Could you please articulate the risk that you are considering?

[Bewoulff]

Wait three days to ensure healthy population for years.

 

Seems like a good deal to me.

 

this infuriates me. What the blue flying %$ do you think they should do? Monitor populations for years before doing anything? They've monitored population since it dipped and have decided transfers and creating mega servers will be the key. Stop being a little girl and complaining at every damn move they do. Pull up your skirt, wipe your eyes and get on with life.

[Colyer]

More unneeded speculation.

 

BW needed to choose a few servers that were going to wait until they knew where the population levels would sit to ensure they could do something in case the numbers aren't level during or after the weekend.

 

BW won't say this simply because no one wants to hear they were singled out for a disadvantage at no fault of their own.

[Colyer]

this infuriates me. What the blue flying %$ do you think they should do? Monitor populations for years before doing anything? They've monitored population since it dipped and have decided transfers and creating mega servers will be the key. Stop being a little girl and complaining at every damn move they do. Pull up your skirt, wipe your eyes and get on with life.

 

Rage after reading comp fail is always funny.

[Trevalion]

I think it's funny that this thread ended up on the front page again.

 

While I still would have loved a better explanation than what the community team gave us, it is obvious to me now that they are not willing to elucidate any further.

 

So, happy Fathers Day to them, I hope they enjoy the weekend. I will be logged in to my still dead server while those others get to enjoy full servers, fast wz pop's and integration into their community.

 

Here's hoping Monday brings a server merge for the rest of us. Cheers

[dsapp]

I'd say it's pretty obvious... They have transferred a LOT of origin servers into a substantially smaller number of destination servers. Not everyone logs in during the week, and there will also be a number of people returning to the game as a result of the merges. Until they have a chance to monitor the active populations over the weekend, they won't really have an accurate idea of which servers they need to top off and which ones are at their desired levels.

 

The lack of details may be annoying, but this doesn't seem that difficult to understand.

 

Less people log in during the weekend then during the week. I said this before. It's just like television. Stations usually don't bother putting their good shows on Friday or Saturday because nobody watches television. Those two days are THE WORST for television ratings. Why? Because people are doing things over the weekend. The truth is that they'll have the same data on Monday that they have today. Their reasoning is bullcrap and too many people, especially those who have already gotten their transfer, are lapping it up because they can PvP and run groups and use their GTN. Well the rest of us are NOT happy and I guarantee they lost a few more subs from people who are just as, or even more, frustrated than I am.

[Kharnis]

I think it's funny that this thread ended up on the front page again.

 

While I still would have loved a better explanation than what the community team gave us, it is obvious to me now that they are not willing to elucidate any further.

 

So, happy Fathers Day to them, I hope they enjoy the weekend. I will be logged in to my still dead server while those others get to enjoy full servers, fast wz pop's and integration into their community.

 

Here's hoping Monday brings a server merge for the rest of us. Cheers

 

They. Are. Monitoring. The. Population. Of. The. Desitnation. Servers. Over. The. Weekend. To. See. How. The. New. Populations. Are. Affecting. Those. Destination. Servers. Once. They. Have. This. Data. They. Will. Continue. With. More. Transfers. At. The. Start. Of. The. Week.

 

They came right out and told you this. Here is the official word from the devs themselves:

 

All right folks, I have an update for you.

 

As mentioned before, because of the logistics in monitoring the rate of character transfers and population shifts onto destination servers, our cadence for opening up origin servers will change day-to-day.

 

As we approach the weekend, we want to be careful about where to allow additional servers to transfer to so as not to overwhelm current destination servers. Many weekend players will be logging in, contributing to our overall analysis.

 

This means that we need to monitor populations and rate of transfers over the weekend before opening up new servers. We understand that players are anxious to transfer, but please be patient during this process so that we can deliver the best gameplay experience that we can offer.

What the hell more do you need to know? You asked, and this information has been provided to you several times. This is not speculation, this is straight from the devs themselves. They explain very clearly what those "risks" you are asking about are, and they explain very clearly why they are not opening up further origin or destination servers over the weekend. There is no need for them to "elucidate" any further because you can't get any more clear than what they've already told you.

[SajmanPeetee]

As far as the two remaining east coast servers goes, the issue is this.

 

Prop5 is smaller than Fatman currently is. However, it has a population imbalance of 3-1 in Imp's favor with the 2 remaining East Coast PvP servers both being Imperial heavy.

 

Do you send them to Prop5 causing an even greater disparity between the Imp-Pub ratio or do you send them to Fatman which has a 4-3 Imp-Pub ratio but is already full.

[ramzeppelin]

Now, if this wasn't just speculation and was written by a yellow name I would be satisfied with this explanation. The ideas quoted here are not new to me, and I am not disputing their logic and common sense. However, they have not been articulated by a yellow name.

 

They also only answer PART of the problem. I just want a clear explanation from a yellow name to allow me to choke down my disappointment. While I am not discouraging others from posting their opinions and speculation I can only call it speculation until a BW employee gives me a clearer answer than what already exists.

 

 

Seriously please step away from the keyboard and look at what you are so upset about and what you are demanding.

Life has to have a window you can go to to get perspective I hope.

 

Also stop demanding stuff. This is just nit picky in relation to your assurance you deserve this information how you deserve and when.

Can you please not see your on about something too much?

 

In a few days or hours you will be over this and hopefully life will not hand you a mortal reminder of what is important and likely should be much more anxious with!!!!!!

[WickedImage]

The most logical reason they have for not articulating anything to us is because......we hang on every word they say, twist their words, and go to the worst possible extremes with whatever they say, no matter what it is. They can't win no matter what they tell us, "someone" is gonna always be pissed.

True story.....

[ChrisRedmond]

Have some faith in BW.

 

They have managed to clean up all the messes so far with the manner of a nuclear powered French maid.

 

I haven't had my transfer yet, but have faith they'll get it right.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

I am on Vornskyr.

 

Republic fleet populations at prime time on average are 25 people, with approximately the same on Imperial sides.

We have not been transferred yet. We have been informed that transfers will not happen this weekend because they are "monitoring" the situation.

 

While I am disappointed by the idea of having a dead server all weekend (and who knows how long next week), I am really frustrated by the lack of information as to why.

 

Your explanation is lacking. Please articulate to me the risks that you are balancing by observing over the weekend and not finishing your transfers now?

 

I have heard guesses, and speculation. Some of which makes sense and seems logical. I am looking for a yellow post clearly articulating the reason your waiting over the weekend. To make my request more clear, "observing the population" and "monitoring data" are not informative answers as to why some servers cannot be transferred before the weekend.

Whilst I am generally pro-bioware, I would say that the "weekend wait" has ZERO to do with "situation monitoring" and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that the Devs who setup the transfer code don't work weekends and Bioware aren't gonna spring for funds to pay them overtime...

 

Personal view, may be wrong...

[amnie]

Bzzt. Try again. They have months of data on which to perform trend analysis. That and there's no need to fill each destination server to the brim.

 

months of data won't tell them anything about the people who rerolled on the fatman when their servers started dying.

 

will these people play with their transfered characters on the prophecy of the five - or did they grow into liking the fatman enough to stay there? nobody knows at this point.

[Laris_Rai]

All of the speculation about why they choose to do this is not new. However, I have not yet read a yellow name articulate any truth behind those speculations. I HAVE read the yellow posts that ambiguously said stuff about "monitoring populations" and waiting for weekend people to loin.

 

HOWEVER that does not answer the question about articulating the RISK they are balancing in choosing not to allow further origin servers. That is what I am looking for, a clear description of the risk they are trying to mitigate by this decision. It obviously is disappointing, and I am obviously disappointed. I could swallow this bitter pill a little easier if I could clearly understand why they chose this route.

 

Bioware doens't need to tell us the nuts and bolts details of how they run their business. There are things that companies do prefer to keep private. And your problem here is simply a lack of patience.

 

Besides, there's enough people playing armchair MMO officer with just the info we have no. And we've seen how productive those posts tend to be.

[SecretScientist]

months of data won't tell them anything about the people who rerolled on the fatman when their servers started dying.

 

will these people play with their transfered characters on the prophecy of the five - or did they grow into liking the fatman enough to stay there? nobody knows at this point.

 

Observing populations for two weekend days in June will not paint an accurate picture either. That's like watching the stock market for two days and making conclusions about how to invest for the year.

 

How many people are on vacation, at weddings, enjoying the weather, playing other games until this settles out, playing ranked warzones on PTS, or just haven't made a decision where they're going to play because Bioware is appearing indecisive?

 

Listen, I haven't been keeping up with this thread, nor do I intend to. But I think the poster a couple posts back pretty much called it - the decision makers took a half day and went home for the weekend.

 

 

Edit: Forgot to finish up my original point, now that I remember it (still working on my first cup of coffee). Basing long-term decisions on short-term observations is inherently inductive and loaded with elevated risk. A superior approach would be to mine existing data, make a field of assumptions and conduct a proper risk assessment. If extra assurance is needed, Monte Carlo simulations or the like can be employed.

 

This may sound work intensive, but it is relatively straightforward for the those practiced and would have avoided the "paralysis by analysis" that we're seeing now.

Edited June 16, 2012 by SecretScientist

[asbalana]

I am on Vornskyr.

 

Republic fleet populations at prime time on average are 25 people, with approximately the same on Imperial sides.

We have not been transferred yet. We have been informed that transfers will not happen this weekend because they are "monitoring" the situation.

 

While I am disappointed by the idea of having a dead server all weekend (and who knows how long next week), I am really frustrated by the lack of information as to why.

 

Your explanation is lacking. Please articulate to me the risks that you are balancing by observing over the weekend and not finishing your transfers now?

 

I have heard guesses, and speculation. Some of which makes sense and seems logical. I am looking for a yellow post clearly articulating the reason your waiting over the weekend. To make my request more clear, "observing the population" and "monitoring data" are not informative answers as to why some servers cannot be transferred before the weekend.

 

I am also on Vornskr and think that the OP is understating the population a bit. Prime time the imp side runs about 50 to 60 and I have seen it higher and the republic side can go from 40 to 50. The numbers vary quite a bit because a lot of people are moving back and forth to and from planets with fleet as hub. I did a spot check of Harbinger yesterday and there were 200+ people on fleet and it reminded me of the game's early days on Vornskr.

 

I am not sure what BW is doing (no one ever is), but perhaps Vornskr still has enough people that it can have an impact on whatever destination server that is named. Moving very very low pop servers to one of the bigger ones is a no brainer, but it could be that BW is scratching it's collective head to figure out what to do with an "almost" server like ours. This will also be the first weekend after transfers so it may be a good thing to look at what happens now. BW seems very capable of screwing things up whether or not they do things quickly, but I am O.K. with waiting a few more days. LOL, at least this weekend I will not have 50 people running around in the Black Hole to fight with over mobs.

[RocNessMonster]

Whilst I am generally pro-bioware, I would say that the "weekend wait" has ZERO to do with "situation monitoring" and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that the Devs who setup the transfer code don't work weekends and Bioware aren't gonna spring for funds to pay them overtime...

 

Personal view, may be wrong...

 

I highly doubt the heads get paid hourly. Most of these guys work on a salary.

[Lakhesis]

All of the speculation about why they choose to do this is not new. However, I have not yet read a yellow name articulate any truth behind those speculations. I HAVE read the yellow posts that ambiguously said stuff about "monitoring populations" and waiting for weekend people to loin.

 

HOWEVER that does not answer the question about articulating the RISK they are balancing in choosing not to allow further origin servers. That is what I am looking for, a clear description of the risk they are trying to mitigate by this decision. It obviously is disappointing, and I am obviously disappointed. I could swallow this bitter pill a little easier if I could clearly understand why they chose this route.

 

They've said they'll let everyone from the same origin server go to the same destination server.

 

If they direct too many origin servers to the same destination server, they'll either:

a) End up with a destination server they regard as over-populated, or

b) Have to redirect the late-transferers to a different destination server (which would split guilds/friends/etc & they have said they will not do).

 

They can know the maximum number of people who could possibly transfer, but they cannot know how many of that maximum number will transfer. Therefore they need to stop & gauge what percent are taking up the transfer before risking the above scenarios.

 

I'd have thought the logic was readily apparently from the previous Dev statements personally.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Boretide]

Out of the 10 guild mates that are normally on.. 8 rolled toons on the dest servers.. I am not sure how they are going to test load if everyone on dead servers are rolling alts on populated servers to actaully be ablel to play the game...

 

Hell.. my wife actualyl rolled an alt on one of the dest servers (she never makes alts)

[Ealaniel]

Whilst I am generally pro-bioware, I would say that the "weekend wait" has ZERO to do with "situation monitoring" and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that the Devs who setup the transfer code don't work weekends and Bioware aren't gonna spring for funds to pay them overtime...

 

Personal view, may be wrong...

 

You are, in fact, completely wrong.

 

Devs are salaried employees and don't get overtime.

 

And I think a lot of people are ignoring the near-certainty that the devs have been putting in a lot of extra hours just getting the transfer process ready.

[Ealaniel]

Observing populations for two weekend days in June will not paint an accurate picture either. That's like watching the stock market for two days and making conclusions about how to invest for the year.

 

How many people are on vacation, at weddings, enjoying the weather, playing other games until this settles out, playing ranked warzones on PTS, or just haven't made a decision where they're going to play because Bioware is appearing indecisive?

 

Listen, I haven't been keeping up with this thread, nor do I intend to. But I think the poster a couple posts back pretty much called it - the decision makers took a half day and went home for the weekend.

 

 

Edit: Forgot to finish up my original point, now that I remember it (still working on my first cup of coffee). Basing long-term decisions on short-term observations is inherently inductive and loaded with elevated risk. A superior approach would be to mine existing data, make a field of assumptions and conduct a proper risk assessment. If extra assurance is needed, Monte Carlo simulations or the like can be employed.

 

This may sound work intensive, but it is relatively straightforward for the those practiced and would have avoided the "paralysis by analysis" that we're seeing now.

 

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

Until transfers started, there was zero data on how many people would actually transfer. You can't make an accurate model or simulation from non-existent data. And while two days worth of data is not a complete data-set, it's infinitely better than nothing.

 

But sure, go on thinking that Bioware are just a bunch of lazy jerks that just work a few hours and then go roll around naked in your money. It's a free country and no one will deny you your paranoid fantasy.

[Rafaman]

You are, in fact, completely wrong.

 

Devs are salaried employees and don't get overtime.

 

And I think a lot of people are ignoring the near-certainty that the devs have been putting in a lot of extra hours just getting the transfer process ready.

 

Yup, and work well into weekends, and I bet are working hard as we speak. This whole idea about "monitoring" doesn't capture everything that is going on behind the scenes. Lol! Anyone who has managed major networks will tell you it is seemless to the users if done well but it is not that way for Admins and Ops. BTW, Devs seems to be a catchall word for many here. I'm not sure people understand what "Devs" really do...

[Littlegem]

I have got it.....

Its because Bioware devs need to go back in time in their UFO and then dressed as Elvis they need to shoot JFK and then somehow get back to present day Texas without leaving behind any wreckage that might be mistaken as a weather balloon. ohhh, not forgetting to fake a moon landing along the way.

 

 

They say they need to do some background checks and stuff... OK fair enough. I am sure this is absolutely the case. As do, I am sure, the vast majority of the "sane" player base.

Just dont take too long please. We want to get moved and settled asap.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Littlegem

[TheSeventhJedi]

You are, in fact, completely wrong.

 

Devs are salaried employees and don't get overtime.

 

And I think a lot of people are ignoring the near-certainty that the devs have been putting in a lot of extra hours just getting the transfer process ready.

 

I'm not saying you might not be right, but how could you possibly know that? I'm a salaried employee, and when overtime is required of me, I'm usually compensated. Sometimes it's in the form of extra days off, sometimes it's pay, sometimes it's a shorter day the next day - but if my boss ever says "you're working overtime" it's almost always followed by what I'm going to get out of it. (There are a few days of the year that I'm mandated to work overtime, but those are in my contract, and so I know not to whine and moan about it.)

[SecretScientist]

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

Until transfers started, there was zero data on how many people would actually transfer. You can't make an accurate model or simulation from non-existent data. And while two days worth of data is not a complete data-set, it's infinitely better than nothing.

 

But sure, go on thinking that Bioware are just a bunch of lazy jerks that just work a few hours and then go roll around naked in your money. It's a free country and no one will deny you your paranoid fantasy.

 

I love how you open with a personal insult to message that you've already lost argument you're about to make.

 

You want to know how many people are going to transfer? Do what every other consumer products company does. Ask. Ask the right way. Understand the underlying consumer behaviors and uncover the insights. This research should never stop. It doesn't matter whether you're P&G, SC Johnson, Campbell's Soup, General Motors or Electronic Arts. There is no reason to "wing it" and see what happens.

 

Are they lazy? No, they went home to relax for Father's Day weekend. Are they an inexperienced organization that has difficulty making decisions. I believe so.

 

And do yourself a favor and leave the personal insults out before rushing to the keyboard. People will be more apt to take you seriously.