Bioware Please Merge Servers

[spectreclees]

Cross Server instancing would be better and everyone wins. Could also allow people to opt out of it if they don't want to play with other servers. Edited March 6, 2017 by spectreclees

[Savej]

Cross Server instancing would be better and everyone wins. Could also allow people to opt out of it if they don't want to play with other servers.

 

BW can't do x-server. The last time they looked at it they decided they had to do merges instead (which was after we were told that x-server was imminent). But I agree that x-server would be preferable from my perspective as well. Note that many of the people currently arguing against merges will also argue against x-server.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Savej

[DreadtechSavant]

Let's open it up for discussion. I'm concerned that if there are merges, I'll end up losing my character names and guildships, have to reactivate and redecorate my strongholds, have to watch as all the trolls, gold spammers and guild adverts destroy any chance of an open world conversation, have to fight with mercs who refuse to group up for open world heroics, lose the comfort and camaraderie of a server where you can get to know people, lose any chance to do any RP events, and lose any chance of ever getting Planetary Conquests done.

 

With all of this in mind, I have strong doubts that my subscription will continue if there are server merges. From what I can see, there will be no benefit, because I won't add to the queues for PvP, GF, or GSF. All it will do is add strain on the server, which, if it is Harbinger, already has a history of problems such as the irregular rollbacks and the problems last week with people being put in a queue to log in.

 

So, I open it up to you - what benefits do you think we will have with server merges?

 

You can also add that if you already play on many servers and spent time investing in all of the characters. Server mergers may well go over the max allowed characters per server. Such as if the 3 UK merged I would have 109 characters. OK So I play on ToFN for the most part but do go on the other two servers if playing between 1am and 7am. So still use them. Max limit at the moment is what? 50-52? something like that.

 

Every single thing in your list are also my concerns. Well it maybe possible to transfer entire guilds but the rest would still be there. as well as the one I added above.

Edited March 6, 2017 by DreadtechSavant

[Ratajack]

BW can't do x-server. The last time they looked at it they decided they had to do merges instead (which was after we were told that x-server was imminent). Although I agree that x-server would be preferable from my perspective vs merges. Note that many of the people currently arguing against merges will also argue against x-server.

 

I don't remember ever being told that x-server was imminent. Maybe you could provide a source for your claim.

 

I do remember hearing about something better than X-server, though.

 

You must not have been reading these threads. There have been plenty of people who are not sold on the idea of cross server queuing, even if it were possible.

 

Cross server is not the holy grail that many want us to believe it is. Cross server queuing brings its own set of problems, not the least of which is the lack of behavioral accountability cross servers afford to those whose behavior is less than desirable, shall we say.

[eriksarcasm]

I don't remember ever being told that x-server was imminent. Maybe you could provide a source for your claim.

 

I do remember hearing about something better than X-server, though.

 

You must not have been reading these threads. There have been plenty of people who are not sold on the idea of cross server queuing, even if it were possible.

 

Cross server is not the holy grail that many want us to believe it is. Cross server queuing brings its own set of problems, not the least of which is the lack of behavioral accountability cross servers afford to those whose behavior is less than desirable, shall we say.

 

The main argument against cross-server queues is that it's not possible/feasible according to Bioware, for technical reasons. I don't believe anyone has given any valid argument for it being unwanted even if it was possible. As for behavioral accountability, make the report function work by phase rather than by server.

 

Unless you're implying somehow that all the hackers, cheaters, wintraders and trolls only reside on a certain server and by connecting servers in any way will unleash them all on unsuspecting populaces. That's simply not true. Source: human nature.

[DreadtechSavant]

In case you haven't been paying attention, your position is the most closed-minded and the most detrimental to the health of this game. BW doesn't even share your opinion they just don't have the resources to merge at the moment. This is one of the only remotely major MMOs that doesn't have either x-server or mega servers.

 

Right back at you. You are no different. Pot-Kettle

[Ratajack]

The main argument against cross-server queues is that it's not possible/feasible according to Bioware, for technical reasons. I don't believe anyone has given any valid argument for it being unwanted even if it was possible. As for behavioral accountability, make the report function work by phase rather than by server.

 

Unless you're implying somehow that all the hackers, cheaters, wintraders and trolls only reside on a certain server and by connecting servers in any way will unleash them all on unsuspecting populaces. That's simply not true. Source: human nature.

 

As it stands right now, when Johnny queues for a flashpoint, he knows that his behavior has a direct effect on his reputation within the server community and, therefore, on his future ability to use the LFG to find groups. If he behaves in a respectful, responsible manner, he will likely not find his way onto too many ignore lists. On the other hand, if his behavior is not respectful and responsible, then he may find himself on numerous ignore lists, greatly impacting his ability to find groups using the LFG tool.

 

Cross server queuing removes that behavioral accountability.

 

Johnny knows that with cross server queuing that he will likely not ever be grouped with the people in that group again, anyway, so there is no incentive for Johnny to behave in a respectful and responsible manner.

[fushnchips]

As it stands right now, when Johnny queues for a flashpoint, he knows that his behavior has a direct effect on his reputation within the server community and, therefore, on his future ability to use the LFG to find groups. If he behaves in a respectful, responsible manner, he will likely not find his way onto too many ignore lists. On the other hand, if his behavior is not respectful and responsible, then he may find himself on numerous ignore lists, greatly impacting his ability to find groups using the LFG tool.

 

Cross server queuing removes that behavioral accountability.

 

Johnny knows that with cross server queuing that he will likely not ever be grouped with the people in that group again, anyway, so there is no incentive for Johnny to behave in a respectful and responsible manner.

 

that can work both ways the people caught with the bad apple can go thank god it's cross server because we will never see that bandit again.

[Ratajack]

that can work both ways the people caught with the bad apple can go thank god it's cross server because we will never see that bandit again.

 

This is true, but those people should never have been stuck with that bad apple in the first place, especially if they have intentionally chosen a server with a respectful, responsible, friendly, helpful community over the cesspool community that is Harbinger.

[eriksarcasm]

As it stands right now, when Johnny queues for a flashpoint, he knows that his behavior has a direct effect on his reputation within the server community and, therefore, on his future ability to use the LFG to find groups. If he behaves in a respectful, responsible manner, he will likely not find his way onto too many ignore lists. On the other hand, if his behavior is not respectful and responsible, then he may find himself on numerous ignore lists, greatly impacting his ability to find groups using the LFG tool.

 

Cross server queuing removes that behavioral accountability.

 

Johnny knows that with cross server queuing that he will likely not ever be grouped with the people in that group again, anyway, so there is no incentive for Johnny to behave in a respectful and responsible manner.

 

It's the same as it is now just with a larger community.

[fushnchips]

This is true, but those people should never have been stuck with that bad apple in the first place, especially if they have intentionally chosen a server with a respectful, responsible, friendly, helpful community over the cesspool community that is Harbinger.

 

Every server in this game has those types of players but some have more cancer than others you are never safe from it but this can also come down to Bioware not doing enough to those players in the first place it's like " yeah bioware don't care so lets cause havoc to all " I can't tell you now if they had some in game mod that pops on from time to time these players would be removed from all servers to make the game a better place.

[Ratajack]

It's the same as it is now just with a larger community.

 

That is not even close to being true.

 

Billy intentionally moved his characters off Harbinger because the community is a cesspool. He intentionally made the choice to avoid having to suffer the rude and immature behavior that so permeates Harbinger.

 

Cross server would take away his choice and subject him to that behavior again.

 

Now, if you want to talk about cross server queuing with the option to opt-out entirely, select the servers you wish to be included in the cross server queuing (so Billy could retain the option to avoid the cesspool of Harbinger), be able to ignore players with whom you are grouped, regardless of which server they are on (and ignore their entire legacy, so you never have to be grouped with them again even if they are on an alt), that would address many of the concerns held by those who are not sold on the cross server idea.

 

This is all moot, of course, since cross server is not even possible.

[eriksarcasm]

That is not even close to being true.

 

Billy intentionally moved his characters off Harbinger because the community is a cesspool. He intentionally made the choice to avoid having to suffer the rude and immature behavior that so permeates Harbinger.

 

Cross server would take away his choice and subject him to that behavior again.

 

Now, if you want to talk about cross server queuing with the option to opt-out entirely, select the servers you wish to be included in the cross server queuing (so Billy could retain the option to avoid the cesspool of Harbinger), be able to ignore players with whom you are grouped, regardless of which server they are on (and ignore their entire legacy, so you never have to be grouped with them again even if they are on an alt), that would address many of the concerns held by those who are not sold on the cross server idea.

 

This is all moot, of course, since cross server is not even possible.

 

Your argument assumes two false ideas:

 

1/ Everyone on Harbinger is an a-hole;

2/ The A-holes are only on Harbinger.

[Ratajack]

Your argument assumes two false ideas:

 

1/ Everyone on Harbinger is an a-hole;

2/ The A-holes are only on Harbinger.

 

It assumes neither of those two things.

 

Not every rude and immature player is on Harbinger, and not everyone on Harbinger is a rude and immature player. Harbinger does have not only the highest population overall, but also the highest percentage of rude and immature players.

 

IMO, the majority of rude and immature players are on Harbinger. That is my opinion, although it is shared by many. One need only read this thread to see that.

 

I would guess that cross server queues would likely pull more players from Harbinger since there are more players on Harbinger. I would also guess that the chances of being grouped with a rude an immature player from Harbinger would be greater than the chance of being grouped with a rude and immature player from prophecy of the five.

 

Again, all this talk of cross servers is moot, since they are not possible.

[Icykill_]

Let's open it up for discussion. I'm concerned that if there are merges, I'll end up losing my character names and guildships, have to reactivate and redecorate my strongholds, have to watch as all the trolls, gold spammers and guild adverts destroy any chance of an open world conversation, have to fight with mercs who refuse to group up for open world heroics, lose the comfort and camaraderie of a server where you can get to know people, lose any chance to do any RP events, and lose any chance of ever getting Planetary Conquests done.

 

With all of this in mind, I have strong doubts that my subscription will continue if there are server merges. From what I can see, there will be no benefit, because I won't add to the queues for PvP, GF, or GSF. All it will do is add strain on the server, which, if it is Harbinger, already has a history of problems such as the irregular rollbacks and the problems last week with people being put in a queue to log in.

 

So, I open it up to you - what benefits do you think we will have with server merges?

 

** sorry I tried to reply last night just after you had posted, but we lost power half way through my response **

 

All good points and well thought out. it's easy too see your point of view and put myself in your position.

I've decide to recuse myself from championing one side or the other because I don't want to upset people when I get over passionate, plus people from both sides are passionate enough already for different reasons.

What I would like to see is a healthy discussion and some good posts like yours that present a good, positive position for that side of the discussion.

I think if there is more of that and less personal attacks and slures about one sides motives or type of players, then maybe we can all start to understand both sides concerns or fears and not just our own.

Only then can we come together to work out how best to help the game without alienating others or affecting their game play.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Icykill_

[americanaussie]

Maybe they should offer free transfers and let people decide.

[fushnchips]

Maybe they should offer free transfers and let people decide.

 

90cc is really free transfers because subs get 500 per month anyway

[americanaussie]

90cc is really free transfers because subs get 500 per month anyway

Well those are my thoughts. I transferred over before the sale. Like 2 wks before it was announced. Some people are still whinging about it. I think merging servers is unnecessary as some do not want it. Maybe returning players should be given a free transfer option/referral information

[Icykill_]

That might mollify the "Merge servers NOW!!!! I NEED more LFG fodder!!!" crowd, but I doubt that forcing everyone to suffer the cesspool community that is Harbinger (even if they were technically not merged into Harbinger and they remained on their current server) would be accepted by those that actively have chosen not to transfer to Harbinger or even transferred off Harbinger.

 

Looking at WoW and from all reports and from my own experience the change over has gone fairly well and they aren't experiencing anything bad as far as one toxic commmunity from one server or another affecting chat or anything. But then I'm not sure what state the different WoW populations were before the new system. Generally I think the WoW community is a lot less toxic to start with than the swtor community as a whole, so that might be a reason why.

I can certainly see how toxic Harbinger has become over the years as it was one of the main servers I was forced to merge into when I came from the Australian (APAC) server Dalbbora. My observation on the technical side of the merge was good, we got our guild transferred and all items and bank tabs. But we were all pretty upset with the merge because it added a minimum 180ms Ping for people on the east coast of Aust and a massive 300-400ms Ping for people on the west coast of Aust. That tore our guild apart and it never recovered. I would say we lost 80% of APAC players from that merge and lost another 10% in the coming months.

What really stood out for me was the different attitudes people have on the US servers. They were definitely more aggressive and rude. This was on any of the servers, not just Harbinger. This has become worse over the years as trolls try to out do each other. The toxicity is now so common that I think it's desensitised lots of us or we've taken our own steps to not see it. Personally I have a few chat tabs set up and I've created a couple of channels for friends to use. The first tab still has all channels ticked incase I want to see what's being said, but most of the time I have tab 2 going which has all channels but gen, pvp, trade. I've also found that most of the toxic chat is on the fleet. I rarely see it on Coruscant or Drommund Kaas where I spend most of my time in my strongholds.

Bios reason for the merge was because of low population on 2 out of the 3 APAC servers. The other 2 servers, 1 PVP and 1 RP were considered dead by their populations back then and they had a campaign going to ask Bio to merge them into Dalbora so we would have one APAC mega server. But Bioware decided they could save money and just merge us into the US. What I don't think they took into account is people don't want to go from 20-50ms Ping to 200-400ms Ping.

The really sad part was Dalboras would have had 4 times the population Harbinger currently has and those so called dead servers would have had more population than Harbinger has now. By merging them into Dalbora we would have had a very health and non toxic server for the APAC region. I dare say it would have been one of the biggest servers in the game.

Even though I've mentioned the idea of merging us, I've always be critical of people asking for one mega server. I've also said be careful what you wish for because it's possible Bioware won't listen to reason and not care how it impacts players. If they were to make one mega server for the US, they would lose at least one region of players who don't live in the US because of increased Ping for that region. If placed on the east coast they would lose the remaining APAC server players because 400-500ms Ping isn't playable.

I've always said that if they ever merged again, they would need at least one per coast as one mega server wouldn't work. I know the game can actually support more than one per coast, but for me that was a worst case senario when presented with one mega server. I was trying to find a compromise to the one mega server request.

There are lots of problems with the population in this game that need to be addressed for it to continue to be viable into the future. I think that's the real issue we need to address and both camps for and against mergers make good points. What I think we need to do is see if we can find some common ground and build on that to present Bioware with as close to a united front as a community and what we think they can do to keep the game healthy enough to stay open.

If we leave it up to them, they will force on us their own idea and no one will be happy. I dare say they will probably do something monumentally stupid that will end the game 3 months after they do it.

From reading through some of these different threads and posts on mergers and sifting through the retoric, I've seen some compromises or ideas that could work if the ideas were fleshed out more and Bioware were able to offer some guarantees on the technical side of things. I know trust in Bioware is at an all time low, so that's asking a lot.

What would be good is an open dialogue or discussion with them to throw around ideas and find out exactly what their capabilities are now since the last mergers, we do know they can now run a pvp instance and a pve gen instance on the same server, what else can they do? It's possible they have adavanced enough to get around any technical challenges to any of the ideas we throw at them, what ever they are. We all know they are ultra secretive about stuff, so the only way we can know exactly what they can do, is for them to tell us.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Icykill_

[Icykill_]

Maybe they should offer free transfers and let people decide.

 

It's been suggested, but it comes with its own problems like if guilds want to move or people have their own ships etc. those things arent taken in transfers.

All transfers are is a band aid and what we need is a cure.

 

90cc is really free transfers because subs get 500 per month anyway

 

This keeps getting thrown around and 90cc isn't free. Sure it's low, but it's not free. For people like myself who have over 30 toons, that would take months to do. It also doesn't address the point I made above about not being able to transfer everything.

 

I think we need a better solution instead of a band aid fix.

[Icykill_]

Well those are my thoughts. I transferred over before the sale. Like 2 wks before it was announced. Some people are still whinging about it. I think merging servers is unnecessary as some do not want it. Maybe returning players should be given a free transfer option/referral information

 

I do agree that new players should be given a free transfer as well as returning. It would be good for the new players if they found they were on a low population server and they need more. But still only a band aid for returning players.

[Icykill_]

Every server in this game has those types of players but some have more cancer than others you are never safe from it but this can also come down to Bioware not doing enough to those players in the first place it's like " yeah bioware don't care so lets cause havoc to all " I can't tell you now if they had some in game mod that pops on from time to time these players would be removed from all servers to make the game a better place.

 

If only they did add some Bioware Mods it would address some of the other problems in the game. But if they don't want to pay a Bioware employee to do that, Im sure they could find and vet some players to do it and give them a free sub and Cartel coins for doing it. As long as there were strict guidelines in place and they picked the right people, then some player mods might work.

[FerkWork]

While Browsing this thread I was able to get my FFXIV Duty Finder Roulette as a DPS done thanks to Cross Server Duty Finder despite being on the second smallest server. Meanwhile good luck getting a Master Mode FP on JC as a DPS at this hour lol. FeelsGoodMan

 

These are the same people arguing against cross server are the same ones who crowed for all Singleplayer content for last 2 years while the Swtor shriveled up. Which is funny since they don't do Group content always so it doesn't affect them. Thread is memes man.

Edited March 7, 2017 by FerkWork

[fushnchips]

This keeps getting thrown around and 90cc isn't free. Sure it's low, but it's not free. For people like myself who have over 30 toons, that would take months to do. It also doesn't address the point I made above about not being able to transfer everything.

 

You can choose a couple of toons it's not the best outcome but a few toons is better than none I guess and right now on Harbinger my character slots are full and all are L70 (52) or what ever it is so if they merge I most likely will get hit by an issue of having to many toons on the server cause I have max level toons on most servers including EU.

 

Hopefully the reason they are not saying much is they are working on ways to get guildships,strongholds across without any issue and including the entire guild with it.

[Icykill_]

You can also add that if you already play on many servers and spent time investing in all of the characters. Server mergers may well go over the max allowed characters per server. Such as if the 3 UK merged I would have 109 characters. OK So I play on ToFN for the most part but do go on the other two servers if playing between 1am and 7am. So still use them. Max limit at the moment is what? 50-52? something like that.

 

Every single thing in your list are also my concerns. Well it maybe possible to transfer entire guilds but the rest would still be there. as well as the one I added above.

 

We didn't have that problem of going over the character limit when we merged from Dalbora. Bioware gave us a dispensation and allowed us to have all characters even if they went over the limit. But if we deleted one we lost that character slot. If we wanted more slots we still had to pay for them.