When will there be a "SERVER MERGE?"

[Alphasgimaone]

The problem wouldn't have been nearly so bad had Bioware used some common sense with the Legacy.

 

It should have never been directly associated with character identity (per server) to begin with.

 

Instead, it should have been something set-up account side. Perhaps they could have had everyone created a secondary account name which would become both your Legacy and forum name. This would have made the thing a bit more arbitrary and alleviated some of the rush to snatch the good ones. (It would also add a bit of security account-side.)

 

It would then become something people choose to display in their profiles. It would list all their characters, accomplishments, etc. It would actually be something tangible.

 

In turn, surnames should have been completely cosmetic from the get-go.

 

Instead, now they've created a huge problem. The game is in dire need of server reduction and Legacy is the one thing that stands in the way of pretty much any solution.

 

The only solutions I can see is for them to announce they're going to open a new server that people can "sign-up" for a week or two ahead of time. People could then move characters and carry over Legacy on a firs come, first serve basis.

 

Or instead, maybe they could a some kind of useable item mailed to characters of volunteers (similar to the founder token) that brings up Legacy name window right at the beginning, so you wouldn't have to wait till chapter 2.

 

Obviously, this would mean people would lose a lot of progress, but they could hand out some kind of series or rewards (speeders, color crystals, gear, whatever) to compensate.

 

 

Whatever the case, something has to be done and soon. The server population problem is the biggest threat the game currently has and it's quickly snowballing out of control. More and more people are getting discouraged, quitting, and making the situation worse.

 

Bioware simply got greedy and over estimated they number of players and servers they were going to need to put them. Looking back, that forced distribution they tried to implement with the artificial caps at launch was the absolutely wrong way of doing things.

 

They could have started with half the number of servers they currently have.

[Telaan]

I really couldn't care less about the possibility of changing my toon's name or legacy name BW. I want to play with more than the same 10 people I play with on a daily basis. All of the republic PvPers on my server know each other and who their alts are. Why? Because our server is dead.

 

I'm having a hard time justifying paying a monthly sub for 30 minute PvP queues, a GTN that rarely ever has anything on it, and the fact that it's virtually impossible to find FP or Ops groups; because during prime-time weekend hours there are 35 people on republic fleet.

 

BW, merge the servers or implement character transfers.

[Beachcomberb]

Sunday evening Prime time in the EU

 

73 servers are at "standard", thats too many Bioware, population is spread far too thin and making the game unenjoyable.

 

Please address this issue.

[WhiskyJax]

I really couldn't care less about the possibility of changing my toon's name or legacy name BW. I want to play with more than the same 10 people I play with on a daily basis. All of the republic PvPers on my server know each other and who their alts are. Why? Because our server is dead.

 

I'm having a hard time justifying paying a monthly sub for 30 minute PvP queues, a GTN that rarely ever has anything on it, and the fact that it's virtually impossible to find FP or Ops groups; because during prime-time weekend hours there are 35 people on republic fleet.

 

BW, merge the servers or implement character transfers.

 

Roll an alt elsewhere for the time being because it will be a few months to sort out the legacy issues and players will still lose names , legacy names and guild names....

[Telaan]

Roll an alt elsewhere for the time being because it will be a few months to sort out the legacy issues and players will still lose names , legacy names and guild names....

 

I have a rank 65 sage and a rank 57 guardian. I am not rolling another toon because BW forced my guild onto a server that ended up dead after creating faaaaar too many to begin with.

 

Piss poor planning on BWs part does not constitute a reason for me to reroll.....again. I'd rather unsub to be honest.

[Evray]

I unsubbed for this reason. My server is dead, I have 2 level 50's and don't really want to re-roll but lucky for me I already did some name savers on key servers that are high in population.

 

I will be rejoining after 1.2 for a month so see how well my server is doing population wise. I wouldn't mind merging or being moved to a server that I have my names saved on if it has a higher population.

 

But redoing my characters seems so hard. I tried to re-start on my main (Jedi Guardian) and didn't even get half way through Tython before being bored.

 

It kills me because I want to play this game, I love it. But lack of community and virtually no end game because of it is not worth a monthly sub.

[srathgar]

same as most people have said her, rerolling doesnt seem like an option, because you know what?

I LIKE my marauder, and i got it in full rakata/columi. Now im trying to slowly lvl a juggernaut, and not a marauder simply because of th e hope that bioware someday realises the idiocy creating this many servers was.

And playing on a full server (tomb of freedon nad-eu) is far more fun th an playing on a standard server with like 31 people online on the fleet during a sunday evening, but i do not wish to make a new character there abandoning my 2 oth er chars (sith sorc and sith marauder) as i would rath er go do something else then. i pay to play a game, sure leveling is fun and id do it again but i dont want to level up the same class on a new server just because the game designers was expecting like a million or 2 more players to start on this game than actually did.

[DaemonDCLXVI]

The population of the server I'm on is abysmal.

 

Dxun Battle Circle - European PvE server. (I'm level 39, incidentally.)

 

I was on earlier tonight and the place was deserted. There were 40 people on the Imperial Fleet, 12 on Alderaan, 10 on Taris, etc. A Sunday night at around 8pm. This is pretty standard for any day of the week at any time. Quite frankly, it's not much fun at all, which is a shame because the actual game's really good.

 

I don't know what the average amount of players on each server is, (Dxun is apparently "standard") but running about and questing with no one else around most of the time, (occasionally someone will float by on a speeder,) is rubbish. Everywhere just seems so lifeless.

 

When solo questing it's bearable as I just get on with it but the Heroic and Flashpoint missions? Forget it, unless you don't mind standing about for a long, long time. The worst aspect of this for me is that I've got a fair amount of money... but there's not much to buy in the Galactic Market. For example; Mods - 4 pages of Enhancements. That's 32 items. most are duplicate, (8 of the same item, 4 of the same item, etc.) The selection of crafted goods is extremely poor as fewer players means fewer crafters means fewer goods.

 

I'm looking forward to the changes coming in patch 1.2 but I'm afraid if Bioware don't remedy this issue [merge the servers] then I'll play until I reach level 50 then quit and cancel my subscription. As I said, the game right now just feels so empty and lifeless.

 

I'd just like more people to play with. Please merge some servers Bioware - we're all here and we're all willing to pay to play this game. If we have to do so on dead servers we won't be here for much longer.

Edited March 18, 2012 by DaemonDCLXVI

[Solija]

Server transfers.... please.... or merges.... i can care less if i have to pay 5 $ per char or something. My server is dead even PRIME time Sat 5pm we get 30 on each side (Counting fleet and all planets ) we never even get full pvp games lol we quit within 120 secs dew to people STAR wars atleast let us PICK all EAST servers for east players or all WEST servers. Then the people that want the dead severs more then likely one of the 5 will be the POP server can be PVP / Group servers

[-Kelerak-]

Stop and think...

1.2 patch is coming out right?

After 1.2 they will do something about the merges or server transfers... First they need to know how many is coming back, or leaving, or whatever...

[Touchbass]

Stop and think...

1.2 patch is coming out right?

After 1.2 they will do something about the merges or server transfers... First they need to know how many is coming back, or leaving, or whatever...

 

By they time they get enough data to have a concrete answer it'll be too late. You need to come up with solutions before the problems dwarf any workable solutions. Reason #1 why Apple is so successful

[wesleybakkie]

yup its already too late , ppl who bought the deluxe digital edition and got it pre ordered ( like me ) got 0 days of free game time left now. they wont make a SUB for this game how pathetic it is to bring more content out while the game itself isnt even stable and is full of bugs ?

[Telaan]

Stop and think...

1.2 patch is coming out right?

After 1.2 they will do something about the merges or server transfers... First they need to know how many is coming back, or leaving, or whatever...

 

How would 1.2 help them figure out population balance at all. If anything it'd be the wrong time to base server numbers on population. Of course people are going to come back to check out 1.2. However, like with launch, many will leave.....

 

They need to go with what we currently have and then introduce new servers on an as needed basis.

 

BW, this is not an issue that needs to be considered or thought about. Many of us do not care about legacy. We'd rather play on servers that actually have people on the toons we've spent a significant amount of time on.

[ferroz]

By they time they get enough data to have a concrete answer it'll be too late. You need to come up with solutions before the problems dwarf any workable solutions. Reason #1 why Apple is so successful

no, apple is so successful because they have a great marketing department.

[Lord_Scythe]

no, apple is so successful because they have a great marketing department.

 

No, the reason apple is so successful is people are gullible sheep!

 

There was a time that apple was a superior machine for some things. That all changed when they decided to go with the same chips as PC's.

 

Don't get me wrong Apples are very nice to look at and they function well for most things. However, with such a small market share they don't get all the software developed for them on releases.

 

Back to the transfer issue. Like I said in my previous post, I don't think they are able to do server transfers or mergers at this time. Much of the game was not completed it is not unreasonable to believe that they never programmed the ability to do those things. They were too busy trying to get stuff into the game and bugs out of it before launch!

[techslave]

No, the reason apple is so successful is people are gullible sheep!

 

There was a time that apple was a superior machine for some things. That all changed when they decided to go with the same chips as PC's.

 

Don't get me wrong Apples are very nice to look at and they function well for most things. However, with such a small market share they don't get all the software developed for them on releases.

 

Back to the transfer issue. Like I said in my previous post, I don't think they are able to do server transfers or mergers at this time. Much of the game was not completed it is not unreasonable to believe that they never programmed the ability to do those things. They were too busy trying to get stuff into the game and bugs out of it before launch!

 

if im not mistaken, didnt they allow aussies and kiwis to transfer their toons to the new servers when they launched in oceania?

[Telaan]

No, the reason apple is so successful is people are gullible sheep!

 

There was a time that apple was a superior machine for some things. That all changed when they decided to go with the same chips as PC's.

 

Don't get me wrong Apples are very nice to look at and they function well for most things. However, with such a small market share they don't get all the software developed for them on releases.

 

Back to the transfer issue. Like I said in my previous post, I don't think they are able to do server transfers or mergers at this time. Much of the game was not completed it is not unreasonable to believe that they never programmed the ability to do those things. They were too busy trying to get stuff into the game and bugs out of it before launch!

 

Transfers have already happened; hence the big hoop-la over the oceanic and Australian servers. They've already stated that the reason they haven't implemented them for US and EU servers is because of issues with transfering legacy.

 

It's a BS reason to be honest.

[agentbam]

No need for server merges. Bioware told us the number of subscribers is increasing and if we remember correctly all the servers were full around christmas. So if anything bioware needs to increase the number of servers by 2-3 the amount and offer free transfers from old servers to the new ones. We don't want hour long ques and thousands of people on the fleets.

 

 

unless ofc bioware was trolling us.

 

LOL! Drink the koolaid boy and keep playing. If there are not server mergers by the end of the month my SUB is canceled.

[BigDonVincenzo]

I'll add to this.

 

Server merges now!

 

It's so hard to find people to play with, I love this game and I want to continue to play but the population is spread far too thinly across all the servers.

[Nuffmeister]

if im not mistaken, didnt they allow aussies and kiwis to transfer their toons to the new servers when they launched in oceania?

 

People that went to the Oceanic servers rerolled or put name holders down. As far as we (Asian-Pacific) know we are slated in to be able to have a one off transfer in late april.

 

I have my name holders down but all my characters are still on The Jekk Jekk Tarr US server.

 

EDIT: 'Tinfoil hat time': Possibly we are the guinea pigs for the process of future server transfers. We have very few servers to transfer to, and if it gets botched that's ok because we're only stinking red zoners anyway, so they can fine tune US and EU mergers after testing on us.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Nuffmeister

[JediMasterRyanW]

It's kind of annoying when I see "game has 1.7 million subs so shut up about servers" used as a rebuttal to requests for server merges/transfers. Now that the initial launch is over and more people are hitting 50 and/or coming out of their playtime binges, individual players are playing much less than at launch, even though they're still subscribed.

 

So while server subscriber populations are still up, server online populations are dropping. This is what a lot of people don't get. Sure, we have 1.7 million people playing this game. But if <5-10% of them are on at any given time, and then those are spread over >100 servers, that's not a lot of people online at once and results in many servers feeling dead.

 

So server merges would keep populations at near-post-launch levels, despite the dropoff in playtime. Transfers would just result in uneven distributions and some servers turning into ghost towns and/or getting killed off by BioWare. For some reason, BioWare seems to have their ears closed to this logic and sees server merges as some sign of defeat. Which could really bite them in the rear if they don't do something about this soon.

 

Side note--I know that unless server merges are announced, my guild will be transferring as soon as we can, and others will do the same. Or just leave because of the low pops.

[techslave]

People that went to the Oceanic servers rerolled or put name holders down. As far as we (Asian-Pacific) know we are slated in to be able to have a one off transfer in late april.

 

I have my name holders down but all my characters are still on The Jekk Jekk Tarr US server.

 

EDIT: 'Tinfoil hat time': Possibly we are the guinea pigs for the process of future server transfers. We have very few servers to transfer to, and if it gets botched that's ok because we're only stinking red zoners anyway, so they can fine tune US and EU mergers after testing on us.

 

yeah that was indeed my theory when i first heard you guys were going first.

[Rodeodanza]

There are several steps companies go through when subs drop.

 

First they try to get their current sub members to recruit others CHECK

 

Next they try a free trial period of some sort CHECK

 

Then they'll offer some sort of voluntary sever jump SOON

 

Next they'll start to close the smaller servers SOON-ish

 

Finally crap will be fixed, though this process will take about 6 more months. By then, the game will be on life support.

[Frostvein]

Sunday evening Prime time in the EU

 

73 servers are at "standard", thats too many Bioware, population is spread far too thin and making the game unenjoyable.

 

Please address this issue.

 

 

In case anyone didn't catch it, there have been reports that a "standard" server is as low as 500 to as high as 1500 or more.

[Lord_Scythe]

if im not mistaken, didnt they allow aussies and kiwis to transfer their toons to the new servers when they launched in oceania?

 

Last I heard they said it would be a couple of months before the Aussies could transfer. You will have to show me where they did this because I saw no notices about it anywhere!

 

 

EDIT:

Unless they changed their minds no they did not.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=333956

Edited March 19, 2012 by Lord_Scythe