Server Merge Discussion Thread

[DarkSaberMaster]

Just merge them already. There is no reason to keep pretending that these dead servers are full of life and thriving. Put an end to them and merge them.

 

Word.

[SteveTheCynic]

2) meh, I would also be in favor of a Legacy name change, BUT, only if the requested expansion to the Ignore system was done and in effect going forward. (see REQ: Ignore (update) and BAN (implement)) here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=920385

I don't see why legacy names would be a problem. It has been ages and ages since they removed the same-server uniqueness restriction on legacy names. I mean like, you know, YEARS. You could in theory have a server where *all* the legacies have the same name.

[Pliskie]

The idea of a server merge is a delicate matter which needs consideration.

 

Every char has a character cap of 390 chars account wide with 52 chars per server. So depending on how you many servers you put into one mega server you need to add 52 chars per server onto the server cap of an account up to that 390 chars. You will end with players who can and will dominate the GTN in a way you have never even seen before. It would effectively eliminate every chance of a player with 8 chars (which might be the majority, you have the numbers I only have my observation of players in my guilds) from taking any meaningfull part in the economy. Players with that many chars dominate and play the game on a complete different level as the majority of the "merge server" crowd. It is already a big problem as you devs surely know, but then it would be way worse. You also have to face the problems with the storage for the cartel coin stuff you implemented with DvL event. It also must be doubled, trippled, quadrupled depending on how many servers you merge.

 

Also it is questionable that you can even merge the servers especially after that moving of the servers last month. If it's true that the devs fear for the stability of the servers with every char increase (I have read the old topics, it is their statement not mine, but I dont see a reason you devy would lie) then we have an effective doubling, trippling, quadrupleing aso. of databank space. People much more intelligent in those things than me said, that such an increase of datavolume might end very bad. Plus as we all see and experience lags often enough in game, I would consider that point by at least asking myself if it's worth the amount of time/commitment to first: merge the servers and second: make the game stable enough to let us play. If that cant be assured in a reasonable time like right away when the server merge is done my vote goes to a clear: No Sirs please not, focus on content not on technical issues.

 

Third communities are different, players are different. A little anecdotical story: As the majority of players who participate on those topics know I have spread myself on several servers with several communities. For example one of my legacy is on TOFN, a server said dead. The guilds there established an alliance of guilds to get things done. Entry level for newer/returning players is, of course, high. They must be online in the spot where the recruiters are (what varies and is most of the time not the fleet). Still I was withness as a player once spoke on how much he would liked to be merged with TRE. It didn't ended to well for him, I actually felt bad for the poor guy. The majority of response was "for gods sake we dont want to be merged, TRE is toxic, the peeps cant play PvP there, it is full of bads" aso. It matches with the experience I made with one of my guilds. They were active on TOFN, they went to TRE for faster pops, the guild died within a month (around 50 active accounts) . Now two guys are back on TOFN and enjoy the game again on the tiny server and not the big one. So a merge might lead to another mass exodus like after merge 1 and 2. You have the numbers at your disposal. You devs know that reintegration into a new server is exhausting and not going without pain. And to the players in that topic, save me the stories of how the first two mergers saved the game. SWTOR was younger, new players came in masses the losses could be replaced, which the veterans of those days seem to forget. Of the old players from "Flames of the Crucible" 2 players of my friendslist stayed playing and "Bao-Dur" was me alone. Dont get me even started on the problems and handling of the first two mergers. If handled again this way, my vote is "hell no".

 

I am strictly against server merges when they put one playstyle against another playstyle. The RP crowd deserves as much attention and protection as the raiders and PvPers. They have even on their own servers a bad time due too many tools in game. In no way I see them transfered into a PvE server or Megaserver without a heavily moderated RP instance (and honestly who want to RP with big brother looking over your shoulder all the time?). If you devs cant provide such an environment, hands away from the RP servers! We cant afford to lose those players from the game.

 

I am also against a server merger when they would destroy the possessions of the players paid with RL money, aka cartel coins. Renaming of characters especially on those who had to rename in the first mergers, guild names, guild ship names, the with cartel coins bought strongholds, outfits, items in the packs, whatever else is paid with money must be sacrosanct or people will stop buying from the CM. Those items need a guarantee as long as the game is running because such things are bought on money plus trust. I am no dreamer beliving you work in a charity. You need to earn money and any thing which cuts into CM will be bad for you and with it for us (symbiotic circle from Episode 1 comes to mind )

 

If of course you devs worked secretly on a way to overcome the problems of mergers here and in any other topic posted, then I am all open to hear about your solution. At the current status quo though my vote would go to a "No to server merger as the silent majority in game (those who play the game instead of the forum) will lose too much in the process. They are save and quick in their ques because they are integrated in their server communities which they picked. They get their stuff done (operations, PvP even when highly organised) and those who are not integrated by whatever reason/choice can relatively easy switch the server to something more at their likeing."

 

I would prefer other solutions:

- more content for all (right now more focus on group than story, they can replay KotFE and KotET more easily than PvP and raiders)

- cross faction PvP and if possible opses/FPs/uprisings (besides the story relevant one like Foundry, Boarding Party, Taral V, Maelstrom Prison and the 4 ones with Korriban/Tython topic for the RPers)

- every three months a free char transfer bound by account for those who feel they are stuck so they can play their favourite char

- easier way for guilds to recruit players, look at EQ 2 for example (first reduces fleet spam, second make it easier for newer players to end quickly within a team)

[Andryah]

I know they have stated that they cannot do cross-server... but I would like to see them reconfirm this at this point in time.

 

Why?

 

Because as time passes, they may in fact have better code and hardware to enable this.

 

Fundamentally, it could be implemented by creating a neutral group instance on a central server, where they port players that are queued, and then when the instance is complete, the characters revert back to their home server location along with their winnings. Of course they also have to have additional wiring for enabling cross server queing... while the players in queue continue to do whatever on their home server.. and this is probably where the real issues are for the studio.

 

We can all speculate, demand, throw tantrums, etc.... but at the end of the day.... we wait on the studio for this.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Andryah

[mmmbuddah]

Hey folks,

 

We recently removed a thread related to the topic of server merges. This thread was removed because of numerous rule violations contained within it. Since we know this conversation is important to you, I am remaking this as the centralized thread for that discussion. Although we don't have anything to discuss right now on this topic, we want to continue to get your feedback and thoughts on it. Please keep it coming!

 

A few rule reminders:

• Discussion of moderation is not permitted.
  
• Please remain respectful of other forum users. Disagreement and discussion is fine, personal attacks are not.
  

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

• Merge West Coast into one server, and East coast into one server
  
• Merge all EU servers into one.
  
• Introduce language tabs for German and French in the EU server
  
• For the people that only want to play with people of their preferred language, add a language preference option in group finder and warzone group finder.
  
• Add a Roleplay chat tab and instance, like the pvp instances
  

Edited June 5, 2017 by mmmbuddah

[fushnchips]

I'd rather they merge servers by type rather than region. Have six total servers:

US RP

US PVE

US PVP

EU RP

EU PVE

EU PVP

 

lol look at the current state of US PVP servers sorry but this will never work

[fushnchips]

• Merge West Coast into one server, and East coast into one server
  
• Merge all EU servers into one.
  
• Introduce language tabs for German and French in the EU server
  
• For the people that only want to play with people of their preferred language, add a language preference option in group finder and warzone group finder.
  

 

So why not merge all US into one server you seem to be asking that the EU players have one server so what's the difference ?

[casirabit]

Thats pretty much what the last server merge did! That is still too many servers, especially considering the changes they made to server PvP a while ago. In my opinion the rp community is currently not big enough in swtor to warrant their own server. Maybe the devs could make an rp instance like they did with pvp.

 

Again, with this NO. It will not work because of idiots that will grief and troll rp and nothing there to stop them. Grief a pvp player, she kills you. Grief a rp player on an instance nothing can be done to stop it. Ebon Hawk is a rp server and we do fine so the comment not having enough to warrant a server is not entirely true.

[mmmbuddah]

So why not merge all US into one server you seem to be asking that the EU players have one server so what's the difference ?

 

Latency. If they were to merge all US servers into one, the datacenters should be moved to Omaha or somewhere dead center in the US.

[casirabit]

• Add a Roleplay chat tab and instance, like the pvp instances
  

 

 

NO. It will not work because of idiots that will grief and troll rp and nothing there to stop them. Grief a pvp player, she kills you. Grief a rp player on an instance nothing can be done to stop it.

Edited June 5, 2017 by casirabit

[fushnchips]

Latency. If they were to merge all US servers into one, the datacenters should be moved to Omaha or somewhere dead center in the US.

 

Yeah right and I play from New Zealand you can play this game fine on 300-400+ MS no problems at all

[Kernel_Cinders]

I play on Begeren Colony and have tried out The Harbinger. For me, personally, I would like to stay where I am at.

 

I also think players should have at least two options in the region that they play in.

 

EAST COAST: KEEP ---> Shadowlands, The Ebon Hawk.

EAST COAST: MERGE ---> Jedi Covenant, Jung Ma, Prophecy of the Five.

 

WEST COAST: KEEP ---> Begeren Colony, The Harbinger.

WEST COAST: MERGE ---> The Bastion.

 

The question to where the servers will be merged is something I'll leave to the Devs to figure out the logistics.

 

Having two East Coast servers and two West Coast servers would be ideal, but again, I'll leave it to the Devs to deal with the logistics of it all. I am in no way qualified to say whether or not doing the above is feasible.

 

I prefer to keep my suggestions simple on account of how sensitive this topic can be for people.

 

 

KC

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Yeah right and I play from New Zealand you can play this game fine on 300-400+ MS no problems at all

 

300-400? Ouch are you still on dial up or something or is east coast that much worse? I play with around 170 on Harbinger...

[fushnchips]

300-400? Ouch are you still on dial up or something or is east coast that much worse? I play with around 170 on Harbinger...

 

Ohh that was an example that's more my EU rates yeah i'm 150-180 on harb with fiber

[MeNaCe-NZ]

NO. It will not work because of idiots that will grief and troll rp and nothing there to stop them. Grief a pvp player, she kills you. Grief a rp player on an instance nothing can be done to stop it.

 

Maybe you should give examples of what can't be stopped for those of us who do not RP?

 

All I'm thinking is "ignore" here but obviously there would be annoying people who just stand in front of you etc. but then to get around that there is a lot of instanced zones to RP in peace with a group ... maybe some change around that?

 

Also is RPing really that common? Is catering to what could be a really niche minority hurting the overall health of the game by not merging? Note that these are questions, not statements.

 

Personally I'm for the East, West and EU mega servers. At the VERY least the PVP servers need to be absorbed by the non RP servers and this should happen asap.

Edited June 5, 2017 by MeNaCe-NZ

[Dewlmenow]

I play on Begeren Colony and have tried out The Harbinger. For me, personally, I would like to stay where I am at.

 

I also think players should have at least two options in the region that they play in.

 

EAST COAST: KEEP ---> Shadowlands, The Ebon Hawk.

EAST COAST: MERGE ---> Jedi Covenant, Jung Ma, Prophecy of the Five.

 

WEST COAST: KEEP ---> Begeren Colony, The Harbinger.

WEST COAST: MERGE ---> The Bastion.

 

The question to where the servers will be merged is something I'll leave to the Devs to figure out the logistics.

 

Having two East Coast servers and two West Coast servers would be ideal, but again, I'll leave it to the Devs to deal with the logistics of it all. I am in no way qualified to say whether or not doing the above is feasible.

 

I prefer to keep my suggestions simple on account of how sensitive this topic can be for people.

 

 

KC

 

If servers are merged as I think would be good overall for this game, it needs to only be 1 east coast and west coast server. I guess I'd be in favor of making 1 dedicated RP server to join the 2 US servers.

 

So:

 

1 East Coast server in JC (largest remaining non RP east coast server) and merge all east coast non rp servers into it.

 

1 West Coast server in Harb and merge all west coast non rp servers into it.

 

1 RP server in Ebon Hawk and merge all RP servers into it.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

@Eric and Keith.

 

This topic here is the epitome of an example of why we need to merge the now dead servers:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=923725

 

A player returning wondering if the game was dead. As I eluded to that in that thread how many potential new or returning players are we missing out on simply because they come to the game and see the embarrassing state that is the dead servers?

 

I think for now the concept around merging all servers should be parked so that focus can be given to doing something about the actual dead servers.

Clearly there is debate around what to do with merging the active/semi-active servers but I don't think there would be much disagreement about merging those dead servers so that returning players who were on those servers come back to find a decent population or new players don't see a dead game.

 

For many the insult of having to pay to transfer to a server just to be able to play the game as designed would be enough to drive them away from being here in the first place. Please fix this, for the health of the game if nothing else.

[casirabit]

Maybe you should give examples of what can't be stopped for those of us who do not RP?

 

All I'm thinking is "ignore" here but obviously there would be annoying people who just stand in front of you etc. but then to get around that there is a lot of instanced zones to RP in peace with a group ... maybe some change around that?

 

Also is RPing really that common? Is catering to what could be a really niche minority hurting the overall health of the game by not merging? Note that these are questions, not statements.

 

Personally I'm for the East, West and EU mega servers. At the VERY least the PVP servers need to be absorbed by the non RP servers and this should happen asap.

 

On Ebon Hawk- Roleplaying is very popular. You will find people roleplaying in cantina, strongholds, fleet and various places on Ebon Hawk.

 

People can grief in various ways using emotes when people are roleplaying. You can ignore chat by putting someone on ignore (but then again if you do that your ignore list can become quite full). Some can actually use their vehicles and park on top of a person while someone is rp or do various emotes. Those can't be ignore.

 

These have happened in the past when I was playing on SWG, on a non-rp server. People stopped rp and then started leaving the game. Do we really want to push more people away when there is a way to help rp instead of pushing for a "rp instance" where people can be grief and trolled when rp. Do we really want to see the population shrink because of pushing roleplayers away. You will find roleplayers in all aspects, raids, pvp, pve and story.

[AscendingSky]

Again, with this NO. It will not work because of idiots that will grief and troll rp and nothing there to stop them. Grief a pvp player, she kills you. Grief a rp player on an instance nothing can be done to stop it. Ebon Hawk is a rp server and we do fine so the comment not having enough to warrant a server is not entirely true.

 

Considering Ebon Hawk is the second highest NA server in terms of population, it does irk me that pro-merger advocates are now trying to claim RPers are only a 'small niche' of players that aren't numerous enough to warrant their own servers...

Edited June 5, 2017 by AscendingSky

[HuaRya]

Size wise JC versus Shadowlands is a touchy subject as they are neck and neck nearly the same size.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

On Ebon Hawk- Roleplaying is very popular. You will find people roleplaying in cantina, strongholds, fleet and various places on Ebon Hawk.

 

People can grief in various ways using emotes when people are roleplaying. You can ignore chat by putting someone on ignore (but then again if you do that your ignore list can become quite full). Some can actually use their vehicles and park on top of a person while someone is rp or do various emotes. Those can't be ignore.

 

These have happened in the past when I was playing on SWG, on a non-rp server. People stopped rp and then started leaving the game. Do we really want to push more people away when there is a way to help rp instead of pushing for a "rp instance" where people can be grief and trolled when rp. Do we really want to see the population shrink because of pushing roleplayers away. You will find roleplayers in all aspects, raids, pvp, pve and story.

 

The fact you have to use SWG as an example though makes me think this griefing activity isn't as much of a big deal as you make out? I.e. not as common place and certainly not enough to have an overall detrimental effect to the game.

 

Right now I prefer focus be on doing something about the dead PVP servers but if the RP servers ever ended up in a similar depopulated state then those to should be merged at such a time. There is nothing good for the game to have new/returning players logging into a server that they can't possible ever hope to find a group for as an example.

 

I don't believe the RP servers have quite hit this point yet though?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Considering Ebon Hawk is the second highest NA server in terms of population, it does irk me that pro-merger advocates are now trying to claim RPers are only a 'small niche' of players that aren't numerous enough to warrant their own servers...

 

I hope you aren't referencing my questions because:

 

Note that these are questions, not statements.

 

However you have always seemed to want to stir the pot so nothing would surprise me.

[AscendingSky]

On Ebon Hawk- Roleplaying is very popular. You will find people roleplaying in cantina, strongholds, fleet and various places on Ebon Hawk.

 

People can grief in various ways using emotes when people are roleplaying. You can ignore chat by putting someone on ignore (but then again if you do that your ignore list can become quite full). Some can actually use their vehicles and park on top of a person while someone is rp or do various emotes. Those can't be ignore.

 

These have happened in the past when I was playing on SWG, on a non-rp server. People stopped rp and then started leaving the game. Do we really want to push more people away when there is a way to help rp instead of pushing for a "rp instance" where people can be grief and trolled when rp. Do we really want to see the population shrink because of pushing roleplayers away. You will find roleplayers in all aspects, raids, pvp, pve and story.

 

Don't forget all the griefing during the rakghoul event! People running into or jumping down from higher levels onto groups of people RPing right as they're about to explode to make everyone get infected. Your ignore list doesn't mean squat in terms of preventing that!

 

Also, any items or class abilities that force other players' toons to behave in a certain way (I'm looking at you, Party Bomb) can be spammed on top of RPers to be disruptive. AoE abilities like Mortar Volley can be spammed on players. Even when you have players on ignore, they can still flood built-in emotes in the game to make the chat window scroll up constantly so you can't catch what other people have said. Or they can just bypass the ignore list entirely by switching to an alt and continuing the harassment/disruptive chat behavior. Really nasty sorts of griefers just mass report spam on RPers to squelch them temporarily, completely preventing them from doing the thing they're paying their subscription to do in the first place.

 

In short, those who like to grief and harass RPers have many creative and disruptive ways of doing so.

Edited June 5, 2017 by AscendingSky

[casirabit]

The fact you have to use SWG as an example though makes me think this griefing activity isn't as much of a big deal as you make out? I.e. not as common place and certainly not enough to have an overall detrimental effect to the game.

 

Right now I prefer focus be on doing something about the dead PVP servers but if the RP servers ever ended up in a similar depopulated state then those to should be merged at such a time. There is nothing good for the game to have new/returning players logging into a server that they can't possible ever hope to find a group for as an example.

 

I don't believe the RP servers have quite hit this point yet though?

 

Ebon Hawk is a great server and we have a stable population but people are screaming merge all servers, not just the ones that need it. If they would restrict themselves to the ones that need it I would gladly agree with them to merge those servers but when they start mentioning making one server then they are pushing Ebon Hawk into the mixture.

[casirabit]

Don't forget all the griefing during the rakghoul event! People running into or jumping down from higher levels onto groups of people RPing right as they're about to explode to make everyone get infected. Your ignore list doesn't mean squat in terms of preventing that!

 

Also, any items or class abilities that force other players' toons to behave in a certain way (I'm looking at you, Party Bomb) can be spammed on top of RPers to be disruptive. AoE abilities like Mortar Volley can be spammed on players. Even when you have players on ignore, they can still flood built-in emotes in the game to make the chat window scroll up constantly so you can't catch what other people have said. Or they can just bypass the ignore list entirely by switching to an alt and continuing the harassment/disruptive chat behavior. Really nasty sorts of griefers just mass report spam on RPers to squelch them temporarily, completely preventing them from doing the thing they're paying their subscription to do in the first place.

 

In short, those who like to grief and harass RPers have many creative and disruptive ways of doing so.

 

Yea I had forgotten about those. Thanks.