Bioware Please Merge Servers

[Mubrak]

please stop posting the refer link in threads you are breaking the ToS and this can get you banned.

 

At least it's a refreshing diversion after 40 pages of repetitive discussion

 

My 2c:

If you already are on a high-pop server and want others to be moved into your server against their will, just so you can have even faster GF pops, there are games with higher populations out there. Bye bye, have fun.

 

If you returned to the game after 3 years and found your old server to be abandoned, YOU are part of the reason why everyone else left the server. Now live with the consequences and transfer or reroll on a high-pop server.

 

For those who are stuck on a low pop server and don't want to transfer because they'll lose name, mails, and guild (or guild assets), server merges are unlikely to help, so yes, BW should do something here, beginning with a naming system that allows for duplicate names, and allowing guilds to transfer properly.

 

For new players there should be a clear indicator of the server population in the server selection screen, so they can decide for themselves whether they want the Kotor3 or the MMO experience.

 

 

When it's clear that the servers where you're unlikely to be disturbed while enjoying the story are also the servers where it's hard to find people for group content, and when transfers are cheap and go smoothly without a loss of name, mails and outfits, I see no reason why the the low population servers shouldn't be allowed to stay.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Mubrak

[kvandertulip]

They've said it's not technically possible because of the game engine. So we know this will never be an option. It's why we are on this topic.

 

Have they? I know that is the case for cross-server, but cross-faction exists in the game to some degree now. I don't see why they couldn't expand on that.

[Icykill_]

well you're clever. you're allowed by the terms of service, sooo...

 

Except what you are doing is blatant advertising which isn't allowed.

[Icykill_]

Have they? I know that is the case for cross-server, but cross-faction exists in the game to some degree now. I don't see why they couldn't expand on that.

 

Oopps, my bad, I misread cross faction for cross server, sorry 😳

 

I agree Cross faction is something they could bring in. It is now past the point of RP meaning anything in pvp or other group content if you can't do the content because there is no one to do it with.

In the past the argument has been RP pvpers felt having cross faction in pvp would ruin their emersive experience. But if you can't pvp from lack population, the emersion isn't there to start with.

I'm sure the same thing could be done for operations and flash points, especially as the game seems to be all about the alliance.

[Yodial]

The crossfaction would be a good idea and good solution with the merge server.

[HuaRya]

At least it's a refreshing diversion after 40 pages of repetitive discussion

 

My 2c:

If you already are on a high-pop server and want others to be moved into your server against their will, just so you can have even faster GF pops, there are games with higher populations out there. Bye bye, have fun.

 

If you returned to the game after 3 years and found your old server to be abandoned, YOU are part of the reason why everyone else left the server. Now live with the consequences and transfer or reroll on a high-pop server.

 

For those who are stuck on a low pop server and don't want to transfer because they'll lose name, mails, and guild (or guild assets), server merges are unlikely to help, so yes, BW should do something here, beginning with a naming system that allows for duplicate names, and allowing guilds to transfer properly.

 

For new players there should be a clear indicator of the server population in the server selection screen, so they can decide for themselves whether they want the Kotor3 or the MMO experience.

 

 

When it's clear that the servers where you're unlikely to be disturbed while enjoying the story are also the servers where it's hard to find people for group content, and when transfers are cheap and go smoothly without a loss of name, mails and outfits, I see no reason why the the low population servers shouldn't be allowed to stay.

 

All perfectly sound logical points. However, there is another group of people who don't want to fully commit to uprooting and moving to the higher pop server because in the back of their minds they feel Buy-O-Ware will do a consolidation at some point in some fashion and don't want to forfeit what they have built on their now low pop server e.g. guildships, guilds etc...

[Icykill_]

All perfectly sound logical points. However, there is another group of people who don't want to fully commit to uprooting and moving to the higher pop server because in the back of their minds they feel Buy-O-Ware will do a consolidation at some point in some fashion and don't want to forfeit what they have built on their now low pop server e.g. guildships, guilds etc...

 

I don't think you would forfeit them if you did a transfer, unless you started all over again with personal Guild Ships and massive decked out and opened up strong holds. In those cases a merge would be an issue because which one takes precedence over another.

If you did transfer with the notion that Bioware will do a transfer in the near future, then it would be advisable to only take the home planet SHs and not deck them out too much, except with the free stuff you get when you first open it. Also don't start a personal guild or ship. Just join one that suits your needs till a merge would happen.

You could then just leave a place holder toon on your other server to keep all your other items till such time as a merge was to happen,

[Icykill_]

I just posted this in a Thread where someone was asking about the most active server to choose. I'm requoting it here because I think it's pertinent to this subject. It is in no way advocating either position in this thread. It is purely my observations and experience over the last few weeks of playing.

 

Harbinger is the most active server in the game, but is located on the west coast. So if playing on the west coast is an issue, I've heard Shadowlands and Ebon Hawk seem like a good option.

 

But even Harbinger is turning more and more into a ghost town at certain time. Unless you play with in a specific time bracket, which is also getting smaller, the population drops fast outside of those times.

 

It also depends on the content. ie if you want to play pvp in lowbies and mids, the time bracket is very small. Lvl 70 has better pops for a longer period of time, but I've waited 4 hours for a lvl 70 pop just outside of Australian prime time. It could have been even longer, but I logged off in discussed

Last weekend my partner waited 6 hours for a lowbies match, that was from 5pm Australia eastern time. In the end she logged off.

Yesterday at 10pm AEST there was one instance and only 60 people on the "imperial" fleet. That is what I expect on the republic side at prime time, not the Imperial side.

Sure those times aren't US prime time, but let's be honest, this is supposed to be a globally playable game. If you were to go back just 6 months there was 2 instances at that AEST time. One full (about 170) and another half full. Go back 12 months and it was two - three full instances.

Every since 5.0 was launch the game has had a more excessive and accelerated player loss then any other time in the games history. The Devs seem to have their heads in the sand over this.

I've never been one of those people predicting the closure of this game, I've heard it all since launch. But at this rate of player loss, how much longer can the game support itself if the player exodus isn't quelled fast. Even then, they need to attract those who have left to come come back to the game or attract new players. Bioware dont have a good recorded of this and even if players increase, they have an even worse recorded of retaining them.

 

With the current decline in population, even group content for me (pvp) is getting harder to play at times that I never used to have a problem with. I've now found the best times for me to play the game to pvp are 3am AEST - 9am AEST. During that bracket the game actually seems healthy. But how many people are able to play at those times? Sure there are a few other very small brackets of time that you can get lvl 70 pvp regularly for a longer period. But I've lost 50 dedicated pvp friends since this time last year from my old guild. Most were NA based and would even play regularly from 6-7pm AEST till 11pm AEST.

I know I'm not in US prime time and I know all the arguments about how fast group content is available at those times. But when you go from about 340 people on the imperial fleet in my prime time, with about 30-50 of them pvping (in all brackets) to 60 people total on the fleet and about 4-6 pvping "only" at lvl 70, there is definitely a problem.

Of course there are people doing the story and on other planets at moment, but the fleet is where most of the pvpers hang out and lots of pve people are pvping to trying to farm CXP and stuff because it's easy. They are unlikely to want to jump into a pvp match while halfway through a FP or OP, so they are also hanging on the fleet. Even story only people are wanting to do this, so I can only imaging how frustrating it would be on low population/quiet servers that never have pvp pops.

This population decline has happened so fast and accelerated with 5.0, that unless they lay a proverbial golden egg or pull bugs bunny out of a hat, then I can't see the game lasting past this time next year.

When the health of the most active server in the game is this terrible, it's a massive warning sign of what's to come. I get the impression from lots of old time subscribers that they feel the same way.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Icykill_

[Icykill_]

Let me start by saying I'm not outright calling for mergers or anything else to affect solo players games. I'm just pointing out the elephant in the room, that populations are still bleeding players and group content is getting harder and harder to do. Even with accelerated CXP-XP and 5.2 on the horizon the bleed continues.

We still have silence about population issues. Even Harbinger is starting to have issues and prime time is shrinking fast. There doesn't even seem to be an APAC prime time anymore. So if you play outside of the ever shrinking US prime time, then group content is difficult to get. For me to play pvp at a reasonable pop rate of less than 5 mins I have to play at these times - 3am-6am AEST or 9am-12pm AEST. Which is hard to do when working. I can still get pops of less than 20mins till about 2.30pm AEST. Later I might get small bursts of 10mins pops, but they end fast if one side is dominating another. But once you hit 6.30pm AEST it basically dies and pops can stretch over 40mins for lvl 70 pvp and become non existent in lowbies or mids. I queued last night in lowbies from 4.52pm AEST till 7.02pm AEST and didn't get a pop. I logged off at that time.

For over 4 years my prime time has been 4pm-10pm AEST. This started to shrink about February last year and by November it was 5.30-8pm AEST. It has been shrinking incredibly fast since then. I now have no prime time in AEST, which is very bad considering this a globally played game and we also cross over with what should be Asian prime time and Asia has a much higher population than the US.

Bioware need to address this issue. I don't know what the answer is, but at this rate there won't be "enough life to fill a space cruiser" (see what I did there) Seriously though, the game will be dead by the end of the year if this doesn't turn around with 5.2 or Bioware don't address the shrinking population for group players.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Icykill_

[HuaRya]

Bioware need to address this issue. I don't know what the answer is, but at this rate there won't be "enough life to fill a space cruiser" (see what I did there) Seriously though, the game will be dead by the end of the year if this doesn't turn around with 5.2 or Bioware don't address the shrinking population for group players.

 

17 SERVERS is too many for SWTOR and when populations wane it's negative effect is more noticeable. It's turning into a quality of life issue in game. The same scenario that was explained for the first mergers so many years ago. Diminishing active player groups seems to be happening at a faster pace. When this thread was started Ebon Hawk, Shadowlands, & Jedi Covenant hit Standard population at prime time and now they are uniformly Light at nearly all times of the day and evening. Harbinger's window of 'Standard' is also shrinking. At some point they will have to merge or close down the game altogether because the majority of people will not renew their subscriptions if they can no longer do the things they do daily in group finder.

[Khaleg]

I miss the state of the art troll in this thread. Was he finally banned because people reported him since they could not longer stand his extremely ignorant, selfish, unintelligent and whatnot else point of view he threw at everybody who wanted to discuss this not to be ignored major issue of the game in an intelligent and community supporting way while living in reality as opposed to him? 😀

[Icykill_]

17 SERVERS is too many for SWTOR and when populations wane it's negative effect is more noticeable. It's turning into a quality of life issue in game. The same scenario that was explained for the first mergers so many years ago. Diminishing active player groups seems to be happening at a faster pace. When this thread was started Ebon Hawk, Shadowlands, & Jedi Covenant hit Standard population at prime time and now they are uniformly Light at nearly all times of the day and evening. Harbinger's window of 'Standard' is also shrinking. At some point they will have to merge or close down the game altogether because the majority of people will not renew their subscriptions if they can no longer do the things they do daily in group finder.

 

I usually play on Harbinger because the east coast has even more lag for me. But I rolled a new alt on Ebon Hawk this afternoon to see what it was like and to check the fleet population.

So I've been playing since 4pm AEST and it's now 10.21pm AEST. I've been queued for pvp since lvl 10, which was about 4.20pm. Pvp still hasn't popped, I'm now lvl 30 and can't even get the starting pvp mission done that gives you free implants, relics and ear.

When I went to the Imperial fleet there were 38 people on it. Later I went back and there were 51, when I revisited again it was down to 43. I don't know how many there are at the moment, I'm still on Drommund Kaas doing all the planet and class missions (lvl 30 and they wonder why new people lose interest).

If 5.2 doesn't stem some of this bleed, the game is done for. I just don't know why they aren't doing something to address this issue or even trying to ease players concerns.

[forestguard]

I usually play on Harbinger because the east coast has even more lag for me. But I rolled a new alt on Ebon Hawk this afternoon to see what it was like and to check the fleet population.

So I've been playing since 4pm AEST and it's now 10.21pm AEST. I've been queued for pvp since lvl 10, which was about 4.20pm. Pvp still hasn't popped, I'm now lvl 30 and can't even get the starting pvp mission done that gives you free implants, relics and ear.

When I went to the Imperial fleet there were 38 people on it. Later I went back and there were 51, when I revisited again it was down to 43. I don't know how many there are at the moment, I'm still on Drommund Kaas doing all the planet and class missions (lvl 30 and they wonder why new people lose interest).

If 5.2 doesn't stem some of this bleed, the game is done for. I just don't know why they aren't doing something to address this issue or even trying to ease players concerns.

 

To be fair, that's only 2AM-8AM server time, which means a lot are probably asleep or heading to work.

[TUXs]

17 SERVERS is too many for SWTOR and when populations wane it's negative effect is more noticeable. It's turning into a quality of life issue in game. The same scenario that was explained for the first mergers so many years ago. Diminishing active player groups seems to be happening at a faster pace. When this thread was started Ebon Hawk, Shadowlands, & Jedi Covenant hit Standard population at prime time and now they are uniformly Light at nearly all times of the day and evening. Harbinger's window of 'Standard' is also shrinking. At some point they will have to merge or close down the game altogether because the majority of people will not renew their subscriptions if they can no longer do the things they do daily in group finder.

Agreed!!! Very well said!!!

I miss the state of the art troll in this thread. Was he finally banned because people reported him since they could not longer stand his extremely ignorant, selfish, unintelligent and whatnot else point of view he threw at everybody who wanted to discuss this not to be ignored major issue of the game in an intelligent and community supporting way while living in reality as opposed to him? 😀

Doubtful...he's probably just busy defending ME:A on reddit

 

edit...guess not...

Edited April 4, 2017 by TUXs

[Ratajack]

To be fair, that's only 2AM-8AM server time, which means a lot are probably asleep or heading to work.

 

Some people simply do not care about the actual server time or what the majority of people in that time zone are doing at that time. They only see that when they are playing they do not get "reasonable pops in less than 5 minutes."

 

Therefore, in their minds, BW MUST merge servers so that they have more LFG fodder. The fact that merging servers will NOT magically make people miss work so they can queue and provide that LFG fodder is apparently irrelevant to some.

[TUXs]

Some people simply do not care about the actual server time or what the majority of people in that time zone are doing at that time. They only see that when they are playing they do not get "reasonable pops in less than 5 minutes."

And others seem incapable of comprehending time...since 6 hours is clearly more than 5 minutes...but don't let reality sway you.

[Ratajack]

I'm not the one who set the "resonable" pop rate at less than 5 minutes.

 

Let me start by saying I'm not outright calling for mergers or anything else to affect solo players games. I'm just pointing out the elephant in the room, that populations are still bleeding players and group content is getting harder and harder to do. Even with accelerated CXP-XP and 5.2 on the horizon the bleed continues.

We still have silence about population issues. Even Harbinger is starting to have issues and prime time is shrinking fast. There doesn't even seem to be an APAC prime time anymore. So if you play outside of the ever shrinking US prime time, then group content is difficult to get. For me to play pvp at a reasonable pop rate of less than 5 mins I have to play at these times - 3am-6am AEST or 9am-12pm AEST. Which is hard to do when working. I can still get pops of less than 20mins till about 2.30pm AEST. Later I might get small bursts of 10mins pops, but they end fast if one side is dominating another. But once you hit 6.30pm AEST it basically dies and pops can stretch over 40mins for lvl 70 pvp and become non existent in lowbies or mids. I queued last night in lowbies from 4.52pm AEST till 7.02pm AEST and didn't get a pop. I logged off at that time.

For over 4 years my prime time has been 4pm-10pm AEST. This started to shrink about February last year and by November it was 5.30-8pm AEST. It has been shrinking incredibly fast since then. I now have no prime time in AEST, which is very bad considering this a globally played game and we also cross over with what should be Asian prime time and Asia has a much higher population than the US.

Bioware need to address this issue. I don't know what the answer is, but at this rate there won't be "enough life to fill a space cruiser" (see what I did there) Seriously though, the game will be dead by the end of the year if this doesn't turn around with 5.2 or Bioware don't address the shrinking population for group players.

 

That poster seems to be one of the biggest advocates of merging servers, but they only see that they do not get their "reasonable 5 minute queue pops" and do not actually take into account that their "peak" time is far from server "peak" time and server merges would not magically would not change that fact.

[Andryah]

I usually play on Harbinger because the east coast has even more lag for me. But I rolled a new alt on Ebon Hawk this afternoon to see what it was like and to check the fleet population.

So I've been playing since 4pm AEST and it's now 10.21pm AEST. I've been queued for pvp since lvl 10, which was about 4.20pm. Pvp still hasn't popped, I'm now lvl 30 and can't even get the starting pvp mission done that gives you free implants, relics and ear.

When I went to the Imperial fleet there were 38 people on it. Later I went back and there were 51, when I revisited again it was down to 43. I don't know how many there are at the moment, I'm still on Drommund Kaas doing all the planet and class missions (lvl 30 and they wonder why new people lose interest).

If 5.2 doesn't stem some of this bleed, the game is done for. I just don't know why they aren't doing something to address this issue or even trying to ease players concerns.

 

You are making a false equivalence case here.

 

The reason Harbinger is better for you is because it does have most Asia region players aggregated there (mostly by virtue of historical actions back when they shut down the APAC servers). Ebon Hawk does not. As such Ebon Hawk will be active during fairly normal server play times and NOT on off hours which is when you play.

[TUXs]

I'm not the one who set the "resonable" pop rate at less than 5 minutes.

Then you should have quoted THAT post, not the one replying to him clearly saying:

So I've been playing since 4pm AEST and it's now 10.21pm AEST. I've been queued for pvp since lvl 10, which was about 4.20pm. Pvp still hasn't popped, I'm now lvl 30 and can't even get the starting pvp mission done that gives you free implants, relics and ear.

If you need to bend the truth, you're trying too hard.

That poster seems to be one of the biggest advocates of merging servers

And you're the biggest one against it. Your point?

Edited April 4, 2017 by TUXs

[Andryah]

That poster seems to be one of the biggest advocates of merging servers, but they only see that they do not get their "reasonable 5 minute queue pops" and do not actually take into account that their "peak" time is far from server "peak" time and server merges would not magically would not change that fact.

 

Exactly.

 

Honestly, I think IcyKill knows better, and is just making a faux case using non-equivalent play times and demographics about the servers. Because Icy plays local Aussie time, any EU or NA server is going to be low population at that time UNLESS there is a notable APAC population indigenous there. Which is Why Harbinger is the only server that works for them as it is the only server that is active during Aussie local time.

 

Any reasonable person would present data for equivalent local server times on the servers, AND objectively point out that they know that Harbinger has effectively "two shifts" of players (one for APAC and perhaps NA west coast night shift workers, and one for the actual local residents who work the day shift). Every MMO that does not host local servers to APAC generally has this same thing going..... one or two servers heavily populated with APAC region players who generally play at the same time.. while most Americans are asleep.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Andryah

[TUXs]

Honestly, I think IcyKill knows better, and is just making a faux case using non-equivalent play times and demographics about the servers.

How is testing his theory, and posting his results, a faux case exactly? Because it proved him right? The servers are open 24/7 by design.

[forestguard]

How is testing his theory, and posting his results, a faux case exactly? Because it proved him right? The servers are open 24/7 by design.

 

While true, the test only showed that Ebon Hawk is quiet early in the morning. They tested pvp pops on an east coast server most consider RP-PvE between 2AM - 8AM server time, when most of the population would most likely be asleep. That doesn't show the true health of a server, just that a lot of people aren't staying up super late to play.

[Ratajack]

How is testing his theory, and posting his results, a faux case exactly? Because it proved him right? The servers are open 24/7 by design.

 

The servers are open 24/7, true, but how populated can a reasonable person expect them to be at 7 AM server time on a weekday when most people are getting ready to go to work, or even worse at 4 AM server time?

[TUXs]

The servers are open 24/7, true, but how populated can a reasonable person expect them to be at 7 AM server time on a weekday when most people are getting ready to go to work, or even worse at 4 AM server time?

Populated enough to justify them being online. That's the whole reason people are asking for mergers...the peak times are becoming the only playable times. Because this is a 24/7 MMO, I think it's reasonable to expect a population that's able to sustain small group activity 24/7 - not everyone is on an 8-5 work schedule. Dwindling populations are impacting people's ability to do minor stuff when they're online.

[Ratajack]

Populated enough to justify them being online. That's the whole reason people are asking for mergers...the peak times are becoming the only playable times. Because this is a 24/7 MMO, I think it's reasonable to expect a population that's able to sustain small group activity 24/7 - not everyone is on an 8-5 work schedule. Dwindling populations are impacting people's ability to do minor stuff when they're online.

 

Not everyone plays during peak hours, true.

 

One could reasonably expect, though, that the majority of a server's population will be living in areas that run close to concurrent with server time, or at least not 6-7 hours difference. One could also reasonably expect that during off peak hours, the majority of a server's population will not be online as they will be engaged in other activities, such as working or sleeping.

 

I find it hard to believe that forcing everyone to suffer the headaches and nightmares that a server merge would cause is going to magically make PVP queues pop within 5 minutes at 3 AM server time on Harbinger ( 8 PM Sydney time).

Edited April 4, 2017 by Ratajack