Server Merge Discussion Thread

[Ylliarus]

I think you misunderstood the point of my post.

 

I have no objection to RP servers being maintained as separate entities. In fact, I favor that.

 

The point I was making was that Keith said they did not want to FORCE players to move, but you seem only willing to settle for ONE "non RP" server, and unwilling to allow those who are happy on their current server to remain their, despite Keith's statement that they want to allow players to stay where they are if they so choose.

 

Which again will never fully solve the problem in the long term... but if it pleases the players right now then so be it. A pity, but it seems neither sides will be able to be pleased. Because if server merges occur those against will be heavily displeased. If server merges don't occur those for will be heavily displeased.

[Lecto]

While I understand your concern, don't pretend the RP community is holy. The RP community can be just as toxic and "friendly" I have multiple examples of where fellow rp'ers treated eachother horribly (to put it mildly) over silly nothings really. Maybe that was just the Progenitor... but I doubt it.

 

Like I said, I won't go out of my way to grief anyone, but I will play as I normally would on my PvP server back in it's prime. And, I will use the general chat to facilitate group formation as necessary in populated areas. IF Shadowlands & Jedi Covenant are not consolidated, Ebon Hawk is the obvious choice if it is what I understand it to be as the most populated East Cost NA server.

 

Trust me, other guilds on my server will follow my logic & we will move as a unit when the time comes. Being such a small server, all the guilds are intimately aware of each other. You will get all of us if things play out as Keith has described. If you don't want us on your server, it's in your best interest to sign-off on what I'm calling the "3 server solution" for North America: 1 East Coast (PvP/PvE), 1 West Coast (PvP/RP), & 1 RP Server. Said solution leaves Ebon Hawk alone & untouched.

[Ratajack]

 

And I ask once more, you say I disregard the arguments of the RP'ers, please, enlighten me. I asked once, I will ask again, no problem. Why would server merges ruin RP? As a fellow rp'er I'd very much like to know. Perhaps I am missing a perspective in my view of the matter so I'd gladly hear it.

 

 

You already KNOW what the concerns of the RP'ers are and the arguments surrounding those concerns.

 

In fact, you specifically said not to bring up argument "X". You KNOW what those concerns are and you choose to dismiss and ignore them. I'm guessing that is because they do not mesh with your "vision" of a megaserver.

[Ylliarus]

I've never played on the Progenitor, but I can tell you I have never seen any of that type of toxicity from the RPe'rs on Ebon Hawk. I have seen that type of toxicity directed AT the RP'ers on Ebon Hawk, though.

 

That is just my experience. YMMV.

 

Then I am truly happy that you did not experience what some of my friends had as well as myself. Because I'd not wish that kind of treatment onto anyone. Trust me, I was a dedicated rp'er, I loved doing events, participate in them and help guild leaderships. It really a passion of mine and it would have taken a lot to kill that. I left the Progenitor for the Red Eclipse so I think that says enough about what happened.

[Ylliarus]

You already KNOW what the concerns of the RP'ers are and the arguments surrounding those concerns.

 

In fact, you specifically said not to bring up argument "X". You KNOW what those concerns are and you choose to dismiss and ignore them. I'm guessing that is because they do not mesh with your "vision" of a megaserver.

 

Trolls, very well. So let me ask you how you deal with trolls this moment on your server as I can't believe they aren't there already.

[Ratajack]

Which again will never fully solve the problem in the long term... but if it pleases the players right now then so be it. A pity, but it seems neither sides will be able to be pleased. Because if server merges occur those against will be heavily displeased. If server merges don't occur those for will be heavily displeased.

 

You are correct that BW cannot please everyone.

 

Judging from that podcast and Keith's interview, it would appear that those who will only accept a megaserver will be disappointed.

 

However, I think that many will be happy overall, PROVIDED they can get the technical issue resolved.

 

IF they can get the technical issues resolved, those wishing to play on a higher population server will have the chance to transfer to a new, higher capacity server without losing any guild or personal assets, while those that are happy where they are would get to remain there.

 

That is just my interpretation of that interview, though.

[Ratajack]

Trolls, very well. So let me ask you how you deal with trolls this moment on your server as I can't believe they aren't there already.

 

It is true that there are trolls on every server.

 

However, there is a huge difference between Johnny having to choose whether to "work on his main" on server X or going to server Y to grief and troll the RP'ers and being able to remain on server X to "work on his main" but simply pop into an RP instance to grief and troll the RP'ers.

 

If Billy cannot, or will not, see the difference, that is a "Billy" problem and not a problem caused by the RP'ers.

[Ylliarus]

It is true that there are trolls on every server.

 

However, there is a huge difference between Johnny having to choose whether to "work on his main" on server X or going to server Y to grief and troll the RP'ers and being able to remain on server X to "work on his main" but simply pop into an RP instance to grief and troll the RP'ers.

 

If Billy cannot, or will not, see the difference, that is a "Billy" problem and not a problem caused by the RP'ers.

 

Okay true, I believe regarding this we can reach consensus. At the moment if someone wants to specifically target and troll RP'ers than they'd have to cross that barrier to go to the RP server to grief them there. They'd have to be quite fixed on trolling the rp'ers to actually go do that which in most cases they won't be.

While I understand a megaserver would take that barrier away, I don't think there will be a lot of people who will actually go and grief rp'ers. I mean how petty do you have to be to do that anyway, right? Nonetheless, there would be a few of them true, but I think the RP community does have the experience from over the years to deal with trolls. The best way is to of course ignore them or even report them.

 

You are correct that BW cannot please everyone.

 

Judging from that podcast and Keith's interview, it would appear that those who will only accept a megaserver will be disappointed.

 

However, I think that many will be happy overall, PROVIDED they can get the technical issue resolved.

 

IF they can get the technical issues resolved, those wishing to play on a higher population server will have the chance to transfer to a new, higher capacity server without losing any guild or personal assets, while those that are happy where they are would get to remain there.

 

That is just my interpretation of that interview, though.

 

Not having a megaserver would be a pity, but not a necessity though. As long as they'd bring down the 9 European servers to 3, one English, one German and one French for example that would be enough for me. I'd be satisfied then. But the solution as talked about in the podcast isn't a bad one, it would perhaps allow me to renew my effort to get some RP guilds to migrate to the Red Eclipse from the Progenitor, but from the last backlash I won't hold my breath. Still, the solution Bioware offers is not bad and at least something, but in my personal opinion it won't be enough for in the long run.

[Pliskie]

 

Then what can we give to you in return? Having people not transfer along with server merges will only lead to having the same problem all over from the start. If you want to stay on your server then please, do so. But that will leave us in the exact same situation we had before where multiple servers are pretty much ghost towns due to low player activity. Look at Tomb of Freedon Nadd on the EU servers, there are only a handful of players there and a server merge would help them get to a server with more players and a more active playerbase.

 

Let me chime in into that because you make a mistake right here. Especially the community of TOFN took matters in their own hands. They have build a guild alliance with many guilds inside, with a cross guild discord and a cross guild chat. It includes both sides, still several thousand accounts. In that community the players of TOFN can do ops, warzones, uprisings and GSF together and they simply do so. Of course one could still argue it is highly organised and it requiered people to find their way into that guild alliance. But if a player is really interested in the game, they stick around a little longer due story until they fall over one of the recruiters. The players are spread over the whole game world zone (which is enourmos) and so you dont see too many in the fleets. That gives a wrong impression. That guild alliance guides new players into what TOFN is and that if they dont want to socialize on a certain level, TOFN just isn't the right server for them. It is 50% chance they stay with TOFN instead of TRE due community and new found friends. (Surely higher that is my lowest estimate of players I see over several months.)

 

Something to consider, many of the players of TOFN went to TRE, stayed for a few days and hated it there. A lot of guilds failed to survive the transition they tried. I was in one of those guilds, not even four weeks it took that people left besides getting warzones regulary. Fast que times does not seem to be everything for a large part of players. Many of those players returnt to TOFN and rebuilt, invested in that guild Alliance... yeah you have read right, they are back on the so- called dead server and started solving the problem with too much spreading of the players through the game world. Also old veterans came from TRE and joined TOFN for the first time, because they felt their original server went downhill with the influx of players from the other servers. It is just that TOFN is big enough to get all stuff done, but TOFN is not big enough that you can act like an idiot without angering the close knit communities. If you speak about "server merger" in a guild/alliance channel you will find very few support. If the TOFN players would be forcely merged with TRE, the community will loose players. It is close to 90% disagreement in the chats with merging with TRE.

 

The big majority of players threatens to leave and a lot will just do it like in the first two mergers BW did. I wont go so far to think that all who say "we leave" do so. So lets say approximately 50% quit right away when a forced merger comes, the rest stays. So it also was with the first mergers, the half of the players did just not bother with resettleling and reintegration. Of course it was not as visible because the game was still young and players still stormed the gates. Today TOR is nearly six years old, already a dinosaur in terms of computer games. The compromise with the "server merge" which seems to have the most support inside the guild alliance is "If we must merge, if we really must, then only with Progenitor. Roleplayers and us might work, but TRE and us does not."

 

Let's see further. The 50% staying inside the guild alliance of former TOFN players.. how will they react after a forced merger. Of course they will stay within the guild alliance mostly. That are their friends, their peer group, their favourite enmies. They would mostly not bother with the current TRE players the majority/opinion leaders experienced alreaedy as toxic, bad mannered or outright tools. Besides the planned stuff inside the guild alliance will keep the players busy enough. Such an allince also has a "negative effect" as it will even pull more highly social skilled players out of the pool of theTRE players. So a marginal amout of players would join pugs, ques and it is also questionable that pugs are taken into ops, uprisings, flashpoint groups. So think about what a merge would solve for TRE... I am afraid nothing significant in terms of que times. The players will not magically start to que with you or go against your groups in PvP. If they even do they mostly appear as premade and might stomp you destroying PvP and GSF even more for guildless/less social players.

 

That is what Ratajack and Casi (sorry Casi, I dont remember the second part of your name) mean, you dont even consider the other players. You dont consider the effects on target and source server. I am absolutly sure that also the other "dead" servers have a working, thriving community, especially when I read Casi I think behind her stands a very active, very social and highly organized community. The "merge server into one" crowd in the opposite brush about these communities they have no clue about. They dont even remotly consider the devasting effects on such a forced move. They cant believe a merge will currently hurt the game even more. Strong, close knit communities you can not move without doing heavy damage simply because of human nature. And that is something Keith has obviously understood. The compromise is not "merge all into one server" a compromise is "let the people chose where to go or stay". A compromise is that communities are asked when they are forcebly moved where to be moved which is hard as also the target server would need a voice. In the case TOFN, the preference is sadly for you on TRE... not your server.

 

So to the last point, the "but we will end at the same point again" in the future. Of course we will. It is the run of the world. We are not eternal as humans, our artefacts are not eternal. Every game will die as every men will die. But to cover in fear of the future and do something unreasonable will only speed up the demise. If TOR loses too many players too fast, you end the game faster then it must have ended. You "merge the servers in one megaserver" crowd do not care for the game, only for yourself. If you would care for the game, you would already gotten it into your heads, that not the amount of random players who come and go make the game. It is the stable players who organize themselves, may it be the raiders, the PvPers or the roleplayers. The communities keep players in game, never the content. Content gets stale, friends not. I ask all of you advocating a complete merge to keep that in mind and to remember that especially the endgame raid guilds left as whole group... ask yourself why and I dont mean the "not enough content" (what is definitive a true point but does not explain why all at once).

 

So what I wanted to say is, if we reach in three years (hypothetically) the same point as now it is another situation due communities evolve. The opinion might swing, the communities might pull the other guilds into a similar stance or break, or the many trolls leave in big amounts (one can hope). The only fact staying, nobody knows what is in three years. Maybe Keith and his crew have a golden idea and turn the game in a way, people return in masses and we need to open up new servers. Maybe we do a further nose dive, the fact stays the situation must be reviewed in regular turns. In my opinion and in what I see on TOFN, TRE and Prog a merger all three in one will be highly destructive. TRE alone and Prog/TOFN might work for now in this moment, seen from TOFN and if Prog wants TOFN players. I more had the feeling, they are very sceptical having a larger group of those PvP freaks of TOFN coming over to them then that is what the normal Prog player thinks.

 

PS: I refrain of course from judgeing the french/german and US servers. I just dont play on them enough to feel confident that I understand their character and players on them.

[Ylliarus]

Let me chime in into that because you make a mistake right here. Especially the community of TOFN took matters in their own hands. They have build a guild alliance with many guilds inside, with a cross guild discord and a cross guild chat. It includes both sides, still several thousand accounts. In that community the players of TOFN can do ops, warzones, uprisings and GSF together and they simply do so. Of course one could still argue it is highly organised and it requiered people to find their way into that guild alliance. But if a player is really interested in the game, they stick around a little longer due story until they fall over one of the recruiters. The players are spread over the whole game world zone (which is enourmos) and so you dont see too many in the fleets. That gives a wrong impression. That guild alliance guides new players into what TOFN is and that if they dont want to socialize on a certain level, TOFN just isn't the right server for them. It is 50% chance they stay with TOFN instead of TRE due community and new found friends. (Surely higher that is my lowest estimate of players I see over several months.)

 

Something to consider, many of the players of TOFN went to TRE, stayed for a few days and hated it there. A lot of guilds failed to survive the transition they tried. I was in one of those guilds, not even four weeks it took that people left besides getting warzones regulary. Fast que times does not seem to be everything for a large part of players. Many of those players returnt to TOFN and rebuilt, invested in that guild Alliance... yeah you have read right, they are back on the so- called dead server and started solving the problem with too much spreading of the players through the game world. Also old veterans came from TRE and joined TOFN for the first time, because they felt their original server went downhill with the influx of players from the other servers. It is just that TOFN is big enough to get all stuff done, but TOFN is not big enough that you can act like an idiot without angering the close knit communities. If you speak about "server merger" in a guild/alliance channel you will find very few support. If the TOFN players would be forcely merged with TRE, the community will loose players. It is close to 90% disagreement in the chats with merging with TRE.

 

The big majority of players threatens to leave and a lot will just do it like in the first two mergers BW did. I wont go so far to think that all who say "we leave" do so. So lets say approximately 50% quit right away when a forced merger comes, the rest stays. So it also was with the first mergers, the half of the players did just not bother with resettleling and reintegration. Of course it was not as visible because the game was still young and players still stormed the gates. Today TOR is nearly six years old, already a dinosaur in terms of computer games. The compromise with the "server merge" which seems to have the most support inside the guild alliance is "If we must merge, if we really must, then only with Progenitor. Roleplayers and us might work, but TRE and us does not."

 

Let's see further. The 50% staying inside the guild alliance of former TOFN players.. how will they react after a forced merger. Of course they will stay within the guild alliance mostly. That are their friends, their peer group, their favourite enmies. They would mostly not bother with the current TRE players the majority/opinion leaders experienced alreaedy as toxic, bad mannered or outright tools. Besides the planned stuff inside the guild alliance will keep the players busy enough. Such an allince also has a "negative effect" as it will even pull more highly social skilled players out of the pool of theTRE players. So a marginal amout of players would join pugs, ques and it is also questionable that pugs are taken into ops, uprisings, flashpoint groups. So think about what a merge would solve for TRE... I am afraid nothing significant in terms of que times. The players will not magically start to que with you or go against your groups in PvP. If they even do they mostly appear as premade and might stomp you destroying PvP and GSF even more for guildless/less social players.

 

That is what Ratajack and Casi (sorry Casi, I dont remember the second part of your name) mean, you dont even consider the other players. You dont consider the effects on target and source server. I am absolutly sure that also the other "dead" servers have a working, thriving community, especially when I read Casi I think behind her stands a very active, very social and highly organized community. The "merge server into one" crowd in the opposite brush about these communities they have no clue about. They dont even remotly consider the devasting effects on such a forced move. They cant believe a merge will currently hurt the game even more. Strong, close knit communities you can not move without doing heavy damage simply because of human nature. And that is something Keith has obviously understood. The compromise is not "merge all into one server" a compromise is "let the people chose where to go or stay". A compromise is that communities are asked when they are forcebly moved where to be moved which is hard as also the target server would need a voice. In the case TOFN, the preference is sadly for you on TRE... not your server.

 

So to the last point, the "but we will end at the same point again" in the future. Of course we will. It is the run of the world. We are not eternal as humans, our artefacts are not eternal. Every game will die as every men will die. But to cover in fear of the future and do something unreasonable will only speed up the demise. If TOR loses too many players too fast, you end the game faster then it must have ended. You "merge the servers in one megaserver" crowd do not care for the game, only for yourself. If you would care for the game, you would already gotten it into your heads, that not the amount of random players who come and go make the game. It is the stable players who organize themselves, may it be the raiders, the PvPers or the roleplayers. The communities keep players in game, never the content. Content gets stale, friends not. I ask all of you advocating a complete merge to keep that in mind and to remember that especially the endgame raid guilds left as whole group... ask yourself why and I dont mean the "not enough content" (what is definitive a true point but does not explain why all at once).

 

So what I wanted to say is, if we reach in three years (hypothetically) the same point as now it is another situation due communities evolve. The opinion might swing, the communities might pull the other guilds into a similar stance or break, or the many trolls leave in big amounts (one can hope). The only fact staying, nobody knows what is in three years. Maybe Keith and his crew have a golden idea and turn the game in a way, people return in masses and we need to open up new servers. Maybe we do a further nose dive, the fact stays the situation must be reviewed in regular turns. In my opinion and in what I see on TOFN, TRE and Prog a merger all three in one will be highly destructive. TRE alone and Prog/TOFN might work for now in this moment, seen from TOFN and if Prog wants TOFN players. I more had the feeling, they are very sceptical having a larger group of those PvP freaks of TOFN coming over to them then that is what the normal Prog player thinks.

 

PS: I refrain of course from judgeing the french/german and US servers. I just dont play on them enough to feel confident that I understand their character and players on them.

 

Alright, my opinion is changing now that I am listening to the podcast and having learned of the TOFN Alliance, I will admit I had no idea there was such a community there. From what I heard it was a ghost town but seemingly I was misinformed, so I apologise for that.

 

Perhaps the idea Keith suggested, giving guilds the choice to move or not to other servers if they fix that technical issue is a better one that forced merges. While I still think megaservers would be the best solution, it may not be the solution we need.

Edited June 24, 2017 by Ylliarus

[Ratajack]

Okay true, I believe regarding this we can reach consensus. At the moment if someone wants to specifically target and troll RP'ers than they'd have to cross that barrier to go to the RP server to grief them there. They'd have to be quite fixed on trolling the rp'ers to actually go do that which in most cases they won't be.

While I understand a megaserver would take that barrier away, I don't think there will be a lot of people who will actually go and grief rp'ers. I mean how petty do you have to be to do that anyway, right? Nonetheless, there would be a few of them true, but I think the RP community does have the experience from over the years to deal with trolls. The best way is to of course ignore them or even report them.

 

Ignore lists are limited in size, character specific and only ignore chat. There is nothing stopping that player you just ignored from switching characters and trolling with a different character. Sure, you can ignore the second character as well, but that gives up another precious slot on your ignore list and that player just witches characters again. With up to 50 characters on a server now, how many slots will you have to give up and that is just ONE player. What about all the other players?

 

There is also no way to ignore the player who continually spams emotes, or uses one of the many other means of disruption, such as the galactic party bomb.

 

In my experience with this game, reporting is a weak solution, at best and often useless. Even if BW does decide to take some sort of action, it is not real time and BW will not disclose what action, if any, was taken.

 

 

 

Not having a megaserver would be a pity, but not a necessity though. As long as they'd bring down the 9 European servers to 3, one English, one German and one French for example that would be enough for me. I'd be satisfied then. But the solution as talked about in the podcast isn't a bad one, it would perhaps allow me to renew my effort to get some RP guilds to migrate to the Red Eclipse from the Progenitor, but from the last backlash I won't hold my breath. Still, the solution Bioware offers is not bad and at least something, but in my personal opinion it won't be enough for in the long run.

 

Based upon my interpretation of that interview, the best you could hope is that BW "creates" three new higher capacity servers and tries to entice players to transfer to those new servers, in the hopes of players choosing to voluntarily consolidate. Even merging 9 servers into three would require forcibly moving players on at least 6 servers, something that Keith said they did not want to do.

[Lunafox]

Maybe a pet droid, 2 name change tokens, 500 cartel coins, and then 1 random cartel pack per affected character up to some maximum amount?

 

You have GOT to be effin' kidding me. That is never going to make up for the BILLIONS I've spent on two guild houses and the guild ship. There are decorations you can't even get anymore. What you propose there, from me, would get one response. I'd be flipping a bird to you, Bioware and that would be it. Done. I'd be gone and hell would have to freeze over before I ever play another EA/Bioware product ever again.

Edited June 24, 2017 by Lunafox

[RudeDog]

People keep talking about compromise. There is already a compromise. If you don't like your server, transfer to another and be happy.

[DWho]

Alright, my opinion is changing now that I am listening to the podcast and having learned of the TOFN Alliance, I will admit I had no idea there was such a community there. From what I heard it was a ghost town but seemingly I was misinformed, so I apologise for that.

 

I am glad that you are beginning to understand that server activity is more that fleet populations, group finder pops, and LFG messages. That is what a lot of people have been saying for some time. Guilds are very active on most servers and few of them are using the LFG/groupfinder tools anymore. Guild Alliances are forming on many servers. It may be as small as a couple of associated guilds that draw players for their group content through common connections like Teamspeak or Discord or it may be massive alliances that formed on TOFN.

[Ylliarus]

I am glad that you are beginning to understand that server activity is more that fleet populations, group finder pops, and LFG messages. That is what a lot of people have been saying for some time. Guilds are very active on most servers and few of them are using the LFG/groupfinder tools anymore. Guild Alliances are forming on many servers. It may be as small as a couple of associated guilds that draw players for their group content through common connections like Teamspeak or Discord or it may be massive alliances that formed on TOFN.

 

I will admit that the fact I didn't know about these guild alliances rising up did contribute to the fact I saw server merges and megaservers as the sole option out there. Which is why I believe debates such as these are invaluable

[Icykill_]

I have seen quite a few advocates of server merges talk about compromise.

 

The common thread in those "suggestions" of "compromise" does not seem to actually be compromise, however. There seems to be no intent to find a "middle ground".

 

It seems to me that those "suggesting" compromise are not at all interested in "giving up" any of their desires, but rather seem to be focusing on "What would it take to get those who are against server merges to shut up and let BW do what I want them to do, which is to merge servers?".

 

I've always been the proponent of free legacy transfers to specific destination servers.

 

I haven't listened to the pod cast yet, but reading the coments here, it seems that Keith may have hinted at a transfer system to address the population density and it could be better than the paid one at the moment

 

You say no one discusses. compromises or makes suggestions on the middle ground, but free transfers is something I've been saying for nearly 6 months. But everytime I bring it up I get told "90cc" is free 🙄, which obviously it isn't.

I've tried to bring both sides together with this idea, but it always gets derailed with the "90cc is free" mantra.

Why is it that when an idea doesn't fall into the merge only section or the don't do jack for the group section, it is shouted down and ignored by the extremists on both sides.

 

A full legacy transfer with "all" of your things is what's really needed and you can't get anymore "middle ground" than that.

[Ratajack]

I've always been the proponent of free legacy transfers to specific destination servers.

 

I haven't listened to the pod cast yet, but reading the coments here, it seems that Keith may have hinted at a transfer system to address the population density and it could be better than the paid one at the moment

 

You say no one discusses. compromises or makes suggestions on the middle ground, but free transfers is something I've been saying for nearly 6 months. But everytime I bring it up I get told "90cc" is free 🙄, which obviously it isn't.

I've tried to bring both sides together with this idea, but it always gets derailed with the "90cc is free" mantra.

Why is it that when an idea doesn't fall into the merge only section or the don't do jack for the group section, it is shouted down and ignored by the extremists on both sides.

 

A full legacy transfer with "all" of your things is what's really needed and you can't get anymore "middle ground" than that.

 

To be completely fair, there were those that expressed the sentiment that 90 CC is "free", meaning that a subscriber does not have to pay any additional money over that subscription to be able to move at least 5 characters per month, unless that player wanted to fritter away their CC stipend on other fluff, at which point that would be a PLAYER problem and not a BW problem. There have also been those that recognize that they could transfer at least 5 characters per month, but refused to do so, because they wanted to fritter their CC stipends away on fluff.

 

On the other hand, there have also been those that objected to "limited free transfers" or free transfers but only to limited servers. There is no reason why Johnny should be able to move all his characters for FREE if he wants to transfer to the Harbinger cesspool, but Billy must pay to transfer his characters away from the Harbinger cesspool.

 

 

While I personally am against free transfers, ONE TIME free transfers from any server to any server, with a few restrictions (such as a character transferred for "free" must wait at least 3 months (and 6 months would not be unreasonable, IMO) before being eligible for another transfer and all future transfers of that character will require a CC cost) to help prevent abuse would be a much fairer "compromise", IMO.

[Icykill_]

I'm still in favor of one big East Coast Server & one big West coast Sever, however, I don't want anything to do with Ebon Hawk. As much as all these RPers seem to fear "toxic" players, they themselves seem rather "toxic" if this thread is an accurate example of their player-base & community. Seriously, anytime anyone says anything in this thread they all jump on them & ignore the concerns of the larger player base. I don't need a "safe-space", I just want to PvP, GSF, & play Ops when I choose to log-in. I'm a grown adult & I can ignore "toxic" people in game just as easy as in real life -- easier even. Leave the Snowflakes & RPers alone on Ebon Hawk so they can do their own thing, & then merge the rest of us -- 3 NA servers. I sure people will defect from both Harb & EH once a new East Coast mega server is available.

 

PS: Yes I'm aware that Keith said they wouldn't force anyone to move, but that still leaves a huge issue on the East Coast. At that point, players still have to decided between Shadowlands & Jedi Covenant. Their populations need to be combined so to rival Harbinger & surpass the RP server.

 

Hi Lecto,

I usually play on Harbinger to pvp, its been my main server since Bio closed our APAC servers and forced us to merge with the west coast. I've never been an RP person and find it strange and slightly amusing, but each to there own, everyone enjoys the game differently.

Harbinger can be pretty toxic at different times of the day, but it's mainly just the ranked pvp part and a few idiots who troll Bio to say how crap the game is, most people have them on ignore.

 

Any way, with the gearing system they put in place now for pvp we have a gear gap at lvl 70, so I've been boycotting it in protest and playing lowbies, which don't pop. I was ready to unsub and my partner suggested we do some Vanilla stories. I didn't have any extra slots and I wasn't going to pay for more considering I was on the verge of unsubbing.

So we went on a bit of a server tour which led us to TEH, which actually has a fairly good community. The only toxic attitude I encountered was in pvp (as usual), the rest of the server activity was fine except for a couple of lvl 70 idiots trying to trick people to duelling them on Korriban by spamming the duelling banner at people. So sad, especially when I globalled one on my lvl 14 😊

Most RPers seem to stick to themselves in their own little groups. I hardly saw any RP chat, but you could see them obviously doing it when they'd all be in a big group. A few times I stopped to watch, not sure what they were doing and it looked strange, but whatever floats your boat.

What I'm trying to say is don't judge the server by your perception of people here. The same as others shouldnt judge the whole of Harbinger by the "few loud mouth idiots" on the Harbinger fleet... and that's all they are and there aren't really that many. They are just loud, so they make us all look bad.

I've now done the rounds of all the US servers, with a current total of 89 US based toons, (except Pot5, I don't have any there) and I've found them all to have fairly nice communities, be it some with non existent ones or only in their own guild/group chats.

 

There is definitely a financial argument for the EA bean counters to shut those non existent population ones because some didn't have more than 100 people spread across the server. I checked up to the 4.0 content. Also that was at the times I was one, so it's possible it was higher at other times of the day.

I don't want to forcefully move people from their servers. But I think Bio should stop new players from rolling anymore toons on them and I think if returning players find themselves on them, Bio should have a pop up asking them if they want to free legacy transfer off them. Eventually natural attrition will close those servers down.

I take it from the Pod cast commentary that Keith might go down this path. Eventually we'll end up with 1-2 servers per coast. At the moment Begeren seems to be picking up again, at least on the rep side. Poor Bastion is still dying out though. TEH is the most populated east server and it felt like Shadowlands had about half as many people (just a feeling). The others were less again and I think lots of east coast people are already moving to TEH. So natural attrition will probably work faster on the east coast and we'll end up with 2 per servers per coast eventually.

 

The only "fair" choice are "real" and "free" legacy transfers with "all" of the bells and whistles. Even free full guild transfers that are properly handled by Bio should be an option. Ones that address all the concerns and suggestions made "if" they were to actually forced merges.

By having those options, people could vote with their feet.

[Icykill_]

To be completely fair, there were those that expressed the sentiment that 90 CC is "free", meaning that a subscriber does not have to pay any additional money over that subscription to be able to move at least 5 characters per month, unless that player wanted to fritter away their CC stipend on other fluff, at which point that would be a PLAYER problem and not a BW problem. There have also been those that recognize that they could transfer at least 5 characters per month, but refused to do so, because they wanted to fritter their CC stipends away on fluff.

 

On the other hand, there have also been those that objected to "limited free transfers" or free transfers but only to limited servers. There is no reason why Johnny should be able to move all his characters for FREE if he wants to transfer to the Harbinger cesspool, but Billy must pay to transfer his characters away from the Harbinger cesspool.

 

 

While I personally am against free transfers, ONE TIME free transfers from any server to any server, with a few restrictions (such as a character transferred for "free" must wait at least 3 months (and 6 months would not be unreasonable, IMO) before being eligible for another transfer and all future transfers of that character will require a CC cost) to help prevent abuse would be a much fairer "compromise", IMO.

 

Do you mean 1 free character or legacy?

Edited June 25, 2017 by Icykill_

[Ratajack]

Do you character or legacy?

 

IF BW were going to offer free transfers, it should, IMO, be ONE free transfer per character to any destination server of the player's choice, with restrictions attached to that "free" transfer.

 

A player may not want to transfer their entire legacy to the same server, or may only want to transfer some of their characters.

 

As for any "legacy" assets, they should, IMO, follow the last character transferred off the "origin" server, or if the player chooses not to transfer all their characters on a given server, then the legacy assets should remain on that server.

[Icykill_]

IF BW were going to offer free transfers, it should, IMO, be ONE free transfer per character to any destination server of the player's choice, with restrictions attached to that "free" transfer.

 

A player may not want to transfer their entire legacy to the same server, or may only want to transfer some of their characters.

 

As for any "legacy" assets, they should, IMO, follow the last character transferred off the "origin" server, or if the player chooses not to transfer all their characters on a given server, then the legacy assets should remain on that server.

 

See it's that attitude of not compromising that makes people want merges... I actually wrote out some limitations and I'm not suggesting they can transfer all over the place for free. It's one free legacy transfer with everything they have to another designated server.. ie, not one depopulating like Pot5 or Bastion

[Ratajack]

See it's that attitude of not compromising that makes people want merges... I actually wrote out some limitations and I'm not suggesting they can transfer all over the place for free. It's one free legacy transfer with everything they have to another designated server.. ie, not one depopulating like Pot5 or Bastion

 

See. That is the attitude of "I'll use the term 'compromise', but I'm not really willing to give up anything I want." that I mentioned earlier.

 

If I understand you correctly, you only want BW to allow "free" transfers of full legacies, and then only to specific servers. That does not seem like much of a "compromise" to me.

 

Offering every character a ONE TIME free transfer (with restrictions that would apply to any character that uses that free transfer to help prevent abuse) is a much fairer option. Tell me why Johnny should be able to move any or all of his characters TO toxic cesspool server X, but Billy has to pay to move any or all of his characters AWAY from toxic cesspool server X. Tell me why if Johnny wants to move ALL of his characters to server Y, he should get to do so for FREE, but Billy, who only wants to move SOME of his characters (but not his entire legacy) should have to pay to do so?

 

I cannot help but wonder if some people are afraid that if BW were to offer "free" transfers from any server to any server, that maybe servers like Harbinger may see an exodus as people choose to leave that cesspool in favor of a much more respectful community.

[Mithros]

Source?

 

That Bioware has looked at this, that they are throwing it out there for us to discuss.

 

I see this as an honest attempt on their part to try and find a way forward.

 

The other reasons, such as taking away the community and forcing us to play with trolls and griefers, will cause a lot more people to leave. Losing everything we like about this game will cause us to leave. So, to make a comparison, I hinted it's similar to you losing your precious command level, and, funnily enough, it got this big "that wouldn't be fair" rant. Taking away all your gear would be the same as taking away our community, guilds, names etc.

 

First of all, did you miss the part where I said that I was on Ebon Hawk?

Try not to pretend that there aren't any griefers and trolls there, okay? Stop acting like everyone's in RP-mode 24/7.

 

And who is "losing" their community? Who is "losing" their guilds? What part of any of this makes you think that your guild members and your "community" won't be able to transfer as well?

 

They may choose not to transfer, but again, this goes back to my thoughts on inevitability.

 

But you sound like the sort of person that would just quit rather than try.

That without even knowing if you could keep your name you would just assume the worst and cry about how they "ruined" the game.

 

"Here, have a pet droid (that you've already got 15 of) to make up for having your entire game spoiled." That'd be like getting a money off coupon for a Snickers when I'm allergic to peanuts.

Yes, because giving people things to help smooth over some inconveniences is just like giving people things that can kill them if used.

 

In an earlier post I said that if they could find a way to make legacy names unique, and that if they could maybe "fix" last names to be capitalized, that maybe no one would have to lose any name that really mattered.

 

Might not be realistic, but it's an idea.

What ideas do you have besides complaining or "keep things the same and let people log on to empty servers"?

[casirabit]

See it's that attitude of not compromising that makes people want merges... I actually wrote out some limitations and I'm not suggesting they can transfer all over the place for free. It's one free legacy transfer with everything they have to another designated server.. ie, not one depopulating like Pot5 or Bastion

 

Icy,

 

Did you read his comment. It is one free transfer per character, not just one character, so you are essentially getting to transfer your legacy but it is done per character for those that might want not to have them all on one server.

[FerkWork]

Free unlimited transfers (that keeps outfits saved ) so I can move around freely to any server to raid and thus not have to gear a brazillion amount of toons and also buy and sell. Or merge the servers since most of the anti people are the same ones who cheered the solo 2 years which turned servers too ghost towns and told anyone who wanted raids to piss off. Honestly I'll take either or. Or both just to see them get their just rewards. Be funny as fudge.

 

Those are my 2 options plox.