Lettixio Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) ..... Edited January 8, 2018 by Lettixio ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lobstah_rofls Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 The largest servers are the buggiest servers. I doubt they can make mega servers work. Worse, megaservers will kill their cartel market sales. Everything will be dirt cheap on the GTN for in-game credits. The biggest servers like Harbinger are already kind of like that. They'd have to re-think their business model, so they absolutely can't do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lettixio Posted February 5, 2017 Author Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) ..... Edited January 8, 2018 by Lettixio ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) Tonight I did some brief investigating of the Imperial/Republic fleets on all of the North America servers. Take this lightly but it is an indicator of how desperate the servers are in need of attention to help resolve the dying population.. SWTOR is essentially on life support. You did NOT address the community at the last live stream where it was said there would be communication. I propose you alleviate all server population issues by creating 1 server for the West Coast and 1 for the East Coast. You don't want to turn away new players to the game simply because they chose a server they did not know was dead. Taking away the population indicators on the server selection was sneaky. WEST COAST Harbinger Imperial Fleet: 122 Instance 1, 171 Instance 2, Instance 3 FULL. Republic Fleet: 167 Instance 1, 58 Instance 2. Begeren Colony Imperial Fleet: 127 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. Republic Fleet: 45 Instance 1. Bastion Imperial Fleet: 12 Instance 1. Republic Fleet: 11 Instance 1. EAST COAST The Ebon Hawk Imperial Fleet: 180 Instance 1, 21 Instance 2. Republic Fleet: 158 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. Jedi Covenant Imperial Fleet: 99 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. Republic Fleet: 115 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. The Shadowlands Imperial Fleet: 110 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. Republic Fleet: 83 Instance 1, Instance 2 FULL. Prophecy of the Five Imperial Fleet: 21 Instance 1. Republic Fleet: 6 Instance 1. Jung Ma Imperial Fleet: 3 Instance 1. Republic Fleet: 7 Instance 1. BIOWARE DON'T IGNORE THIS. SWTOR IS ON LIFE SUPPORT. SAVE WHAT IS LEFT OF THE GAME. Bastion, POT5 and Jung Ma, are a joke. They should have been merged 12 months ago because those numbers on Bastion are similar to what I saw back then But be prepared for the solo content guys to jump in here and rage at you because they don't want mergers. They like playing on dead servers and I'm sure they'll be here soon to tell you all about it because we've been discussing it in multiple threads since before 5.0 was released. The most recent got very heated and trollish. A lot of them can't see the reason why an amalgamation of the games population is needed for group content or they just don't care. I heard all of their arguments and some made valid points and I tried to put myself in their shoes. Unfortunately some of the others refuse to put themselves in our shoes and can become very loud and a tad selfish in their views. But still, I listened to the more rational ones and have softened my approach with a few compromises. I'll list them below, but I can nearly guarantee that those militant and selfish players who want to keep the dead servers will find fault with it and will not be willing to compromise. You'll see who they are soon and understand who I'm talking about They could also consider these options to help improve populations. 1. Reinstate the ability to see server populations when you login and look at servers. ( so new players wanting group content don't roll on dead servers) 2. Introduce "Free" legacy transfers for people and guilds off low population servers to higher population servers (only designated ones) 3. Designate and work out solo play servers (for those who only want solo play) 4. Designate group/solo all round play servers 5. Close/merge those other remaining dead servers that aren't designated to either group (currently too many dead servers, ie, Bastion and POT5) Edited February 5, 2017 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jplankey Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 Eve Online is on one huge server. It averages 40k players on at one time, and rarely is buggy. Except for the large fleet battles, hundreds v hundreds, where the game realy l a g s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) The largest servers are the buggiest servers. I doubt they can make mega servers work. Worse, megaservers will kill their cartel market sales. Everything will be dirt cheap on the GTN for in-game credits. The biggest servers like Harbinger are already kind of like that. They'd have to re-think their business model, so they absolutely can't do it. They wouldn't be Mega servers. No server even comes close to being half as full as servers used to be that we used to consider medium or low population. What people consider medium population now would have been near the bottom of the low population scale 2-3 years ago. You could probably merge all of the US servers and they wouldn't be as full as Harbinger used to be when it was heavy. But that wouldn't be healthy for the game because people play from all around the world and different time zones. You would still need west and east coast servers. One server would put the dirt over the swtor coffin and you'd be adding a head stone soon after. My previous post has some suggestions and I think having 2 servers per coast is what should happen to keep both types of players happy. Personally I would prefer 1 server west coast and 1-2 east, but the solo guys seem to want their own servers. Things on Harby GTN aren't dirt cheap by most people's standards, if anything the costs are over the top Edited February 5, 2017 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
americanaussie Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 With the Rakghoul plague going on people may be actively avoiding the fleet. I'm an active player not listed in bastion or harby. If you are on any west coast server other than harby then take advantage of the transfer sale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
americanaussie Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 Eve Online is on one huge server. It averages 40k players on at one time, and rarely is buggy. Except for the large fleet battles, hundreds v hundreds, where the game realy l a g s. And lag for us aussies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllisonLightning Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 And lag for us aussies? No idea. I played it once and got distracted... need to pick up ESO again. In any case, avoiding Fleet is big during Rakghoul week because people enjoy their sanctioned infection trolling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talon_strikes Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 >inb4 the same forum antagonist come in here and claim alternative facts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 >inb4 the same forum antagonist come in here and claim alternative facts LoL 😂 😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lettixio Posted February 5, 2017 Author Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) ..... Edited January 8, 2018 by Lettixio ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 Rakghoul event might be making the fleets a little quiet, yep. I also didn't consider other planets, strongholds or any instanced things. I just looked at the fleets. I understand solo players want some peace and quiet (sometimes I'm in that boat too) but I do like doing grouped content as well. I don't do ops, would like to but I feel it's a hard path to travel if you are new to it. As for us Aussies, the lag does affect us especially since our APAC servers were removed. Would have been pretty happy if they left us 1 server and all us APAC players went to it. Don't we all, R.I.P. Dalbora Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuaRya Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 It truly is long long overdue. Even on Harbinger it's difficult to get a lowbie pvp pop queue and find Tanks and Healers for groups. I have yet to do any of the Uprisings because they simply do not pop. It's a shame that the devs have let it come to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanNV Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 Note, the "full" instances will tell you depopulating if you try to get into them not full. They are usually where a gold spammers bot is and since they don't leave it sort of hangs at depopulating, sometimes until they restart with a patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arunav Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) I don't want merges currently for especially these reasons: 1) Character Names. Yes, the new space allowed in names would let people rename their characters easier, but, if servers were merged again, you'd have a lot of people losing names they've had for years, some since launch. This in itself is a deal-breaker personally for me. 2) Technical feasibility and bugs The last time server merges were done, BW had a much larger team of engineers, all familiar with the game engine. The people left working on the game may not have this expertise, and I suspect they don't. The preview screen can't be fixed, apparently, and I doubt it's not for trying to. Can you imagine how many things could go wrong in a large server merge? Especially if it required some changes to how servers work to incorporate everyone on, say, 2 servers in NA? 3) Guild ships and other complications Players have spent a lot of time, years in some cases, unlocking their guild ships. If merges were to occur, in its current state, the game would not allow for transferring a guild ship. How would players be compensated for this, and all the decorations in them? I'm sure there's a lengthy list of similar concerns if you go through all the issues associated with merging. I'd rather the team focus on fixing endgame gearing (Galactic Command is still a disaster) and making new content. Both would have a better impact on populations than server merges. Edited February 5, 2017 by arunav Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuaRya Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 The largest servers are the buggiest servers. I doubt they can make mega servers work. Worse, megaservers will kill their cartel market sales. Everything will be dirt cheap on the GTN for in-game credits. The biggest servers like Harbinger are already kind of like that. They'd have to re-think their business model, so they absolutely can't do it. Not True. I'm on East Coast and Harbinger PVP is way smoother than on Shadowlands most likely due to Harbinger being the recently upgraded server. I sell way more items on Harbinger GTN than I do Shadowlands mainly because there aren't enough people to buy. I welcome competitive pricing so platinum and gold items once again sell for under 20 million. It's getting obvious what the last people playing on the dead shell servers will be: 1. Slicer/Mat gatherers, the ones you see botting in heroics in places like Alderaan 2. Solo players in a guild of one decorating their guild ship 3. Cartel Pack Whales appearing on fleet only to show off rare items 4. Petitioning the forums to make Operations solo content Playing RNG in what was designed to be an MMO....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasTomaz Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 With the Rakghoul plague going on people may be actively avoiding the fleet. I'm an active player not listed in bastion or harby. If you are on any west coast server other than harby then take advantage of the transfer sale See, that would affect the totals on the larger servers IMO (it may be better for the OP to also go back and look at the capital world as well) but I think the point they were trying to make is that three servers are ghost towns, and those should be rolled up. Even if they rolled them together into one, it's better than what they are doing now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) They should at least collapse the small dead servers like Bastion, Jung Ma and POT5 into other servers. Setting aside the fact that checking and comparing fleet alone is an inaccurate assessment of actual server activity...... Yes, these three servers need to be addressed in some way. No disagreement. Then again... with cheap server transfers for so long now, you have to wonder... why there is anyone at all on fleet on these three servers? Maybe they want to be there /shrug. The rest though.. are fine and do not need attention at this time, particularly since any player can move around the severs dirt cheap with the perpetual 90cc discount. People like you keep forgetting that they STILL have no method or process to handle guilds in any transfer or merge effort. Until this is addressed, I doubt the studio will do anything... because the blow back from guilds back during the last great merge cycles in 2012 was severe, and required much manual support by CS, because there were many glitches that resulted. Disband guild, members transfer individually, reform guild again, reinvest in all the lost assets associated with Stronghold and Ship = NOT an acceptable approach. Edited February 5, 2017 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted February 5, 2017 Share Posted February 5, 2017 (edited) It truly is long long overdue. Even on Harbinger it's difficult to get a lowbie pvp pop queue and find Tanks and Healers for groups. I have yet to do any of the Uprisings because they simply do not pop. It's a shame that the devs have let it come to this. Forcing non-PvPers to merge with another server will not address your personal need for cannon fodder in lowbie PvP. Maybe lowbie PvP is just not as attractive to players anymore, in which case no amount of server merging will address this. Nice non sequitur though. Uprisings apparently not popular via random PuG but are popular and being played by a good number of guilds. It is small group content... and as such unlikely to attract much PuG attention unless there is something everyone is craving there. We have three servers in the US that are essentially dead, and need to be addressed. That however does not mean the rest require any action at this time. The next one to likely need attention will be Begeren Colony at some point, but for now.. it's doing OK as well. I personally keep tabs on Begeren Colony as it is the best "canary" to watch right now in terms of populations. Edited February 5, 2017 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totemdancer Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 A consolidation of population is over due. I'm not sure if it should be free transfers or merges. There are way to many low population servers to support this game, so we need something to happen. My Aussie server got shut down because it was deemed low population and it had more population than the whole west coast has now. I like Trixxie's ideas. I think that is a fair way with compromises for both communities. We should all try and support what is best for the game. Not what is best for us individually. Someone once said "the needs of the many out way the needs of the few or the one". You can't fault that logic . Especially if you want the game to stay alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lettixio Posted February 6, 2017 Author Share Posted February 6, 2017 (edited) ..... Edited January 8, 2018 by Lettixio ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phalczen Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 I don't want merges currently for especially these reasons: 3) Guild ships and other complications Related to this is of course any individual character's legacy and by extension strongholds. I agree that a consolidation is needed, and I applaud reintroduction of the 90 cc transfer sale, but until Bioware can figure out how NOT to destroy a guild in a merge (i.e. maintain its membership and its digital "property"), then merges should be held off. I think Bioware hurts its players more by destroying a guild in a merger process. I mean, why give your dedicated players, who have built up a community, a proverbial rude gesture by dissolving their guild and the stronghold/flagship's decorations into cyberspace because you can't figure out how to transfer them? That's adding insult to injury. I totally agree that relative population size should be indicated on the server selection screen. Its really false advertising, imo to allow new players to make these decisions uninformed. Taking that information away doesn't seem to have a justifiable reason, and reeks of deception. But, it won't solve the problem of people on dead servers. Figure out how to keep a guild intact, then schedule mergers as indicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totemdancer Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 I'm a returning player and my characters are on Bastion. Today is my first day back and I have been queued for pvp for 6 hours and not had one. I am stuck on Bastion with 16 characters, one of each class and I intended to play each one. I've got no cartel coins to pay for a transfer. I'm definitely not buying any as I am back here to take a break from Warcraft and to see if I'll stay. If I can't play pvp even though I am on a pvp server, I won't be staying unless Bioware offer free transfers I can now understand why people are asking for merges. As a returning player this is a major turn off for anyone finding they can't play what they want to. I'm glad I only paid for 1 month. I wonder how many other returning players leave when they find out this is the case. Now I can see why they removed the server status so it stops people from seeing how bad the servers are. It seems pretty deceitful, but I can see why they did it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
americanaussie Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 Forcing non-PvPers to merge with another server will not address your personal need for cannon fodder in lowbie PvP. Maybe lowbie PvP is just not as attractive to players anymore, in which case no amount of server merging will address this. Nice non sequitur though. Uprisings apparently not popular via random PuG but are popular and being played by a good number of guilds. It is small group content... and as such unlikely to attract much PuG attention unless there is something everyone is craving there. We have three servers in the US that are essentially dead, and need to be addressed. That however does not mean the rest require any action at this time. The next one to likely need attention will be Begeren Colony at some point, but for now.. it's doing OK as well. I personally keep tabs on Begeren Colony as it is the best "canary" to watch right now in terms of populations. You're right. The people left on the bastion will not be pvpers. At all. Pvp wasn't popping much before dvl event. I doubt it pops at all now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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