When will there be a "SERVER MERGE?"

[BobJames]

What needs to be done is CALL BW ON THE TELEPHONE AND MAKE THEM AWARE OF YOUR DISPLEASURE WITH THE LOW-POP SERVER ISSUES

 

Here is the information on how to get in touch with them on the phone:

 

For help with account issues, technical support, or if you require further assistance with Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, you can contact us via the following toll-free phone numbers:

 

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Customer support will be provided in English, French, and German only.

 

 

Perhaps if they get enough calls they will stop blowing this thread off and start addressing the problem. For you who cannot call toll free, use the e-mail form to CS at this link:

 

http://www.swtor.com/support/form

 

BW needs to be made aware how much this situation affects PAYING CUSTOMERS quality of gameplay and that not doing something, soon, may jeopardize the return of customers with those paid subs. A smattering of nicely populated/fun to play worlds is not acceptable nor is re-rolling on said servers after we have made great strides to build our Toons and Legacies on servers that have become barren wastelands..

[Demonliez]

I don't understand how this issue is not addressed in every one of their weekly Q&A's, the fact is, it's the only question people are even asking, yet they choose to ignore it. I made an alt on Fat man just to get an idea of what their population was like and it actually made me more mad. Kinrath Spider had 2 people on Korriban, including myself. I go on Fatman 105..

[Veksis]

I am on Kinrath as well.

 

I canceled my sub this morning.

 

It is a waste of my time to sit around waiting for WZ queues with no people on fleet.

 

And 1.2?? Level another toon? THERE ARE THREE F'IN PEOPLE ON EACH PLANET AT MOST. Leveling is more of a wasteland than the fleet. FAIL.

 

The fact that they had no plan in place to allow transfers/mergers is shocking.

 

I will go play Rift most likely with the majority of my guildies (who have left as well).

 

Was fun while it lasted, but poor management crushes yet another MMO.

 

GG Bioware.

[ConradLionhart]

There will be a server merge probably after 1.2. Because free transfers to the new asia-pacific servers will be given in late April, coincidentally after 1.2.

[Keokilla]

if your posting on threads to come to this thread, surely you can do server merging and stop redirecting us here...

[Drunkenpig]

The biggest problem is the game's inability to handle multiple players in the same area. Wait till you see the lag when you get 50 people in the same area. It will make Iron Forge look like smooth sailing (where you might have 100 people, and that was over 7 years ago).

 

Basically, the game was made without any foresight. Someone came up with many four man and flashpoints, but didnt realize that to do these you need a large player pool. Meanwhile, they designed an engine that was graphic heavy but had to run of mid-level pcs, so they skimped on the abililty to handle multiple players at the same time.

 

So for a single player RPG experience, this is a good game. As for multi player, have any of you out there ever played NeverWinter Nights on a private server (they published the code and allowed people to create their own worlds, hosting multiple people on their own PCs)? That game, and the private servers, allowed a better multiplayer experience than does SWTOR. I dont know how they will fix this problem. Probably the easist fix is cross realm lfgs.

 

Lastly, there is the name issue. For a simple fix I'd put a number after someone's name who transfer in. EG if my character, Drunkenpig, transfers to another server, because my character's name is so popular someone no doubt already has it. So at the new location I would be "Drunkenpig1" or, Drunkenpig23".

[andrelle]

There will be a server merge probably after 1.2. Because free transfers to the new asia-pacific servers will be given in late April, coincidentally after 1.2.

 

There is absolutely no information to base this on. If there are no merges and/or transfers starting this month, this mmo will snuff out sooner than later. This is completely and utterly ridiculous how they offer no information about merges, and no response to a huge forum thread about it. They're not the only mmo to be released in 2012. You'd think they would want to work to keep their customer base.

[Solo_Han]

Lastly, there is the name issue. For a simple fix I'd put a number after someone's name who transfer in. EG if my character, Drunkenpig, transfers to another server, because my character's name is so popular someone no doubt already has it. So at the new location I would be "Drunkenpig1" or, Drunkenpig23".

 

You could always just say upon transfer - "Sorry, I'm afraid your name is currently used on this server. Please select a new one."

 

Not really rocket science now is it. Then you update the SQL tables to reflect that name change, and you're done. Same goes for Legacy names.

 

 

EDIT: Incidentally, I've just re-rolled on Europe's only populated server... The tomb of nar Faradd (or something similar), the problem with that though is that because everyone is jumping on that one server, there's usually a queue, whilst the rest of the servers are all standard/low.

 

THIS PROBLEM CANNOT BE FIXED BY PLAYERS - IT REQUIRES ~BW~ INTERVENTION...

 

I would be a lot more inclined to continue playing if:

 

BW WOULD AT LEAST ADMIT THERE'S A PROBLEM - AND THAT THEY ARE 'WORKING ON IT'!!

 

But they seem to be either ignoring it, ignorant of it, or unwilling to act on it. All of which are real management problems.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Solo_Han

[greenboy]

to all the people who are complaining about there not being anyone on their servers anymore that is what happens when at launch you don't want to wait for the busy servers and go to a lower pop server at launch because all MMO's slow down after the first month and half the servers will die. i do think it would be nice to have a merger for all the smallest servers to relieve the problem though. but what did you expect when you joined a lower population server early in the games life.

[-Dench]

There is absolutely no information to base this on. If there are no merges and/or transfers starting this month, this mmo will snuff out sooner than later. This is completely and utterly ridiculous how they offer no information about merges, and no response to a huge forum thread about it. They're not the only mmo to be released in 2012. You'd think they would want to work to keep their customer base.

 

I think it shows a large problem over at the BW office. This issue implies to me that there is infighting at the director level on how to handle it, therefor the PR and Marketing people can't get near the issue.

 

The fact of the matter is, this issue is massive. People who say otherwise either have infinite amounts of time to re roll toons, are on high pop servers or have little to no business sense.

 

I work full time, and I am in school full time picking up a new degree. I don't have the time or the patience to re roll on another server. It's taken me 4 months of playing to get me where I am now. I'm not about to sideline my 50 and 45 toons.

[Solo_Han]

to all the people who are complaining about there not being anyone on their servers anymore that is what happens when at launch you don't want to wait for the busy servers and go to a lower pop server at launch because all MMO's slow down after the first month and half the servers will die. i do think it would be nice to have a merger for all the smallest servers to relieve the problem though. but what did you expect when you joined a lower population server early in the games life.

 

My server was full with a 30 min queue for the first 3 weeks after launch... It is now low, and has about c.130 total during peak hours. That's down from around 1000+ when I joined it.

 

Everyone understands that, and for a lot of people this isn't their first MMO launch. But after 4 months, and no news, people get impatient, and they quit as this isn't an MMO on those servers. But Rift and WAR both reduced servers within 3 months of launch. We're now coming up to 4, and still not a peep.

 

Another issue is that TOR has more servers than WoW at the moment in the US and EU, but 1/10th the player base. That's a pretty big issue IMO.

[DarthKhaos]

Guilds have been merging on my server aswell.... population at peak times : 30-40 players in the fleet.

 

This may seem much but its not... queues can go well over 1-2 hours and half of the players is afking.

 

I have moved to the only high pop EU server, tomb of freedom nadd. This server is full of server switchers but who cares, at least it FEELS like an mmorpg.

 

All the other servers feel like single player games, I miss my toons, I have invested months of work in them and I dont get to play them anymore because it is simply impossible.

 

Its like I have worked on restoring a car for a year and yesterday it got stolen from me.

 

I have leveled a new toon to level 12, and I have given up, I have simply given up. I don't have that happy-feeling anymore, after leveling 3 characters to 50, I am DONE. Bioware can have my subscription back when they offer server transfers and nothing else.

 

 

Merging 3 dead servers won't fix anything. They will have to merge at least 5-10 servers togheter to create a decent community.

 

Having many empty servers is bad. Open your eyes bioware, you are NOT world of warcraft. You do NOT need 50 servers with 50 players each. Instead, have 5 servers with 500 players each. Quality > Quantity, a thing you have yet to learn.

I find it funny that people use the number of players on fleet as an accurate representation of how many people are on the server. I saw 14 players on fleet on my server last night and queues were like 10-15mins. Maybe people don't like PvPing on your server.

 

I'm not saying there aren't low pop servers and this is why I'm gonna continue to advocate for a virtual server that spans multiple servers where we can not just chat but play with by server hopping within that group of servers just as you would server hop to enter a cross server flashpoint/warzone.

[Drunkenpig]

You could always just say upon transfer - "Sorry, I'm afraid your name is currently used on this server. Please select a new one."

 

Not really rocket science now is it. Then you update the SQL tables to reflect that name change, and you're done. Same goes for Legacy names.

 

 

EDIT: Incidentally, I've just re-rolled on Europe's only populated server... The tomb of nar Faradd (or something similar), the problem with that though is that because everyone is jumping on that one server, there's usually a queue, whilst the rest of the servers are all standard/low.

 

THIS PROBLEM CANNOT BE FIXED BY PLAYERS - IT REQUIRES ~BW~ INTERVENTION...

 

I would be a lot more inclined to continue playing if:

 

BW WOULD AT LEAST ADMIT THERE'S A PROBLEM - AND THAT THEY ARE 'WORKING ON IT'!!

 

But they seem to be either ignoring it, ignorant of it, or unwilling to act on it. All of which are real management problems.

 

No, you don't understand. The name "Drunkenpig" is highly valued, at least as valuable as a legacy 41, so any transfer must allow me to keep my name.

[Solo_Han]

No, you don't understand. The name "Drunkenpig" is highly valued, at least as valuable as a legacy 41, so any transfer must allow me to keep my name.

 

Then don't transfer your character, and keep your name. There are no alternatives. If you like living at number 7 in your road, and you have to move to another road, possibly in another country to be close to work, you can't demand that you also get to live at number 7 again, just because it holds more value than 8. Life doesn't work like that.

[basonj]

I'm not worried about names, I'm just looking forward to server transfers period. Free would be nice, but i'd probably pay if I had to. I rolled on a light pop server to learn the ins and outs without stumbling over people or having to hunt to get my "x" number of kills to finish my bonus missions. Now I'm comfortable with the game and would like to be on a server with a higher pop. Here's hoping there are still people to play with when they get them rolled out. This game is just different enough to keep my interest so I'll be around for a while, but it would be nice to be able to get flash points and warzones without waiting around for hours.

[Engalius]

Hi,

 

I am an Aussie, I play across 3 separate time zones due to my work and being on the 2nd shift and I play on the US server Van Zallow or Zellow, I always misspell that thing.

 

Anyway, long story short. Empire side is dead no matter what time zone I play at. I am used to logging on and getting ques easily with good players, getting a hard mode done now and then with pugs.

 

But now, I dont know what has happened, but as if everyone either re-rolled or are awaiting 1.2 to pop out and see how things pan out. All I can say its a dust bowl now.

 

For those who say maybe peeps don't like to pvp on my server, or pve, well I do both, my friends list has roughly 30 to 40 people on it that I regularly pvp or pve with.

 

Now, I am lucky to have 1 person online, and these guys were pretty hardcore players.

 

 

 

I am.. rather disapointed at the moment as the game has a lot of good content, well decent content. I would like to experience it but I am held back by the lack of people.

 

 

If I can make a parallel, this is like playing a low pop EverQuest 2 server with better graphics, but the difference being you would still get more action on EQ2.

 

 

/sigh

[matzackjones]

I have to admit that I would have expected BW to outline their plans regarding server populations. To my mind, there is a clear issue on a substantial number of servers and it must be costing them subscriptions. I decided to bite the bullet and re-roll on a busier server, which clearly isn't an ideal solution. It makes the situation worse. It makes the busy servers busier and the quieter servers more like Ghost towns. Edited April 3, 2012 by matzackjones

[Valkirus]

Hi,

 

I am an Aussie, I play across 3 separate time zones due to my work and being on the 2nd shift and I play on the US server Van Zallow or Zellow, I always misspell that thing.

 

Anyway, long story short. Empire side is dead no matter what time zone I play at. I am used to logging on and getting ques easily with good players, getting a hard mode done now and then with pugs.

 

But now, I dont know what has happened, but as if everyone either re-rolled or are awaiting 1.2 to pop out and see how things pan out. All I can say its a dust bowl now.

 

For those who say maybe peeps don't like to pvp on my server, or pve, well I do both, my friends list has roughly 30 to 40 people on it that I regularly pvp or pve with.

 

Now, I am lucky to have 1 person online, and these guys were pretty hardcore players.

 

 

 

I am.. rather disapointed at the moment as the game has a lot of good content, well decent content. I would like to experience it but I am held back by the lack of people.

 

 

If I can make a parallel, this is like playing a low pop EverQuest 2 server with better graphics, but the difference being you would still get more action on EQ2.

 

/sigh

 

A prime example of how a cross server LFG tool would benefit many players. Those who think BioWare is going to merge servers when there is a more economical way to correct low pop servers....well...dream on.

[andrelle]

I think it shows a large problem over at the BW office. This issue implies to me that there is infighting at the director level on how to handle it, therefor the PR and Marketing people can't get near the issue.

 

The fact of the matter is, this issue is massive. People who say otherwise either have infinite amounts of time to re roll toons, are on high pop servers or have little to no business sense.

 

I work full time, and I am in school full time picking up a new degree. I don't have the time or the patience to re roll on another server. It's taken me 4 months of playing to get me where I am now. I'm not about to sideline my 50 and 45 toons.

 

That's absolutely true. Its all about perception. The perception is they are doing minimal to nothing about the issue since they won't respond, and its a main topic. The perception is also they want us to reroll alts, because of how they've been touting Legacy all over the place.

 

I work full-time as well. Who has time to reroll on other servers, which may or may not hold their pops for long.

 

Attention spans are decreasing. You need to attract people. The fact that server merges happened faster with other mmos should give them the direction they need. But they pay no mind to it.

 

I hope they've made the money they expected from this game, because the way they are managing, they have a very short future. EA has plenty of other IPs, maybe that's why this isn't that great a concern to them.

 

Sell the IP to Sony. At least then we know what we're getting.

[RocNessMonster]

A prime example of how a cross server LFG tool would benefit many players. Those who think BioWare is going to merge servers when there is a more economical way to correct low pop servers....well...dream on.

 

Cross Server LFG is just a bandaid. Cross server will not help your economy nor will it help your guild recruit new raiders. World of Warcraft has cross server everything yet the game is still losing customers steadily since xLFG/xLFR inception.

[Drunkenpig]

Then don't transfer your character, and keep your name. There are no alternatives. If you like living at number 7 in your road, and you have to move to another road, possibly in another country to be close to work, you can't demand that you also get to live at number 7 again, just because it holds more value than 8. Life doesn't work like that.

 

Easy for you to say. You have a character name no one would want.

[-Dench]

That's absolutely true. Its all about perception. The perception is they are doing minimal to nothing about the issue since they won't respond, and its a main topic. The perception is also they want us to reroll alts, because of how they've been touting Legacy all over the place.

 

I work full-time as well. Who has time to reroll on other servers, which may or may not hold their pops for long.

 

Attention spans are decreasing. You need to attract people. The fact that server merges happened faster with other mmos should give them the direction they need. But they pay no mind to it.

 

I hope they've made the money they expected from this game, because the way they are managing, they have a very short future. EA has plenty of other IPs, maybe that's why this isn't that great a concern to them.

 

Sell the IP to Sony. At least then we know what we're getting.

 

I said in an earlier post that one of the problems is that BW is almost to big to fail. So, when something like this happens, the big wigs at the top of the ladder don't mind taking their time on it.

 

When I was an IT consultant, if I wasn't giving my clients answers fast, I would lose that client. We as the gamers are clients, but on a smaller scale since we only pay $15 per month were I would bill $125 per hour. Either way, customer service and being open are what make people want to stick around.

 

The lack of any sort of meaningful dialogue on this issue has a lot of people real pissed off. We know that the AUS players will be getting their transfers, which they should!

 

My questions are:

-When are we going to get news about this?

-Are there going to be server merges, transfers or both?

-Will there be a system for players to check servers for duplicate names prior to transfer?

-Are guilds along with their guild banks going to be able to be transferred?

-will transfers be free?

-How many servers will be closed and what was the data used to determine which ones are going away?

-What will be done to prohibit everyone including myself from going to the fat man, instantly creating a east coast super server while continuing on the low pop problem on the remaining servers?

 

 

We don't know. I don't even think BW knows. I suspect its director vs director who both cant stand each other stone walling the S' out of each other and their plans with this.

Edited April 3, 2012 by -Dench

[Solo_Han]

I had enough of sitting with my thumb up my *****, waiting for some kind of official statement, so I sent them the following:

 

Hiya,

 

I have been playing for some time now, and it can't have escaped your attention that the burn rate of players is extremely high, mainly due to the ghost town servers that are growing in number everyday.

 

I would like to know what is going to be done about this? I believe as a paying customer, I have a right to make an educated decision as to whether I wish to continue my subscription.

 

At present, to the best of my knowledge, not a word has been mentioned about server mergers or character transfers. I purchased your product to play a Star Wars MMORPG. At the moment, all I am playing is an RPG.

 

I, like countless others would appreciate even a small, tiny, barely noticeable, public announcement simply stating that you are aware of the problem, and that a solution is being formulated.

 

If one is not produced in the next week, I will be left with no alternative but to cancel my subscription under the assumption that BioWare is unable to communicate effectively with its playerbase, which has been proven to be an essential aspect of MMO design and development.

 

 

I hope to hear from you soon,

 

xxxxx yyyyyyyy

 

 

They responded within about 10 minutes (I'm assuming there's very little going on in game for them to resolve, well, that isn't resolved with a generic "blah blah blah" answer). They said:

 

Greetings xxxxx,

 

I am Protocol Droid W3-W5 of Human-Cyborg Relations.

 

Thank you for contacting us about merging of servers or character transferring.

 

Unfortunately, at this time server transfer is not a service that we offer. While this may change in the future, currently we are unable to offer assistance with character transfer requests. It is not implemented at the moment, but transferring of characters is allowed if the server is from ASEAN servers.

 

While we understand the frustration this may cause, we would like to assure you that we are doing our utmost to ensure that our players have the best possible game play experience, regardless of which server they play on. As such server population balance and composition is something which we are constantly monitoring.

 

Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you require further assistance with this or any other issues, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact us again if there is anything further we can help you with.

 

Galactic Support is our speciality…

 

Sincerely,

 

Protocol Droid W3-W5 aka Edmund

Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service

 

 

Not really an answer to my question, although, I never really expected them to.

 

 

For those that can't be bothered to read through all that, the jist is:

 

Me: What are you going to do about server population issues?

BW: We are monitoring server population levels and want you to have a great time playing our game

 

 

It's like talking to a politician rather than a company you're purchasing a service from.

 

Pathetic.

[andrelle]

Thanks for that letter. That's all a lot of us really need to see. Its in place for AUS, and I agree it should be. So, they have the means to offer it. They just won't, even though the problem gets bigger.

 

It's true, maybe BW is too big to fail, but SWTOR isn't big enough yet. This is a critical period for them, whether their directors give a crap or not. Fail on the mmo front, and any future mmo they plan down the road will be met with skepticism.

 

The best thing we can do is education. Educate people on other sites about the issues. Maybe some nice press will light a fire under their belts. It seems to work for Darth Hater a bit. But to me, the louder the voices get outside the company-run forums, the faster they may work. That's my theory, at least.

[Elear]

-Are there going to be server merges, transfers or both?

 

 

 

Transfers force other players to also transfer, as it takes away people from supposedly empty servers.

 

Merge aside from bigger problems with names(as both servers have same priority in this) has issue with folks that log back once a week for 5 minutes. In terms of merge, thay are same as person that plays 24/7, so they have to be carefull and not cause overpopulation(however silly it might sound right now, all servers had queues at launch), as they can't forbid those players that don't play right now to come back in month or two.

 

Merge solves transfer main issue, but has issues on it's own.

Way to solve merge problems, is to wait untill enough accounts are deemed as inactive and can be discarded. And this is what they do.

 

And if someone constantly log into game, see that there are 5 people at fleet, and log out, he just causes everyone to wait longer.