The reason why I think server mergers need to happen and aren't a bad thing.

[Gadzuki]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

 

To paraphrase Tobuscus, "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooo I unsubscribed"!

[Shingara]

No the problem with your argument is that there are only 2 Heavy pop servers in Europe but 38 (ish) Low pop ones. Taking the players off the heavy pop servers and letting them spread all over the other 38 (ish) servers is going to make things worse as your just gonna end up with 40 (ish) low to medium servers. What you need to do is say "Right, we are going to close 19 of our lowest pop servers and allow those players to move to either 1 other PvE or 1 other PvP server". Then you close those 19 servers and have a vibrant community on 20 servers not a dying community on 40 servers.

 

Where are you getting your info that there are only 2, the status page updates based on load at the time your looking not on how many chars are on it and offline, those pop statements change radically over the alternative peak hours.

 

We dont need 10 high pop servers only, we need 20-25 standard pop servers so when big updates hit and all the people coming back dont create huge q's to get onto servers and the max they will goto via everyone coming back or switching to previous main servers to test the patch on alts.

[Darth_Moonshadow]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

 

To paraphrase Tobuscus, "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooo I unsubscribed"!

 

To make it more relevant: "Something something something Dark Side something something something Unsubscribe"

[SaintAvalon]

Not simple, they would have to find low pop servers with good faction balances or one that key off against each other to merge, also people might not want to move there chars from there low pop to the server thats being merged to but want to move where they created alts to play with and migrate there chars to it.

 

So thats 2 things BW would have todo. 1st merge 2-4 low pop servers and sort all that out, then move who doesnt want to move to the merged servers. Then they would have to sort out all the people who are on a sabaticle from the game till later and move them to the merged server and leave the option open for a free migration of it if they wish.

 

WoW has been doing it for years, thats how they have kept so many servers live even with extremly low pop servers becuase they allow migrations from and too for free, The fact that battlegroups on wow make it feel some low pop servers are higher pop then they actually arnt doesnt hurt either.

 

So even after all this SWTOR will have to sort out some form of battlegroup bands for servers for battlegrounds and a random dungeon finder if they are as hints suggest allowing that also via cross server grouping.

 

You keep talking like people have a choice in merging... They don't.

 

YOu grab low pop servers with proper balancing (yes very easy on their end they have all the data) then you merge them... no one gets to piss and moan about not wanting to move, you move everyone.

 

Once that is done follow what I said and it will lead you down the rabbit hole to success.

 

Again take out all the ideas of pleasing everyone, just get populations back up.

 

Server transfers at a later date can help remove those qq'ing about not getting on their preferred server during merges, cause lets face it, merges are going to remove some choices anyhow.

 

At this point you are nitpicking and trying to come up with every qq possible.

 

Grab server a b and c, put them together... do this over and over till you have medium to high pop servers for all.

 

Find full servers move them off to the now medium pop servers till you get high pop servers....

 

Again, this really does fix it.

 

All the rest of the crap you are talking about is static noise. People are going to whine no matter what, I only care about playing the game, not that my legacy name is x or y.

[SaintAvalon]

Where are you getting your info that there are only 2, the status page updates based on load at the time your looking not on how many chars are on it and offline, those pop statements change radically over the alternative peak hours.

 

We dont need 10 high pop servers only, we need 20-25 standard pop servers so when big updates hit and all the people coming back dont create huge q's to get onto servers and the max they will goto via everyone coming back or switching to previous main servers to test the patch on alts.

 

I'm assuming he is using his brain to give hypothetical numbers to illustrate his point. We don't need real numbers to say how this should be done, we only need the basic concept to be understood.

 

You don't seem to understand the basic concept of getting servers to an acceptable amount of players.

 

3 people on the fleet is not acceptable.

[Shingara]

@saint, your obviously just trying to get a reaction out of me cos if you even read my posts you would clearly see i said that merges dont give you a choice.

 

as for where i see the pops at peak times its quite clearly here http://www.swtor.com/server-status

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

Where are you getting your info that there are only 2, the status page updates based on load at the time your looking not on how many chars are on it and offline, those pop statements change radically over the alternative peak hours.

 

We dont need 10 high pop servers only, we need 20-25 standard pop servers so when big updates hit and all the people coming back dont create huge q's to get onto servers and the max they will goto via everyone coming back or switching to previous main servers to test the patch on alts.

 

Well I am getting my info based on the fact that I look at the server list during peak times and only see 2 heavy pop servers (the ones I mentioned). I don't need to look at TORSTATUS to figure that out.

 

Personally I would much prefer to have 10 or 20 heavy pop servers than any low to medium at all as I know that every single player who wants to do something in this game will have a far greater opportunity to do that as there will be more players on each server. Now remember it doesn't need to be Heavy pop all the time, just during peak times, at least then we know that if there is a mad rush of players for a new update that the server can handle the extra load.

If later down the line you get more and more players and the servers can't handle it, that's when you start bring new servers back.

[Ascended]

I'm assuming he is using his brain to give hypothetical numbers to illustrate his point. We don't need real numbers to say how this should be done, we only need the basic concept to be understood.

 

You don't seem to understand the basic concept of getting servers to an acceptable amount of players.

 

3 people on the fleet is not acceptable.

 

Yes using my brain and my eyes

 

And your right 3 people on a main player hub is woefully inadequate.

[Shingara]

Well I am getting my info based on the fact that I look at the server list during peak times and only see 2 heavy pop servers (the ones I mentioned). I don't need to look at TORSTATUS to figure that out.

 

Personally I would much prefer to have 10 or 20 heavy pop servers than any low to medium at all as I know that every single player who wants to do something in this game will have a far greater opportunity to do that as there will be more players on each server. Now remember it doesn't need to be Heavy pop all the time, just during peak times, at least then we know that if there is a mad rush of players for a new update that the server can handle the extra load.

If later down the line you get more and more players and the servers can't handle it, that's when you start bring new servers back.

 

It doesnt even have to be heavy at peak hours, standard is quite fine and at peak hours there are more then 2 heavy and you didnt mention how many standard, what needs to be done is to move the peeps about to balance factions and a good population for the gtn market and world enviromental stuff and guilds to have enough for operations and competition, the real way to fix the major problems is for cross server battlegrounds, a random dungeon finder across possibly 4-6 servers and that will sort it in the stance of having standard level servers not high pops.

 

Of course there are servers where some people dont see anyone else and they should be allowed to shift from those to servers of there choice but over population is as big a problem as under population. Very high pop servers can suffer more from faction inbalance so its more a case of balancing not only pops but also factional distribution of players.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

 

To paraphrase Tobuscus, "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooo I unsubscribed"!

 

That's actually an interesting read and it shows that server mergers are on the table if needs be. I'm very happy that Bioware are acknowledging this as a problem and are willing to do whatever it takes to make server balance correct.

[Shingara]

Yes using my brain and my eyes

 

And your right 3 people on a main player hub is woefully inadequate.

 

I dont even see how you can take there standpoint when my standpoint is infact to allow the option to migrate to server of choice dictated by bioware, cross server battle groups and cross server dungeon finder. But please do explain how you disagree with that.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

It doesnt even have to be heavy at peak hours, standard is quite fine, what needs to be done is to move the peeps about to balance factions and a good population for the gtn market and world enviromental stuff and guilds to have enough for operations and competition, the real way to fix the major problems is for cross server battlegrounds, a random dungeon finder across possibly 4-6 servers and that will sort it in the stance of having standard level servers not high pops.

 

Of course there are servers where some people dont see anyone else and they should be allowed to shift from those to servers of there choice but over population is as big a problem as under population. Very high pop servers can suffer more from faction inbalance so its more a case of blancing not only pops but also factional distribution of players.

 

Well OK I see your point, but let me tell you this LUKA SENE during peak times is a standard pop server yet still only get 50-80 players on the Republic Fleet, that is not good enough. When I created a character on The Red Eclipse server I saw over 100 players on Dromand Kaas and it was still that high at 01:00. that is the difference between a high pop and low/medium pop server. it's huge. And you could constantly see groups for every heroic quest starting all the time. You might have to wait half an hour or more on my server to find a heroic group to do stuff with.

 

So high pop = good thing. Full pop with hour long queues = bad thing and that's what I point out in my original post.

 

Let's say for example that you have two low pop servers, one has 2000 republic players and 1000 empire players, and the other one has 1000 republic players and 2000 empire players. Join the servers together and you are left with one server with 6000 players in an equally balanced form and everyone has a good time. Yes there are going to be some complaints but overall there would be far more enjoyment for those 6000 players.

 

Now do that to all low pop servers in the game and you have one hell of a game.

[Moofausa]

A merge is more beneficial....

If you can just pick a server to migrate too, it'll cause more problems.

 

Just because people aren't in my guild doesn't mean I don't like them.

If my guild picks a server, and then they pick a different server, wham I lost people I enjoy playing with..

 

Just merge two servers together or three or four whatever the case.

Let people rename ONCE, and only ONCE, and let them rename their legacy aswelll.

 

I know a lot of people who would LOVE to rename their legacy.

[wezzlan]

On server status they should add that if its under 40ppl on the whole server it says "This is bad, dont roll here" sadly my server will be among them... we are LUCKY if we get 100 ppl on the fleet.. and thats on the ood days.

[Shingara]

Well OK I see your point, but let me tell you this LUKA SENE during peak times is a standard pop server yet still only get 50-80 players on the Republic Fleet, that is not good enough. When I created a character on The Red Eclipse server I saw over 100 players on Dromand Kaas and it was still that high at 01:00. that is the difference between a high pop and low/medium pop server. it's huge. And you could constantly see groups for every heroic quest starting all the time. You might have to wait half an hour or more on my server to find a heroic group to do stuff with.

 

So high pop = good thing. Full pop with hour long queues = bad thing and that's what I point out in my original post.

 

Let's say for example that you have two low pop servers, one has 2000 republic players and 1000 empire players, and the other one has 1000 republic players and 2000 empire players. Join the servers together and you are left with one server with 6000 players in an equally balanced form and everyone has a good time. Yes there are going to be some complaints but overall there would be far more enjoyment for those 6000 players.

 

Now do that to all low pop servers in the game and you have one hell of a game.

 

This is where your falling down, fleet isnt center of the world, how many are on capital planets, how many are in the world, and 80 in the main hub is healthy even for wow.

 

I also play on red eclipse, and and my fleet at peak on imp side is about 200-230 rep is 190-210. Capital planets run around the numbers 100 average on both for peak hours. That doesnt exactly make the game more populated for groups as these days in mmos there are tribes within the community who only play with each other.

 

So whilst yes the high pop is good even on standard i can get groups on nearly every planet for heroic missions on red eclipse at off peak standard level so if it were standard on others they would feel the same effect for doing heroic missions and they would have a healthy gtn and more then 3 on the fleet at peak.

 

The major probs for peeps is not so much how many are on the fleet but finding groups for flashpoints as they level and endgame, a random dungeon finder across servers would fix that and a battlegroup of 4-6 servers would sort out battlegrounds and q times for them and ranked when it comes in.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

I dont even see how you can take there standpoint when my standpoint is infact to allow the option to migrate to server of choice dictated by bioware, cross server battle groups and cross server dungeon finder. But please do explain how you disagree with that.

 

Well for a start I don't disagree with you in theory, however, we all have seen what has happened to the community in WoW since cross realm dungeon finder came out. No one bloody talks to each other, there is no solid community. Cross realm battlegrounds I don't see as a problem though.

 

Now this is where I disagree with you. Allowing players to make a choice of of which server they want to migrate to is a very bad idea as a player (or many players) may make the wrong choice and not realise it until it's too late (I describe that situation in my original post). However, forcing 2 servers to merge together and then allowing migration maybe a week or so after the dust settles would be far better as players can get used to new experience and truly decide if migration is needed for them.

[Obomonus]

I always feel insanely jealous when I hear someone calling 50 people on republic station light. I dream of that happening on the Keetael server where I get excited to see 20 during peak time. Saw it as high as 28 one time during Free Trial week.

 

The only plus side that I can say with certainty is that due to the server being low population, everyone on the server is quite familiar with each other and is generally nice to each other. It makes for a pleasant experience albeit a lonely one at times.

 

Will we get server merges? I too would like that. I believe transfers are more likely and more feasible at this time for Bioware though. Transfer people off the servers and shut the old servers off so new players dont accidentally roll on them and create the whole issue all over again.

[SaintAvalon]

On server status they should add that if its under 40ppl on the whole server it says "This is bad, dont roll here" sadly my server will be among them... we are LUCKY if we get 100 ppl on the fleet.. and thats on the ood days.

 

Mine too. We generally have like 50ish on the fleet during peak last I looked and I think we hit 70's with the launch of 1.2 and maybe a few days after...

 

Since it's been back down to the 50ish max area during peak... with it usually hovering more around the 25-45 area...

 

If we don't have a full group on in guild, we generally can't get a hardmode dungeon going.

[Shingara]

Well for a start I don't disagree with you in theory, however, we all have seen what has happened to the community in WoW since cross realm dungeon finder came out. No one bloody talks to each other, there is no solid community. Cross realm battlegrounds I don't see as a problem though.

 

Now this is where I disagree with you. Allowing players to make a choice of of which server they want to migrate to is a very bad idea as a player (or many players) may make the wrong choice and not realise it until it's too late (I describe that situation in my original post). However, forcing 2 servers to merge together and then allowing migration maybe a week or so after the dust settles would be far better as players can get used to new experience and truly decide if migration is needed for them.

 

Yes RDF has dinted what community wow had but wow suffered from epeen long before RDF, but the major problem with RDF in wow isnt the tool but the community on wow, its a gear race and rdf is now simply used as a speed run so anyone dropping into it for the 1st time either has to keep up or get kicked which is just wrong, also when i was still in wow rdf was abused alot by ninjas and bliz didnt realy do much to combat it.

 

For players migrating i think having the choice of where to move be it either a pre determined server or allowed to ship there chars to where they have now set up home or both is a better idea. Slamming 2 servers together wont fix the problem for alot of people because alot of people have as i stated started again on another server and dont want to be moved to server X they want to move there chars to where they have set up there other chars.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

This is where your falling down, fleet isnt center of the world, how many are on capital planets, how many are in the world, and 80 in the main hub is healthy even for wow.

 

I also play on red eclipse, and and my fleet at peak on imp side is about 200-230 rep is 190-210. Capital planets run around the numbers 100 average on both for peak hours. That doesnt exactly make the game more populated for groups as these days in mmos there are tribes within the community who only play with each other.

 

So whilst yes the high pop is good even on standard i can get groups on nearly every planet for heroic missions on red eclipse at off peak standard level so if it were standard on others they would feel the same effect for doing heroic missions and they would have a healthy gtn and more then 3 on the fleet at peak.

 

The major probs for peeps is not so much how many are on the fleet but finding groups for flashpoints as they level and endgame, a random dungeon finder across servers would fix that and a battlegroup of 4-6 servers would sort out battlegrounds and q times for them and ranked when it comes in.

 

Sorry I am disagreeing with you now, the Fleet IS the centre of the world, it's the main hub for all players and gives you a very good idea of how the rest of the server is doing.

So when you say that during peak times you have around 450-500 players on both fleets on your high pop server and I have only 100-150 players on my low/medium pop server, you don't see that as a problem? When you have several hundred players on your capital planets and we have less than 30, when you have 50-100 players on every single planet and can get groups for everything in an instant and we so few players we either have to spam chat for half an hour or call in our high level guildies for a boost through every single heroic quest, you don't see that as a problem?

 

Cross server queuing will destroy the community as it allows players to be complete jerks with no repercussions. that's a bad thing in case you didn't know. Merging 2 or more servers together so that we all have your numbers is a far greater thing and it boosts the community.

[Shingara]

Sorry I am disagreeing with you now, the Fleet IS the centre of the world, it's the main hub for all players and gives you a very good idea of how the rest of the server is doing.

So when you say that during peak times you have around 450-500 players on both fleets on your high pop server and I have only 100-150 players on my low/medium pop server, you don't see that as a problem? When you have several hundred players on your capital planets and we have less than 30, when you have 50-100 players on every single planet and can get groups for everything in an instant and we so few players we either have to spam chat for half an hour or call in our high level guildies for a boost through every single heroic quest, you don't see that as a problem?

 

Cross server queuing will destroy the community as it allows players to be complete jerks with no repercussions. that's a bad thing in case you didn't know. Merging 2 or more servers together so that we all have your numbers is a far greater thing and it boosts the community.

 

 

Im still stating that the fleet isnt the center of the universe, And having 400-500 players aint the bee's knee's but neither is having 100-150 from both factions, but what is good is a balance between the 2.

 

And like i said slamming 2 servers together wont fix it for alot as they will still have new mains on servers that in all likleyhood isnt the server there old server is merged to so when transfers come up it will just have the same effect as before where players simply shift to a server of there choice not where they were forced togo or started out and then re created on a higher pop server.

 

As for the repercussions, Bioware will just have todo a better job at putting some in which wow woofuly failed todo.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Shingara

[Ascended]

I always feel insanely jealous when I hear someone calling 50 people on republic station light. I dream of that happening on the Keetael server where I get excited to see 20 during peak time. Saw it as high as 28 one time during Free Trial week.

 

The only plus side that I can say with certainty is that due to the server being low population, everyone on the server is quite familiar with each other and is generally nice to each other. It makes for a pleasant experience albeit a lonely one at times.

 

Will we get server merges? I too would like that. I believe transfers are more likely and more feasible at this time for Bioware though. Transfer people off the servers and shut the old servers off so new players dont accidentally roll on them and create the whole issue all over again.

 

OK my numbers may be a little bit off and I am certainly under no illusion that my server is the worst but you see the point I am making.

 

Also it might be a great thing to get to know every single player on your server but that's only a small positive in a sea of negative's.

[Ascended]

Im still stating that the fleet isnt the center of the universe, And having 400-500 players aint the bee's knee's but neither is having 100-150 from both factions, but what is good is a balance between the 2.

 

And like i said slamming 2 servers together wont fix it for alot as they will still have new mains on servers that in all likleyhood isnt the server there old server is merged to so when transfers come up it will just have the same effect as before where players simply shift to a server of there choice not where they were forced togo or started out and then re created on a higher pop server.

 

As for the repercussions, Bioware will just have todo a better job at putting some in which wow woofuly failed todo.

 

OK look I never said that server mergers will be the perfect solution for everyone because that just doesn't exist, and yes SOME people may have characters on other servers, but I'm betting that majority don't because of the legacy system.

The the two things are not mutually exclusive, there is nothing wrong with merging two servers together and then allowing a migration to balance the rest of the servers.

There will never be a fix that suits every single player but fix the problem for the overwhelming majority of players and you will have done right in most people's eyes.

[Ascended]

OK there's not much more I can add to this post as I think both sides of the argument have been supported very well. It appears that most people are in favour of server mergers and that Bioware are in agreement to a degree (by reading the PC Gamer article).

With that being said, I would love to get a response from someone high up in Bioware and hear their views on the subject, maybe there is another side to the argument that I am not seeing or there is a technical reason to why server mergers cannot happen.

In any case I would like to thank all the people who have put their views forward. It has been a very good conversation and hope it goes further as this game deserves to dominate the MMO market place and not stagnates into obscurity (although I doubt that will happen).

[Quixadhal]

Server merges would be a great boost to the game, and would probably get many people to keep their subscriptions active because they'd have something to DO when they logged in.

 

The whole point of an MMO is to play with other people. If the server population drops below some threshold, you suddenly find yourself wanting to PvP and sitting in a queue, or wanting to do a flashpoint/operation and sitting around waiting for people to show up and want to do the same one. The only people who like low population servers are the solo players, who really don't care if there are people around or not.

 

While TOR is a very solo friendly game, at the end of the day, your subscribers can only run alts from 1 to 50 so many times before they've memorized all the dialog trees and seen the content so much their eyes bleed. From that point onward, there has to be something else for them to do, and that something will always involve other players.

 

Some go for PvP, others like to run instances to collect gear, at some point in the future there may be a more rewarding crafting/housing system which will require a vibrant market for people to sell their goods. Without a decent population, none of those will work very well.

 

IMHO, it's far better to do the server merge NOW, while the game is still young and popular. If you wait too long, people will have moved on to something else, and trying to get them back is much harder than keeping them.