.

[byteresistor]

I say eliminate sharding altogether until the games population starts to go up.

That doesn't solve anything. The game starts to split people into different shards once there's 200 players in the same zone. Low pop servers never have 200 people in the same zone to begin with.

[Jackobite]

1. You are exaggerating. There are always a lot of people online on my server.

 

This one makes my jaw drop open,

 

Im not sure if the people who say it are completely self centred or if they are suggesting a move to their server (without telling you which server they are on)

 

The one thing im seeing on my fairly quiet server is its not getting any better, Im not convinced everyone has left the game but a big chunk of people have definitely left the server for a better filled one.

This drop makes even more people reroll and the circle begins.

 

At this moment Id pay to move my two main guys.

[Jett-Rinn]

Also keep in mind that Bioware has to deal with an extremely well organized ( and some say well funded) hate machine; merging servers would elicit no end of howling and catcalls about the game dying.......I do believe there are some legitimate concerns but a lot of he calls to merge servers are to put more chum in the forum waters.

[GalacticKegger]

1. You are exaggerating. There are always a lot of people online on my server.

 

This one makes my jaw drop open,

 

Im not sure if the people who say it are completely self centred or if they are suggesting a move to their server (without telling you which server they are on)

 

The one thing im seeing on my fairly quiet server is its not getting any better, Im not convinced everyone has left the game but a big chunk of people have definitely left the server for a better filled one.

This drop makes even more people reroll and the circle begins.

 

At this moment Id pay to move my two main guys.

BioWare . . . you reading this?

 

Actually, they are working on this and will soon be using live character transfers to the PTS as a model. (One of many incentives to get more players on the test servers.) Just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

 

[edit] I'm on Mask of Nihilus and it rocks every friggin night & weekends. There are groups forming all the time (world boss ops are not uncommon) and even guilds spamming chat looking to recruit for 16s. I took a screen of one tonight and I'll add it as soon as I can find it.

 

[edit] Found it: http://www.galactickegger.com/SWTOR/Screenshot_2012-02-02_19_48_31_312500.jpg. The 7:48 is US CST and the server is a west coast server. So many weren't even home from work yet.

Edited February 3, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Wizzrobe]

BioWare . . . you reading this?

 

Actually, they are working on this and will soon be using live character transfers to the PTS as a model. (One of many incentives to get more players on the test servers.) Just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

 

[edit] I'm on Mask of Nihilus and it rocks every friggin night & weekends. There are groups forming all the time (world boss ops are not uncommon) and even guilds spamming chat looking to recruit for 16s. I took a screen of one tonight and I'll add it as soon as I can find it.

 

[edit] Found it: http://www.galactickegger.com/SWTOR/Screenshot_2012-02-02_19_48_31_312500.jpg. The 7:48 is US CST and the server is a west coast server. So many weren't even home from work yet.

 

I hope you are correct in that there will be some sort of transfer option soon.

 

I would be quite disappointed though if they tried to charge all the people on these low pop servers to help fix a problem they created in the first place.

 

And yeah it looks like your server is doing well (as is 'Mind Trick', the server I've rerolled some characters to). The game is far more enjoyable playing with a health population.

[solo-nite]

I been checking the server I am on it's currently 2pm (fri) and there is hardly anyone on my server yet on a East coast server which it's something like 8am there is the same amount of people on.

 

So even at early morning it's about the same amount of people on at afternoon here in UK??

 

Seriously BW sort it out I don't want to have to re-roll my toon on a US server just to feel like it's a MMO again not just a RPG. I was at Hoth doing quests last night and it was like 2 people on, it just seems boring

[GalacticKegger]

I hope you are correct in that there will be some sort of transfer option soon.

 

I would be quite disappointed though if they tried to charge all the people on these low pop servers to help fix a problem they created in the first place.

 

And yeah it looks like your server is doing well (as is 'Mind Trick', the server I've rerolled some characters to). The game is far more enjoyable playing with a health population.

Per Stephen Reid's podcast from last Thursday, the soon part is enabling live characters to be transferred (copied) to a PTS. Once that system proves reliable then they'll have the confidence to patch it into the game.

 

@Jackobite hit the nail on the head. Queues caused impatient players to kneejerk and reroll mains on low pop servers to avoid login queues. Those who stuck it out on their original servers while BW reworked the pop caps (myself included) now have their mains on healthy populated servers; while the ones that rerolled have mains on low pop servers. So the next logical kneejerk reaction becomes players rerolling (again) back onto on high pop servers which is dwindling the active player counts on the low population servers.

 

In hindsight BioWare probably should not have added more servers except to address a genuine overpopulation crisis. They probably remember what happened during WoW's launch and overeacted. They also should not have played to the impatience of the mob by recommending they reroll on other servers to buy time. I think that was a king-sized mistake on their part. I'm sure EA had a hand in that decision. Live and learn.

 

The really funny part is - had players just patiently stayed put when they first joined the community we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now players constantly rerolling on different servers to chase high population counts has done nothing but create a moving target for BW.

Edited February 3, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Wizzrobe]

Per Stephen Reid's podcast from last Thursday, the soon part is enabling live characters to be transferred (copied) to a PTS. Once that system proves reliable then they'll have the confidence to patch it into the game.

 

@Jackobite hit the nail on the head. Queues caused impatient players to kneejerk and reroll mains on low pop servers to avoid login queues. Those who stuck it out on their original servers while BW reworked the pop caps (myself included) now have their mains on healthy populated servers; while the ones that rerolled have mains on low pop servers. So the next logical kneejerk reaction becomes players rerolling (again) back onto on high pop servers which is dwindling the active player counts on the low population servers.

 

In hindsight BioWare probably should not have added more servers except to address a genuine overpopulation crisis. They probably remember what happened during WoW's launch and overeacted. They also should not have played to the impatience of the mob by recommending they reroll on other servers to buy time. I think that was a king-sized mistake on their part. I'm sure EA had a hand in that decision. Live and learn.

 

The really funny part is - had players just patiently stayed put when they first joined the community we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now players constantly rerolling on different servers to chase high population counts has done nothing but create a moving target for BW.

 

Although I agree with the majority of your post, I don't think it's appropriate to blame the 'mob' of new players for being impatient or for their 'kneejerk' reactions as it is Bioware who purposefully raised the queue times to encourage people to move to the new servers.

 

Also recall that all servers at launch were listed as 'heavy' or 'full'. Due to the artificial limitations Bioware placed on the servers it made the new servers appear far more populated than they actually were, leading a lot of people to think they were doing the right thing by rolling there.

 

One last point is that a lot of people got the game at or very close to launch (Christmas present) and had no idea which servers were the prelaunch and which were the new, they just didn't want to wait 2 hours to play their new game. Can you blame them?