When will there be a SERVER MERGE?

[curtkram]

I'm wondering.... who is this "Everyone" people keep talking about and why is "Everyone's" opinion so important? I know you can't mean the actual definition of the word everyone because if that were true, none of us would be playing. So, I have to assume "Everyone" is someone specific named "Everyone." Otherwise, your statement makes no sense because I still play. Apparently a few others do too because while most servers are light with next to no one on them, there are a handful that still show as Standard, Heavy, and Very Heavy.

 

I apologize if this subject has been brought up before. I'm just confused by who this "Everyone" is.

 

I saw him on pvp a couple months ago. He was a good guy, and a great player. When his server died and his guild all quit or left for other servers, he had to make a choice. I guess for him, giving up everything he had worked for so he could reroll on the fatman was too much. He decided doing nothing was better than logging into TOR and starting over again, so he followed hundreds of thousands of others and quit. It's not really that 'his' opinion is all that important, he's just sort of symbolically used to reflect the opinion of the hundreds of thousands of other people that share his opinion.

[banecolton]

I doubt that bioware will listen to your concerns a server merge will only happen when the subscription number drops close to 500k and since this point has not been reached…

Sorry it was reached last week.

Not trolling just asking, where did you get this information from?

Can you link/share the source?

[Lurchy]

Not trolling just asking, where did you get this information from?

Can you link/share the source?

 

It is an internetzz fact, you know perfectly well that internetzz facts do not require any corroboration;)

[Jederix]

I'm wondering.... who is this "Everyone" people keep talking about and why is "Everyone's" opinion so important? I know you can't mean the actual definition of the word everyone because if that were true, none of us would be playing. So, I have to assume "Everyone" is someone specific named "Everyone." Otherwise, your statement makes no sense because I still play. Apparently a few others do too because while most servers are light with next to no one on them, there are a handful that still show as Standard, Heavy, and Very Heavy.

 

I apologize if this subject has been brought up before. I'm just confused by who this "Everyone" is.

 

Cleary "Everyone" is the imaginary flock of players that he was elected to speak for, the ones who hang on his every word and idea and only play games for the same reason he does.

[Jederix]

Not trolling just asking, where did you get this information from?

Can you link/share the source?

 

The same place all fecal matter comes from, clearly.

[Xargyn]

Here's the problem I see with transfers: I counted 126 US servers. And over 100 of them have low populations. Everytime I check, the number of servers with standard or better populations are less than 10% of the total number of servers. If the only available option is transfers, people will transfer to the most populated servers.. This will cause those servers to become overpopulated, which is just as bad as being underpopulated.

 

I believe people quit right now because they hit 50 and there's not enough people on to do anything with. Sometimes I'm in the level PvP queue for over two hours, for example. But if the server became so populated that I had to sit in a queue for an hour before I can play, that's just as bad.

 

What we need are server merges. Take the 100+ servers with light populations and merge them down to 30 or 40 servers. Merge the active accounts with active characters on the servers to be combined. That way people will have a better chance of keeping their names without losing them to some trial character that was only played for one weekend three months ago.

 

Personally, I play on a Mac. So I had to buy a hard drive and Windows 7 before I could even buy the game, just to play it. And I like the game. It's more fun to me than the previous MMO I played. I like how warzones are set up. I like how I get experience bonuses as well as social points for grouping. I like the stories, and I like that I can skip the side quests with my alts by leveling via PvP or Space Combat. But I've rerolled to change servers twice. Two standard servers I was playing on are now light. And I'm not going to reroll my main again or pay for it to be transferred to another server that may or may not just become light again. (And the name I've been using in MMOs since I played Ultima Online isn't allowed. So I had to think up a new one for my main, and I'm not wanting to have to change that again since it's how people recognize me.) I'll continue to play until I finish all eight stories.

 

But once that happens, if I'm on a ghost town server, with nothing to do with all the level 50s other than wait in a queue the entire time I want to play, I'll be cancelling my account.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Xargyn

[banecolton]

The same place all fecal matter comes from, clearly.

 

Here is a thought, how about you give them a chance to actually answer the question before you post some cut rate ad hominem BS sunshine.

 

I would like to give them a chance to offer some sort of source to collaborate their claim, that’s how grown-ups have a conversation. Stick around you might learn something champ. Or you could just continue to try and impress us with what passes for wit in your case. Whichever.

[TOGFelix]

I saw him on pvp a couple months ago. He was a good guy, and a great player. When his server died and his guild all quit or left for other servers, he had to make a choice. I guess for him, giving up everything he had worked for so he could reroll on the fatman was too much. He decided doing nothing was better than logging into TOR and starting over again, so he followed hundreds of thousands of others and quit. It's not really that 'his' opinion is all that important, he's just sort of symbolically used to reflect the opinion of the hundreds of thousands of other people that share his opinion.

 

Epic.

 

Not this post, but that is Everybody's brother's name.

 

I want more info on the mega/super servers... Please.

[Moaky]

It is an internetzz fact, you know perfectly well that internetzz facts do not require any corroboration;)

 

You are an informed individual, and very correct from where I am sitting.

 

If we listened to random howlings on the internet, one would think the PRECioUs was actually a good game.

[Kthx]

Not trolling just asking, where did you get this information from?

Can you link/share the source?

 

The latest actual data point is still the 1.3 million number from the Q4 2012 earnings call on May 7. Scorpienne's estimate of an average count of 65,772 concurrent players, is equivalent to approximately 880k-1.3M subscribers, if you assume a 10-15% ratio of peak concurrent players to subscriptions and a 2:1 ratio between peak and average player counts.

[FHA-Sal]

We had yet another Community Q&A this week in which BIOWARE didn't address server merges....so that means they aren't going to do them..... If they had accepted reality and determined that they were going to have to do them they would have addressed it just to slow people from dropping thier subscriptions. They are opting for mass transfers which will just result in those on light servers ending up on "lighter" servers and dumping thier subscriptions. There are alot of folks that aren't going to bother with whatever transfer processing is required....just not worth the effort. They will be history.

 

It's so pointless to try and avoid the public relations disaster..YOUR REAL SUB NUMBERS WILL COME OUT. Just man up do the server merges.

[justandulas]

I hope soon. My server (Bondar crystal) has been on life support for some time. I love this game, I really do, but it is no fun to play on a dead server where you can complete your daily quests without a pvp que. We have about a 4 hour window in the evening where pvp que's pop, and it's only because we have about 20+ loyal players. I'm not gonna QQ, again I really adore this MMO, but server merges are a must at this point. I hope they find a way to make merges/transfers work smoothly with the same names/legacy names (maybe the ones with active subs get preference?). I would rather wait in a que everytime I log in then log into a dead server with no activity. Edited June 2, 2012 by justandulas

[Cucubelu]

Only way to go is the server mergers. The name issues regarding legacies and characters are a secondary problem to the one existing today. It is getting worse and worse, it feels like a daily update that more and more players drop off the face of the earth to go play something that actually includes the "MMO" aspect, which involves actually seeing other players bouncing around the server.

 

Transfer is not a viable option at this point due to the fact that people will choose the highest populated server and stay there, meaning more and more servers will lose their desired numbers. Merger, however, is a controlled transfer that will allow more servers to be active with the desired numbers.

 

I hope they will realize the problems of ONLY launching transfers in 1.3. You can not put a band aid on a bleeding artery, you need major surgery.

[Irenicus_Jon]

I honestly don't think this is an issue anymore.

 

Server transfers/merges will not bring back people like me. We have moved on to other things. Those that managed to swallow the bitter pill of re-rolling on another server and lose their legacy have done so. At this points there are some servers that need to be nuked (to prevent the illusion that they are actual servers) but I'm pretty sure the number of people that would come back with the offer of server transfer/merges is small (and decreasing daily).

[curtkram]

I have been in contact with customer service trying to get them to fix the game at least for me before I unsubbed. I know that's kind of selfish, but they've been fairly clear that the population as a whole is going to have to wait much longer than what I am currently able to tolerate. Anyway, this is part of that conversation and includes the word 'merge' if you guys want to dissect it. It's copy/pasted so please don't blame me for any spelling or grammar errors. Also I have no idea how close customer service is to the actual development team. Have fun.

 

Thank you for contacting us regarding youir concerns over derver transfers, and your comments on our customer service.

 

At this present moment in time we are not offering a server transfer service to our customers, but I can assure you that this is happening soon.

 

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, it was the biggest launch in MMO history, and the decision was made to make more servers available to our customers so that there would not be an issue with players queuing to play the game. As expected with all MMO launches, once the initial player base has started to settle down, we are currently reviewing which servers to merge/shut down, and this is taking time, as you can expect.

 

We are also trying to ensure that the server transfer process will go through for all our customers with the minimum amount of technical issues. We would hate to lose any players characters as part of a server merge due to us not ensuring that the process is working as intended.

 

As a fellow gamer and Star Wars player, I can understand how frustrating it can be to try to play a MMO without players on the server to group up with. Indeed, once the server transfers are up and running, I will be transferring my characters to another server as I am in the same boat as yourself.

 

I hope that this email helps to explain why the server transfers are not yet ready, but I can assure you that it is one of our top priorities. Once the server transfers are available, it will be announced on the swtor.com website, and also in the free newsletter that we make available for all our registered players.

[Kourage]

Oh Gawd If only they'd merge the servers as fast as they merged the discussions to this thread!

[Borghacker]

just want to add my voice to the crowd.

 

I was playing solo for a while today, and by solo, I mean I was the only one on the planet !... only me, nobody else. The whole planet just for me and my companions...

 

my (founder!) characters are going to die out of boredom if I can't transfer them soon to a server with players. Killing NPC just isn't going to do it. I kinda miss the early days, when we sometimes had to wait a few minutes to get onto a crowded server.

 

If merger is not in the short term roadmap, then I sure hope that 1.3 will allow for people to regroup on servers through clever transfers. If not i'll just have to quit this insanely gorgeous game. Selfish maybe, but I just don't see the

point of an MMO without people to play with.

 

Will Bioware & EA hear my plea ?

[MbaxterBeau]

They won't do server merges. They'd rather have people fill the forums with complaints. I doubt they're working on the server transfer patch right now because it makes more sense to have angry customers.......

 

Going to go play my level 49 toon on the fatman (I re-rolled) and have insane amounts of fun with my guildies.

[Sammm]

Not a server merge, more a combination of server population increase + free transfers. It's better for PR I guess.

 

For more details, go check the Dulfy summary about 1.3.

 

That update 1.3 should be there in 3-4 weeks at most. I have to say, I'm pretty excited about it.

[banecolton]

The latest actual data point is still the 1.3 million number from the Q4 2012 earnings call on May 7. Scorpienne's estimate of an average count of 65,772 concurrent players, is equivalent to approximately 880k-1.3M subscribers, if you assume a 10-15% ratio of peak concurrent players to subscriptions and a 2:1 ratio between peak and average player counts.

 

Yeah, that is the information and numbers that I have been looking at and agree that with the sources available are the best to go by right now. I just wanted to verify if there was another “reasonable” source that had become available. And despite the trollish pre-emptive attacks made on this person by others I am going to take his/her silence in regards to my question as an answer.

[Sheldoom]

I'm shocked that they let it get to this point, server populations are the cancer eating away at this game. I consider myself to be quite reasonable and even I thought they should start merging servers over a month ago. Honestly, why they launched with so many is beyond me. Clearly there was a gross overestimation of their market draw and then they drug their feet on making the changes that need to happen. In addition to that they launched missing a ton of basic MMO features that people have come to expect, slowly (with an emphasis on slowly) they are adding them in but with so much negative press out there already and fox news-esque spin going out in interviews they really have their work cut out for them. People aren't buying into it, and if they are even remotely interested, they are listening more to what players are saying here then what they are reading BW/EA employees in interviews.

[Sammm]

I'm shocked that they let it get to this point, server populations are the cancer eating away at this game. I consider myself to be quite reasonable and even I thought they should start merging servers over a month ago. Honestly, why they launched with so many is beyond me. Clearly there was a gross overestimation of their market draw and then they drug their feet on making the changes that need to happen. In addition to that they launched missing a ton of basic MMO features that people have come to expect, slowly (with an emphasis on slowly) they are adding them in but with so much negative press out there already and fox news-esque spin going out in interviews they really have their work cut out for them. People aren't buying into it, and if they are even remotely interested, they are listening more to what players are saying here then what they are reading BW/EA employees in interviews.

 

About the "so many servers at launch", I think they just took a huge gamble. It was either launch with only a few servers and let a lot of players wait in 4-6 hour queues OR launch with much more servers so that the average queue time would be minimal. Even with so many servers, I think they planned that most players would reroll many alts for many months before ending up with nothing else to do in the game around June 2012. Also, they didn't expect that we would play so much: the average playing time for the first 2 months was 8 hours everyday! All that combined contributed to the population decrease starting around February 2012. In other words, I think the developers were caught off guard.

 

About that "missing tons of basic mmo features". I bet that the Bioware developers wanted to launch the game around May-June 2012 instead of December 2011, but it's the EA bosses who take the final decisions and they decided to launch it during the year 2011. It would explain why a lot of basic mmo features weren't there at the launch.

 

About that "huge delay before the population consolidations", I have the feeling that they really wanted to activate the process way before June 2012 but for some reasons they just couldn't. The Bioware developers aren't stupid, seriously, they aren't. They kept analyzing the server populations statistics since the launch and they witnessed like us the population drops on so many servers from February 2012 until now. I think that either the boss (EA) refused to let them merge the servers or they weren't just ready yet to do it.

 

So, this update 1.3 with the population increases, the free transfers, the group finder and the ranked warzones (probably) is the most important update for SWTOR so far. I really think it will break or make the game for many years to come.

 

Message to the developers: please, be more specific in your Q&A and your interviews. "End of June" or "Beginning of July" is better than "Early summer". "In about 4 weeks" is better than "Soon".

Edited June 3, 2012 by Sammm

[MrsSudo]

Yes! please merge light servers! & soon!

I was the only person on the fleet at PEAK time & haven't seen anyone else on other planets for awhile either

[Enamore]

Im just gutted by this whole debacle. I put my faith in bioware and for the first few months i loved the game, i still do, but since april i havnt logged in for more than a couple of minutes and each time i do i see the same thing, no matter what time of day, 1-10 people on rf....I had fun with my guild, lots of it, but this is an mmo, and i need people to play with.

 

Please bioware, just listen to your community and merge the servers, bring people back to the game before its too late.

 

Im finding it harder and harder to justify paying the sub each month anymore and will stop doing so soon.

 

Ena

[dayhak]

Im just gutted by this whole debacle. I put my faith in bioware and for the first few months i loved the game, i still do, but since april i havnt logged in for more than a couple of minutes and each time i do i see the same thing, no matter what time of day, 1-10 people on rf....I had fun with my guild, lots of it, but this is an mmo, and i need people to play with.

 

Please bioware, just listen to your community and merge the servers, bring people back to the game before its too late.

 

Im finding it harder and harder to justify paying the sub each month anymore and will stop doing so soon.

 

Ena

 

I agree... I love this game in a big way... Yeah its a bit slow once you hit 50, but all BW needs is time to get content rolling. Within a year, I'm sure lots of content will be available. I'm frustrated with the dead servers though and more frustrated that the only fix is temporary transfers (and only from some servers) and a LFG tool. I mean transfers and LFG tools are great, but they are bandaids that are only short term fixes. Servers need to be merged ASAP. Once servers are merged I will resub!