A request for merging of the slower servers in NA:

[Mannic]

Last Wednesday night I started this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=197159 where a few of us monitored the state of servers throughout the night. I wanted to get a thread on record prior to the end of the initial 30-day period.

 

On Wednesday the 25th I monitored the servers again, so we would have an apples-to-apples comparison. Both nights were middle-of-the-week, same day of the week, and not affected by holidays or any other major events. On both nights, peak activity in North America hit at around 7:00 PM PST (10 PM EST) which makes sense. PST players are playing after work and dinner, and EST players have not yet gone to bed en masse.

 

On the 18th, there ended up being 58 heavy or full servers at ~ 7 PM PST, a little less than half of all NA servers.

 

On the 25th, there were 23 heavy or full servers, less than 20% of NA serversr. And this was at peak, not in the middle of the work day. To me this result is well outside the margin-of-error and indicative of a clear drop in activity.

 

Given this and the steady complaints we're hearing about dead servers, it's time for Bioware to consider targeted server merges.

 

The only real argument I've seen against server merges is that it's bad PR for a developer to admit that the population of its game is dwindling so soon after release. Presumably, this bad PR would have the effect of discouraging new players from buying the game. This is a bad argument for the following reasons:

 

1. Existing players are more likely to quit if their servers feel dead.

 

2. Existing players aren't going to quit over server merges or bad "PR." The only people such a move could possibly affect would be potential new customers who are turned off by the PR.

 

3. New players are less likely to become long-time subscribers if they buy the game and roll on a server that feels dead.

 

4. Preserving existing customers means you don't have as great a need for new customers. However, if your existing customer base evaporates because of something you could have prevented, you are only exacerbating your own desperate need for new customers to replace them.

 

This is a request to Bioware to begin the process of merging the 50 or so slowest servers, the ones that are the last ones to reach "standard," never reach "heavy," and are the first ones to reach "light" status. These changes won't affect the 30-40 servers that already have healthy populations. It would only affect the remainder of servers that are suffering from the opposite of long queue times, which is long wait times to find someone to play with. And Bioware could counter any bad PR that comes of it by simply saying they did the right thing sooner rather than later, and that they want to assure that both new and existing players have the best possible experience. It's not like pretty much every MMO other than WoW hasn't had server merges, and in almost every case the player base had to beg for them for months before getting them.

 

Self-inflicted wounds can be avoided. Refusing to address a very real issue because you're afraid someone might say "uh-oh" is just going to cause a much bigger "uh-oh" down the road.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Mannic

[MilkPudding]

Merging servers now is gonna make EA's stock take another plunge. They won't do it for all sorts of reasons no matter how empty some servers are.

[PjPablo]

Merging servers now is gonna make EA's stock take another plunge. They won't do it for all sorts of reasons no matter how empty some servers are.

 

This ^

 

Server merges are a death knell. Even if needed it won't happen. Heck, they just might change the settings so they show more full than they are before they would merge.

[Arzhanin]

Hey folks,

 

We do have a thread discussing this topic here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=233108

 

Feel free to re-post thoughts and ideas in that thread as we will be closing this one to keep things a bit more consolidated. Thanks!