Server Merge Discussion Thread

[Andryah]

So 50-70 players concerns out way every other player? witch very few even agree on how the merge should happen.

You assume every guild member wants to move to the same server? That would only work if BW gave no say on which server you end up on. That will also mean threads complaining about the merge because they did not end up on the server they thought they would. Lets say that a guild has 500 members. 430 want to move to harbinger. The guild master wants to move to JC. The guild master is the one with the assets you mention. Think about it. So forced move would be the only option for a guild to stay together . How likely is it every guild member in large guilds are going to be happy with that?

 

..sigh...

 

You clearly do not understand my stance on server merges, much less bothered to read and comprehend any of my previous posts on the topic in the various threads over the last year.

 

And guilds wanting to disband and let the players go wherever they choose is a perfectly valid option if a guild finds they can gain no concensus on a move.

 

Dude.. I have Never been on the pro-merger side of the debate. I'm actually fine leaving the staus quo "as is" since every player has both the power and the resources to move to a different server if they want to. But the forum discussion on this is nothing but an endless circular quarrel between different viewpoints. I am simply offering a logical and effective first step to get something moving on this topic, unless/until the studio steps up and handles guild moves properly. In the end, the studio decides if they want to keep empty dead servers up and running or not. Closing the old PvP servers would at least remove one facet of the equation from discussion, and given the small numbers left on those servers.. the actual impact to the player base is pretty limited.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Andryah

[Thunderisaclone]

You clearly do not understand my stance on server merges, much less bothered to read any of my previous posts on the topic in the various threads over the last year.

 

Dude.. I have Never been on the pro-merger side of the debate. I am simply offering a logical and effective first step to get something moving on this topic, unless/until the studio steps up and handles guild moves properly. In the end, the studio decides if they want to keep empty dead servers up and running or not. Closing the old PvP servers would at least remove one facet of the equation from discussion.

 

I know that very well. However my post was a direct response to your other post. Not on every other post you have made on this subject.

I play most of the time on ToFN, one of those old PvP servers you just mention. So for or against mergers you still saying you get to decide on where I play? I know its not a high populated server, still there are more players playing on ToFN than are asking for mergers. That's just 1 server. not taking into account every other server. 50-70 players is not really that many.

 

Again I know you are not for mergers but when replying to a post, its that post not every other post you have made. As such I stand by what I have said.

[Ratajack]

But do you remember way way back didn't those things use to transfer, but people were complaining how long transfers took, which why they revamped it and made it super quick, but at the cost of stripping down the service?

 

 

I do not remember those things ever transferring. I'm not saying that they never did, just that I do not remember any of those things transferring.

 

Remember, as well, that transfers were made available long before the outfit designer, strongholds or legacy storage were implemented, so "way, way back" when transfers were made first made available, the only things to really worry about were emptying your mailbox and ending any pending auctions.

 

The only thing I remember ever "transferring" was legacy with the higher level legacy between the two servers taking precedence and any legacy unlocks between the two servers being "merged".

[Andryah]

I know that very well. However my post was a direct response to your other post. Not on every other post you have made on this subject.

I play most of the time on ToFN, one of those old PvP servers you just mention. So for or against mergers you still saying you get to decide on where I play? I know its not a high populated server, still there are more players playing on ToFN than are asking for mergers. That's just 1 server. not taking into account every other server. 50-70 players is not really that many.

 

Again I know you are not for mergers but when replying to a post, its that post not every other post you have made. As such I stand by what I have said.

 

This is a discussion.. where we all contribute ideas and thoughts. Neither I, nor you, nor anyone else actually speaks or acts for other players (regardless what some of the severely entitled would claim). Stop accusing me of something I am not actually doing. I'm fine with any constructive position you choose to take on the subject... but please do it without resorting to accusations.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Andryah

[Icykill_]

So I'd like to make a point before I dive into this post so there can be no misunderstanding about my intention and to show you guys I want a population fix, I'm not necessarily for or against mergers. Refer to this previous post to see what I mean

 

Something that's been thrown around before to help with the low population is a designated free server transfer for whole legacies.

 

They would have to be a one off all legacy transfer to predetermined servers. Certain servers that maybe seen as ones depopulating would not be available destinations.

 

Once the transfer was complete, that legacy wouldn't be able to receive a free transfer again and any transfer after that would need to be paid for.

 

This would enable new, returning and current players on servers who can't get group content or players who want to get away from certain server cultures, a chance to relocate those legacies to more active servers.

 

If, in the future the internal Bio statics show a sever has basically depopulated beyond Biowares internally set guidelines for it to be viable, then that server could be merged with an active one. At that point it would be safe to assume most of those being merged would be inactive accounts

 

Keith, there are lots of reasons for mergers and lots of reasons against mergers. Why not let the players make the initial decision by giving us "free" whole legacy transfers, similar to how a merge would happen anyway. Let people's feet do the talking.

 

The point of this new post is about primetimes and have they or are they changing. I personally wanted to know about the US ones because I've had to reschedule when I can play because we no longer have an APAC prime time.

I started this thread to get some feed back - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=923709

So far from just the last few days play and some observations over the last month, prime time doesn't seem to be what it used to be on Harbinger. It's another reason I started the thread because I thought I must have the brackets wrong.

 

I've followed the advice from the posters in the thread and those times have come up short.

 

 

This is just my personal experience, but "prime time" for Harbinger is 8 PM-11 PM Pacific time. There may be a slight uptick in population staring about 5 PM Pacific time (8 PM Eastern time), but not substantial enough to be considered "prime time", IMO. Remember, though, that those players on the East Coast who are logging into Harbinger around 5 PM Pacific time (8 PM Eastern time) will likely be logging off about 8 PM Pacific (11 OM Eastern) as they get ready to go to bed.

 

I have not noticed any "push back" of prime time for East Coast servers due to West Coast players playing in differing time zones.

 

 

Roughly 7:00 PM to Midnight for Ebon Hawk with 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM probably when the server is at it's heaviest. Weekend nights of course are usually slightly heavier than weekday nights and you'll get more people staying on a little later.

 

If you're in a region other than eastern North America and considering Ebon Hawk for play during "off hours" for your local server, here is 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time in other regions...

 

6:00 PM in Los Angeles

3:00 PM in Honolulu

5:00 PM in Juneau

9:00 AM in Perth, Australia

11:00 AM in Sydney, Australia

2:00 AM in London, UK

3:00 AM in Paris, France or Berlin, Germany

10:00 AM in Tokyo, Japan

 

That could fluctuate depending on whether or not you're in a region with daylight savings time.

 

 

 

7PM to 12 Midnight, week days, local server time... is generally considered "prime time" week days. It will vary a bit by server of course.

 

On most servers there appears to be two waves of players that roll through prime time..... an early group (7-10PM) and a late group (9-12Midnight). This covers the two major groups of players and how they work around practical matters like dinner and bed time.

 

Harbinger, for example, per torstatus ... if we use "standard" as the measure for prime time.... runs from 4Pm to 11PM most days.... which essentially validates what I stated above.

 

Of course players do play from locations outside of server local prime time, but that is a choice they make.

 

 

 

Without me re-typing what I wrote, here is post I made earlier today.

FYI it is now 1:30pm AEST (8:30pm PDT) and it even worse now than what I posted

 

So it's basically prime time in the US now. 12:13pm AEST and 7pm PDT. (I started this post at 12:13pm. It is now 12:41 and I've had no mid pvp pop while I've been typing)

I've been playing for the last 8 hours and I can say "prime time" on Harby is lower than it was 4-5 hours ago. I am very disappointed if this supposed to be prime time. Currently 168 on the fleet spread across two maps. We had 3 maps earlier.

I wish I'd thought to take screen shots over the last 8 hours, but I figured prime time wouldn't seem like the ghost town it appears after playing with more people earlier, so I didn't bother. I was actually excited that there might be even more on at prime time, which frankly is dead by comparison.

There are half the amount of people on the fleet than 4 hours ago. Either prime time is wrong or something funky is going on today in the US. Pops have gone from 3-5 mins to 5-10mins (make that 30+ mins) and always against or with the same people, even if you try to break the rotation.

This is certainly a sad state of affairs for the "most populated" server that has the largest pvp population in the US.

Mids has pretty much died and I've moved onto lvl 70 (but queued mids while I'm posting this). I've been avoiding lvl 70 out of protest to CXP grind and pvp gear gaps.

The only good thing that's been happening is any reps teams I'm on are winning. But there were basically only 12-16 of us queuing. IMPs vs Pubs has mainly been Pubs the 4-5 hours. IMPs have caught up now as more of them have gotten on as more Pubs get off. Imp vs IMPs is a mixed bag, there is a sprinkling of good players amoungt the newbies and the veterans are trying to carry matches, but you only need a few extra good players more on one side and the match is a forgone conclusion.

 

Anyone else want to do some actual testing over this next week and weekend to ascertain is prime times have shrunk or moved. I'm away for 4 days and won't be able to.

 

Unless something strange is happening or those times referred to are now changed, it seems that even our most populated server is having bracket shrinkage for prime time or a shift.

As the summer in the US gets into swing I've been told to expect even more of a slow down as people play less. I think we are now past the critical server population point for group content. If something isn't announced on a solution or steps to ease this decline, then I have a bad feeling we may not see out the end of the year. Maybe that's why we are getting quarterly road maps now instead of yearly (speculation of course).

 

Keith, Eric, I know you've said you have nothing to present to us about this topic, but if you leave it much longer it won't matter because there will be no group content people will to play it.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Icykill_

[DWho]

I couldn't say what is going on with Harb since I play almost exclusively on JC but tonight I was playing from 7:30 to 9:30 central and completed 3 WZ and 2 GSF on the pub side in about an hour and a half: 70s WZ pops were pretty quick, GSF slower. WZs were done in about 40 minutes with 2 being voidstar and one hypergate (I basically only do the dailies - 1 win and 2 losses in WZ and 1 win and 1 loss in GSF). Fleet was in the mid 60s when I logged off (10:30 Eastern) so I'd say that's about the end of prime time. JC fleet was near hitting max (100-120) around 7:30 central (8:30 eastern) when I started so that's probably the about beginning of prime time. That makes prime time about 2 hours for the East Coast on JC. Population is lower than Harb but it felt busy and group content was popping. On the east coast servers its probably just a time thing with there being little influx of players from either Europe or the west coast of the US. It might be a longer day thing with people being outside later and then coming in after dark to play. I would have expected Harb to have a wider active period since it has players from the east coast to APAC on it (a very large geographical area).

[Sauram]

Not sure I like Mega Servers. I would be happy with combining dead, and underpopulated servers. Having maybe 3 NA Servers total. All guild items/unlocks and naming issues handled delicately.

[fushnchips]

Not sure I like Mega Servers. I would be happy with combining dead, and underpopulated servers. Having maybe 3 NA Servers total. All guild items/unlocks and naming issues handled delicately.

 

I don't think 3 NA servers are required 2 at best and also give them new names.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I cannot say for certain, but I'm guessing that it is not as simple as "copy this file from server 'X' and install on new server 'Y'"

 

Even a character transfer will not transfer that character fully intact.

 

Anything in the mail is lost. Anything listed on the GTN is lost. BW warns you to empty he mailbox and remove all items listed on the GTN.

 

Items in legacy storage do not transfer.

 

Outfits stamped in designer slots are lost.

 

Strongholds have to repurchased ot re-opened and re-decorated, etc.

 

One thing around GTn is simply "closing" it a few days in advance.

Mail would have to be forced inventory acceptance of items and funds - problem though if inventory is full ...

 

Outfits I imagine with the designer being relatively new is just something they hadn't looked at for character transfer? Not enough squeaky wheels to get the grease perhaps.

 

Strongholds may often be a difficult one depending on how the data is stored within the database. I imagine at least transferring the fact you owned X SH with X rooms wouldn't be a massive change along with what decorations you owned but having them placed in the slots you had them could be a bigger undertaking.

[DWho]

So I just did a quick comparison between JC and Harb during JC's peak server time, which I would assume to be 8PM EST.

 

On the republic side there were 75 people and one person trying to form a group finder ops. After over 5 minutes, I messaged him and asked him how many people he had and he said 2.

 

On Harbinger it was 103 on instance 1 and a second instance that was depopulating (also bear in mind that's 5PM for Harb).

 

I checked the hypercrates on the GTN. Jedi Cov prices were vastly higher, with the lowest crate being 5 million creds higher than the lowest crate on Harb. There were only 2 crates at 40 million on JC, the rest were 60 million. Harb has 10 crates for 35 million.

 

This tends to confirm what I said earlier about the dysfunctionality of JC's multiplayer options and market. This is why I advocate a Jedi Cov- Shadowlands server merge and labeling low population servers as such.

 

 

We all know what your position is (Merge JC and Shadowlands). What we have been discussing is how to do that intelligently and with minimal impact on all players. Smashing two fairly large servers together without any preparation is a recipe for a disaster. If you have something constructive to add to the discussion of how to go about server mergers when and if they occur please do. But the mantra of Merge JC and Shadowlands is getting old.

[Icykill_]

Can you guys stop bickering. You know who you are and so does everyone else 🙄

All you are doing is ruining the thread and Bio will never take the issue seriously from either camp, pro or against.

What you'll end up doing is them ignoring any good posts or ideas in favour of some Frankenstein creation they'll force on us and we'll all hate it more than any idea that's been presented.

If you care about this topic at all you will stop trolling each other about semantics, lies, truth and what ever else. I can tell you from my perspective, I've had enough as I'm sure other have too.

Can you imagine if you're Eric or Keith and they see the same multiple pages of you carrying on like buffoons.

As many mothers have said .. "This is why we can't have nice things.. because you break them"

Edited June 8, 2017 by Icykill_

[AscendingSky]

Can you guys stop bickering. You know who you are and so does everyone else 🙄

All you are doing is ruining the thread and Bio will never take the issue seriously from either camp, pro or against.

What you'll end up doing is them ignoring any good posts or ideas in favour of some Frankenstein creation they'll force on us and we'll all hate it more than any idea that's been presented.

If you care about this topic at all you will stop trolling each other about semantics, lies, truth and what ever else. I can tell you from my perspective, I've had enough as I'm sure other have too.

Can you imagine if you're Eric or Keith and they see the same multiple pages of you carrying on like buffoons.

As many mothers have said .. "This is why we can't have nice things.. because you break them"

 

/signed

 

Could we all please act like adults here? All the personal insults and allegations of lying being thrown back and forth will drown out the reasonable points and suggestions being made in this thread, and they'll end up shutting it down just like they did the last server merge topic that got this long.

[DWho]

Can you guys stop bickering. You know who you are and so does everyone else 🙄

All you are doing is ruining the thread and Bio will never take the issue seriously from either camp, pro or against.

What you'll end up doing is them ignoring any good posts or ideas in favour of some Frankenstein creation they'll force on us and we'll all hate it more than any idea that's been presented.

If you care about this topic at all you will stop trolling each other about semantics, lies, truth and what ever else. I can tell you from my perspective, I've had enough as I'm sure other have too.

Can you imagine if you're Eric or Keith and they see the same multiple pages of you carrying on like buffoons.

As many mothers have said .. "This is why we can't have nice things.. because you break them"

 

That was where I was trying to go with this. The bickering about which server is dead, low population, or hurting has taken over this thread instead of the more serious discussion on how to fix the merger process should it become necessary. I tried to reach out with an olive branch and was thrashed with it. He's back on my ignore list so I won't be bickering with him any more. I apologize if I came across as trolling.

[KevWanCarib]

Just wanna pop in and say, keep the feedback coming! The team has been actively discussing the thread and we appreciate everyone's viewpoints.

 

Eric,

It worries me that the community team is wasting their time reading this thread. You should have seen enough of these threads by now, they pop up like weeds. Let me summarize for you so that you can move onto more important matters:

 

1) Signage needs to be added so that when a newbie picks a server, they can have an idea of the population level for the server they are choosing. This used to be there in the form of Low/Medium/High ratings.

 

2) A vocal minority keeps shouting that server merges are needed, as long as everyone merges onto their server.

 

3) Sensible people point out that with 90cc transfers, anyone who wanted to move servers has transferred already or can easily do so, and there's no reason to force people to move that don't want to move. Many subs will rage quit rather than be forcibly moved, so there is no upside to Bioware for forced merges.

 

4) See #2,

 

-- Kevin

[DWho]

Lets get back on topic and for the moment at least lets try to steer away from arguments over server population. We have discussed how to prepare for a server merge with the following topics

 

1) Assuring guild assets can transfer intact

2) Assuring personal assets can transfer intact

3) Dealing with chat on large servers

4) Dealing with overlapping legacies

5) Other ways to deal with population concerns (Cross-server, designated servers, Free legacy transfers)

6) How to start the process when it becomes necessary

7) How to distribute servers/communities (keeping RP servers separate)

 

We have seen a lot of good ideas so far in this thread. Are there any other ideas or topics we should be discussing? I didn't re-read the whole thread and made this list from memory so if I have missed something, let's add it to the list.

 

edit: clarified point #7

Edited June 8, 2017 by DWho

[AscendingSky]

Lets get back on topic and for the moment at least lets try to steer away from arguments over server population. We have discussed how to prepare for a server merge with the following topics

 

1) Assuring guild assets can transfer intact

2) Assuring personal assets can transfer intact

3) Dealing with chat on large servers

4) Dealing with overlapping legacies

5) Other ways to deal with population concerns (Cross-server, designated servers, Free legacy transfers)

6) How to start the process when it becomes necessary

7) How to distribute servers/communities

 

We have seen a lot of good ideas so far in this thread. Are there any other ideas or topics we should be discussing? I didn't re-read the whole thread and made this list from memory so if I have missed something, let's add it to the list.

 

I'd add addressing the concerns of the RP community in wanting to avoid larger amounts of harassment as a result of being forced to merge onto a traditionally non-RP server, as those have been brought up by several of us here. Or were you lumping that into your point 7 and that's what you meant by distributing communities?

[DWho]

Yup, I had lumped that into #7. I edited the post and clarified it.

[AscendingSky]

Yup, I had lumped that into #7. I edited the post and clarified it.

 

Works for me!

[OneHit]

Does anyone really think this is going to happen? Seems like a thread to keep us busy till they announce once again every thing is fine. I'm sure it will come with something new and fresh like a leveling event. In case you haven't played the same tired classes over and over again.

[Lunafox]

/signed

 

Could we all please act like adults here? All the personal insults and allegations of lying being thrown back and forth will drown out the reasonable points and suggestions being made in this thread, and they'll end up shutting it down just like they did the last server merge topic that got this long.

 

Agreed. It's basically the one guy who accuses everyone else of being a liar just because they don't agree with him. I've already put him on ignore.

[Otaktey]

Lets get back on topic and for the moment at least lets try to steer away from arguments over server population. We have discussed how to prepare for a server merge with the following topics

 

1) Assuring guild assets can transfer intact

2) Assuring personal assets can transfer intact

3) Dealing with chat on large servers

4) Dealing with overlapping legacies

5) Other ways to deal with population concerns (Cross-server, designated servers, Free legacy transfers)

6) How to start the process when it becomes necessary

7) How to distribute servers/communities (keeping RP servers separate)

 

We have seen a lot of good ideas so far in this thread. Are there any other ideas or topics we should be discussing? I didn't re-read the whole thread and made this list from memory so if I have missed something, let's add it to the list.

 

edit: clarified point #7

 

Let us revisit the proposal to implement a cross server group queue.

effect on:

#1. Cross server group queue allows for all servers to be combined for group content without affecting any guild assets.

#2. It wouldn't affect anyone's personal assets.

#3. Chat on large servers would stay on large server, but you can still run group content 24/7.

#4. Legacies will not overlap, they would stay right where they are, while everyone can run group content, 24/7.

#5. There would be no population concerns as populations will stay just as they are, but the group content would be equal to the population of all servers combined and you can get in OPS, PVP, GS, Uprisings, questing, world bosses, etc.. 24/7.

#6. No worries with how to start the merging process. All servers are merged for group content, yet no one has to leave their home server.

#7. There would be no distribution of servers/communities. All servers are in the cross server queue, east coast, west coast, RP, PVP, PVE, and so on. Yet when you leave the OPS, PVP, GS, World boss, Uprising, etc.. you go right back to the lovely community you've grown to love and cherish.

 

Keith, Eric, Devs, and all my fun loving SWTOR friends and family: Can you see any better way to solve the problem of low population servers? What is the bottom line issue with low population servers? You can't run group content like you can on a server like Harbinger. Well, simply combine the POT5 queue with the Harbinger queue and your going to get plenty of queue pops. Now add in JC and SL's and what do you have?... Quick queue pops! Add in all the other servers to this queue and what do you get? Immediate queue pops 24/7 all day and all night!

Then it doesn't matter if there are 3 phases of 150 players on your server or a single phase of 15 lonely, bored players. Everyone from ALL servers can queue up for group content and kill bad guys together!!!! And players on the RP servers can RP their patooties off while they wait for 5 seconds for the OPS queue to get them in a group. No transfers for players, guilds, assets, legacies, cargo holds, favorite meeting places to RP, guild ships, etc....

 

I'm saying all this from first hand experience. When Ben tried to destroy SWTOR by not listening, I went to play a different game that has cross server group content queues. Now that Keith has taken the helm and made some great decisions for the future of SWTOR, I'm back to the game I love. If you have cross server group content, you can have 1500 servers, with only 10 players each, and you would still be in a queue with 15000 other players. How long do you think you would have to wait to get in an 8-man OPS run?

[docbenwayddo]

What a potential server merge means to me:

• Potential loss of names
  
• Potential loss of Guilds
  
• Potential loss of Unlocks.
  
• Potential loss of Sanity due to more ignorance with open world mission objectives.
  
• Potential loss of Community.
  

What a potential server merge doesn't mean to me:

• Any chance whatsoever that I'll touch the abomination called GroupFinder.
  
• Any chance whatsoever that I'll queue for pvp.
  
• Anything positive in the "Why should I keep paying for this" balance sheet.
  

From a purely selfish and personal perspective, server merges are nothing but potential loss and deterrent to continued subscription. But I'm a stubborn arse, YMMV.

[DWho]

I could see lag as a potential issue.

 

It might be alright for regional cross-server (East Coast, West Coast, Europe) depending on where the servers are physically in relation to each other. It might even work with the US servers but my concern would be if the european servers were put in the mix, what would the lag be like (to get 24/7 pops you would probably need them as well as even Harb gets light in the middle of the night west coast time).

 

From the midwest I get 50ms to east coast servers and 80 ms to west coast servers. Anyone on the west coast play on the european servers. If so what kind of lag are you seeing. I think people in Australia have said they are getting 200-250 ms with some spikes to the west coast server. Them playing on a european server could be very problematic if their home server was on the west coast. Chat could also be complicated if you mixed french and german players with the english speaking ones, though that is probably not an issue for PVP (I could see it being an issue for OPs).

 

A lot depends on the physical server architecture.

Edited June 8, 2017 by DWho

[kirorx]

Risk losing a name again? No thanks, I came into this game at early

Release because I wanted to use the name I used for Kotor and I got it, but I lost it when the servers merged. I would dislike that again. Plus just coming up with a new name when so many are on the same server.

 

Now, cross server pvp and pve would be cool

[HuaRya]

Unless something strange is happening or those times referred to are now changed, it seems that even our most populated server is having bracket shrinkage for prime time or a shift.

As the summer in the US gets into swing I've been told to expect even more of a slow down as people play less. I think we are now past the critical server population point for group content. If something isn't announced on a solution or steps to ease this decline, then I have a bad feeling we may not see out the end of the year. Maybe that's why we are getting quarterly road maps now instead of yearly (speculation of course).

 

Yep seeing that summer slowdown too. Pretty extreme in off prime time hours. APAC players can't form HM groups on Harbinger. During a lull would definitely be the best time to make server changes when the least amount of people are around.