Server Merge Discussion Thread

[IntegrationArch]

nothing is being forced just a new xfer option wth a megaserver was promoted by Keith.

 

Therefore if 4 dead servers have an opporunity to merge to a active new megaserver it could be very poppy for PvP and easier to assemble Ops groups.

 

Players join alts to several different guilds sometimes to get on several weekly schedules instead of a single weeknight or weekend. It has nothing to do with being social or not infact it's more social because you can fill in a missing operations role faster if you know good players from several guilds. The most successful geared toons are otten the most social in the game. The top conquest guilds are focused on conquest rank so they don't want your alts in other guilds cranking PvP.

 

For reason's unknown Harby has a strong percentage of unguilded players at lvl 70 that never want to be in guilds. The only reason may be they don't like to grind conquest all the time, they like doing other things.

Edited July 10, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[BilaDAD]

I am for getting more players on a server I started on Crucible Pits server it died in 2012, they moved us to The Bastion it is dead now.. yes PVP servers, i love world PVP and a one mega server merger would kill that.. but that is better than a dead server. If the RP players want to stay on there server let them. I am more concerned With getting my guild BANK, SHIP, SH, moved.

 

Dose anyone know how may people still play this game per server? I'm thinking mot very many.

[IntegrationArch]

I am for getting more players on a server I started on Crucible Pits server it died in 2012, they moved us to The Bastion it is dead now.. yes PVP servers, i love world PVP and a one mega server merger would kill that.. but that is better than a dead server. If the RP players want to stay on there server let them. I am more concerned With getting my guild BANK, SHIP, SH, moved.

 

Dose anyone know how may people still play this game per server? I'm thinking mot very many.

 

Peak was 2M subs a while ago. SWTOR removed concurrent login stats. only light med heavy are listed.

 

Now it's got to be sub 1M total in subs perhaps half that or less now.

 

older collection of servers a while ago:

Note harby is full. They fixed the full issue with concurrent INSTANCES of the same server.

Edited July 10, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[BilaDAD]

that seam like a lot of subs? for what 10 servers. when we see so few players online. and a lot of those are F2P. But i have never seam any actual starts.. thanks for reply.

[Andryah]

that seam like a lot of subs? for what 10 servers. when we see so few players online. and a lot of those are F2P. But i have never seam any actual starts.. thanks for reply.

 

It is incorrect to presume that ALL players will be logged in all at once.

 

In the MMO industry, on average, populations at prime time on a server will be ~ 10-15% of total active players on said server. In fact, with studios withholding sub numbers now days, this is the best way to range estimate the total number of active players...... manually poll number of concurrent players (and NO.. not just on Fleet) and then divide by 0.1 and then 0.15 and that gives you the probably range of active players on a server.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Andryah

[Tharandil]

If you make super servers would the game engine be able to hold it without glitching?

Already the game seems to struggle when you aggro a lot of mobs simultaneously.

 

Just a thought

[IntegrationArch]

Mega Servers are made to behave faster with Instances with the right amount of toons per instance is not related to LAG or Glitching.

 

In a full 16m or full PvP match, the video glitching or lag that occurs on the actual PC screen is due to a CPU bottleneck mostly. Setting higher PC's GPU settings with MORE anti-aliasing shader effects, shadow effects, GPU output resolution, and lack of SSD all increase LAG. The CPU's clock speed is the most significant to reduce lag. To prove it is not the game server or your ISP/firewall/modem, just set the game on low res and disable all the above and see if you still get LAG.

[BogdanAnghelescu]

FFs just make it happen, you can do **** in the game ! Not enough players !

[IntegrationArch]

Yes, too few geared 70's who know rotation, to many wipes.....

[DarthScruffy]

I have no objection to opening the game up to consoles.

 

That said, I have absolutely no knowledge of what the cost would be or what would need to be done to make this game engine compatible with even a single console, let alone the numerous console platforms that currently exist. I would not even want to speculate on either of those two things.

 

I have characters on Shadowlands, as well.

 

I can only speak for myself, but I never have a problem doing any group content I want to do. Then I am not reliant upon the LFG tool for my group content. Not only do I actually have friends and guild mates with whom I can do group content, I also behave in respectful and responsible manner and have likely not found myself on too many ignore lists.

 

The player who prefers who desires a place to RP or not having to deal with trolls has every bit as much right to that as do those who want to see a million people on every corner. I'm not saying that either play style should take precedence over the other, which I why I favor leaving the choice of server or server population up to the individual player.

 

I cannot help but wonder, though, how many of those who advocate server merges or a megaserver are also among those that complain about things like the possessed hunter heroic on DK.

 

 

 

 

The concerns have been expressed by both sides of this issue, and BW is aware of those concerns. How they choose to address those concerns if up to BW.

 

I don't believe that anyone said that BW plans to "do nothing", but the "something" that BW chooses to do may not be the "something" that some want. This is not necessarily a case of "merge servers or do nothing".

 

 

 

BW may ultimately decide that server merges are necessary, but it does appear from Keith's interview that server merges are not going to be BW first choice, nor should they be, IMO.

 

You can consistently advocate for both more people per server and smaller instances. The two need not be linked. So Korik is a smaller problem that can be addressed independently.

[Ybialdan]

This is great! Finally we are discussing server merge, glad it is finally a topic. Concerns;

 

Strongholds: I have all strongholds including Manaan which equals 150% conquest bonus what would happen to all the decorating really don't want to start over.

 

Guild ship and Dreadnaught both on Republic and Imperial sides

 

This is something that should have been done a long time ago, hoping for a solution as we are losing players

[Foambreaker]

They need to come up with a solution for names or we will lose a lot more.

 

3 players named "Rat"

3 servers merge

2 players are forced to rename

1 of those 2 quits

 

That is a 33% reduction in player base.

 

And that is the good news.

 

Take the east coast, 5 players named "Rat", 4 have to rename, 2 quit, that is a 40% reduction in player base.

 

If they don't do this right they will shrink the player base below financial viability.

[TyonYlle]

They need to come up with a solution for names or we will lose a lot more.

 

3 players named "Rat"

3 servers merge

2 players are forced to rename

1 of those 2 quits

 

That is a 33% reduction in player base.

 

And that is the good news.

 

Take the east coast, 5 players named "Rat", 4 have to rename, 2 quit, that is a 40% reduction in player base.

 

If they don't do this right they will shrink the player base below financial viability.

Okay. So, what about the other problems?

[mhobin]

One way to help fix the name issue is to purge all names if a player has not logged in 2 years. My guess would be there will be very little name crossover.

[DWho]

This is great! Finally we are discussing server merge, glad it is finally a topic. Concerns;

 

Strongholds: I have all strongholds including Manaan which equals 150% conquest bonus what would happen to all the decorating really don't want to start over.

 

Guild ship and Dreadnaught both on Republic and Imperial sides

 

This is something that should have been done a long time ago, hoping for a solution as we are losing players

 

There is a whole list of concerns that was presented several times in this thread. I don't remember exactly where they are but a brief summary was

 

1) Guilds have to transfer intact (no emptying guild banks, disbanding guilds, and reforming on a new sever) - Bioware has indicated that this is an issue they feel must be addressed before any type of server merger occurs (Keith did a Bad Feelings podcast where he wento over some of this)

 

2) Character Names: Find a way that people don't lose their names or the names go to the most active character using it instead of the oldest.

 

3) Policing chat: This is a huge issue for both roleplayers and people who have played on heavily populated servers (what you see on harbinger now is only a fraction of how bad it used to be and Harb is pretty bad).

 

4) Resources: When servers were heavily populated there were a lot of objective ninjas running around stealing nodes/objectives while you were fighting the mobs in front of them. This frustrated a lot of players and caused them to leave the game entirely. An example of this issue would be trying to complete the bonus mission for the Face Merchants heroic on Coruscant (or the heroic Mutations on Taris). Expand that to all open world quests and you can envision the issue.

 

5) Character Legacies: Pretty much the same issue as with Guilds

 

6) Strongholds: need to avoid having to redecorate them from scratch on the new server and not have it cost credits or CCs to unlock strongholds that have already been paid for.

 

These are broad generalizations and a lot of more specific points were brought up in this thread. If you want to see what was discussed reading through the thread would be beneficial (though it is over 140 pages now) but be warned there was a lot of toxicity at various times coming from both sides that sidetracked the discussion on several occasions.

[Foambreaker]

One way to help fix the name issue is to purge all names if a player has not logged in 2 years. My guess would be there will be very little name crossover.

 

I would suggest everyone who doesn't think names are a problem or there will be little crossover go to the other servers and try to create toons with the same names as yours. Unless you have really lame names, you are in for a surprise.

 

I did this as soon as I realized there was going to be a merge, as a way of "saving" my names.

 

I was able to save on average 2 per server and not the same ones on any server.

 

So I already know most my chars will have to face whatever rule they come up with.

[Andryah]

I would suggest everyone who doesn't think names are a problem or there will be little crossover go to the other servers and try to create toons with the same names as yours. Unless you have really lame names, you are in for a surprise.

 

I did this as soon as I realized there was going to be a merge, as a way of "saving" my names.

 

I was able to save on average 2 per server and not the same ones on any server.

 

So I already know most my chars will have to face whatever rule they come up with.

 

Of course nobody likes to lose a name. Most of my original characters have actually never had a name reset unless I moved them to a server where I already had the name taken. I simply do not make a habit of using extremely common names. In other words, a player can mitigate the exposure to forced renames.

 

Since they added the ability to place a space in the name, I have had ZERO issues with names. I simply reuse the original name, add a space, and then add my legacy name to form the new name. Then shut off display of legacy name and done. Of course you do not have to do it exactly the way I do... but if you are insisting on not using the new naming conventions that include a free space, then I feel there is little merit to the complaint. I can now use very common first names and not have them rejected... which is a great result from just adding the ability to include a space in a name.

 

And some people seem to think a name purge on dormant characters and accounts will somehow give any random player exactly the name they want. Wishful thinking, absent fact.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Andryah

[IntegrationArch]

One way to help fix the name issue is to purge all names if a player has not logged in 2 years. My guess would be there will be very little name crossover.

 

Either 180 or 90 days or so would be fine. Subs may deserve a priority if there is any name conflicts. This is a non issue if they bring up the mega server and it's blank and the subs or f2p players initiate a new toon or xfer themselves. First come first serve. Keith was explaining old server and toon names stay in place and are not forced to move or take action if they would like to remain status quo

Edited July 17, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[BilaDAD]

i just moved 12 toons to The Harbinger server i had 2 toons to rename and both have the same name just added a letter so no big deal...great move .. now just get the guild moved

[Verain]

Names are a problem, but they are nowhere near the problem they could be. In WoW, when server merges happened, the characters became addressable by the server they were on. So if Apple and Orange merged, your character Tiny would be Tiny-Apple or Tiny-Orange, or whatever. The servers still existed in name, but in practice they were gone.

 

So that's one solution. Another would be to build a list of active characters with clashing names and work with them- there's probably less than you might think. Aggressively pruning the name list at the same time would also work very well.

[JediTahiri]

I would gladly have to rename ALL of my characters if it means having a server that is actually over "LIGHT" population and actually populated.

If names and guilds are such a big deal then try cross-server queue's! rather than a server merge.

[Khaleg]

Here some objective current facts for the White Knights and the solo players who accidently joined an mmorpg.

I'm almost sure, compared to us on Jar'kai Sword, those on the ex pvp US servers are rather suffering on a high level, yet their demand for taking action, overdue since at least 18 months dear Bioware, is still valid too.

But here the facts. about our server, it was the same last summer and only slightly better during winter:

 

Max total players on the server at super prime time is around 100, both factions summed up. Around 30 of these 100 are known bots mostly on Yavin 4 and some other planets. Bioware does not care about those bot armies as well. I reported it, nothing happened beside blah blah in the ticket response.

We didn't see a single pvp or gsf pop since 15 months. Infinite queues for fps too if not managed guild internal. And so on. Sure, we would have moved already if this game wouldn't be so brand new and Bioware simply didn't have the time yet to implement simple standard processes to move people and guilds 1:1. The last sentence was obviously sarcasm. ☺️

 

Btw, does anybody know what this is about? :

 

Two weeks ago on each faction side two 8 man bot guilds popped up, who are on the Gravestone 24/7 doing whatever. Imps are 8 Assassins, Reps are 8 Shadows. Another bot guild of 4 commandos, for a long time already, is 24/7 on Coruscant.

Any idea what this is about, especially on the Gravestone, and is similar stuff happening on other servers as well?

Edited July 18, 2017 by Khaleg

[TyonYlle]

If names and guilds are such a big deal then try cross-server queue's! rather than a server merge.

 

Cross-server can't happen.

[Icykill_]

I would gladly have to rename ALL of my characters if it means having a server that is actually over "LIGHT" population and actually populated.

If names and guilds are such a big deal then try cross-server queue's! rather than a server merge.

 

Cross server can't happen... it's been confirmed by Bioware again just last month.. people need to stop asking for it as it is never going to happen

[casirabit]

For those that haven't read anything other than the first page you might want to listen to this.

 

http://badfeelingpodcast.com/audio/podcasts/episode_162_final.mp3