Server Merge Discussion Thread

[Icykill_]

Good advice. OK, here goes.

 

I don't think Server Merges should happen because of the reasons I've already stated and no-one is allowed to say anything if they disagree with this point of view, so I must win the argument.

 

If I knew it was going to be that easy, I'd have said that long ago.

 

I think you are using my post out of contence. I was replying to someone else on a totally different subject regarding my idea to start a "wall of crazy" (like the Devs have) for ideas people might have to make QOL etc better in the game. It was intended to only be an ideas thread and not a criticism thread or a platform for people to attack others or turn into a big argument like just about every other thread... hence, why using my words like that has twisted my meaning behind it... here is my original post on the topic..

 

Fellow threadarians (posters, lol)... I know we have a suggestion section in the forums, but not many of us read or participate in (let's face it, most of us don't leave the gen section)... but would you guys participate in a positve thread in the gen section of ideas for QOL/improvements we'd like to see/have...

I see so many good ideas in multiple threads that never get suggested or are never heard of again. Wouldn't it be good to have a dedicated thread we could all post them in and we'd see daily. We could even ask Eric to sticky it.

We don't need to argue in it why they can't do it, that's up to them to work it out. We can call it our own "wall of crazy"

So what do you guys think. Do you want to participate?

 

The two replies after it basically challenged the idea of agreeing or disagree and turning the thread into an argument. It's why I made that statement you are referring to because the thread was intended to be a positive thread on ideas, even if some were a bit out there or crazy.

 

Anyway, I've decided not to do it because it will just end up like every other thread on this forum if it wasn't strictly policed to stay in the terms of reference intended for the thread. I think we all know that wouldn't happen, which is sad because I thought it might be good to have place to put all the great ideas people have and it might be positive community thread.

[Icykill_]

More like self interest vs self interest.

 

And the semantics behind describing it from both sides. I think that's the only part of the discussion they both support without even knowing it...

Reminds of those old movies where a clan(family) of the Claytons were in a fued with the Claptons over a fence that intertwined both properties and they didn't realise it would be terrible for both if was just made one straight fence.

It didn't matter that they were both related and had intermarried between the families and were cousins.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[CrazyCT]

I think you are using my post out of contence. I was replying to someone else on a totally different subject regarding my idea to start a "wall of crazy" (like the Devs have) for ideas people might have to make QOL etc better in the game. It was intended to only be an ideas thread and not a criticism thread or a platform for people to attack others or turn into a big argument like just about every other thread... hence, why using my words like that has twisted my meaning behind it... here is my original post on the topic..

 

But this is a discussion thread, not a hippie commune. Everyone is free to put their point across - just because it doesn't side with you, doesn't make it any less relevant. If no-one disagreed, this thread (and it's 100 other predecessors) would never have existed. This is probably the most argued topic on the forums, and people feel very strongly about it, so of course there are going to be arguments.

 

I maybe did take your comment out of it's intended context, but to tell people they can't disagree on any topic is naive at best. I shudder to think what would be in this game by now if we weren't allowed to disagree.

[AlrikFassbauer]

What I don't quite understand is, although the amount of people has very clearly dropped on my "home server", - VERY clearly ! - the GTN prices NEWVER go down. They still sell with highly inflated prices to an ever-declining population.

[Icykill_]

But this is a discussion thread, not a hippie commune. Everyone is free to put their point across - just because it doesn't side with you, doesn't make it any less relevant. If no-one disagreed, this thread (and it's 100 other predecessors) would never have existed. This is probably the most argued topic on the forums, and people feel very strongly about it, so of course there are going to be arguments.

 

I maybe did take your comment out of it's intended context, but to tell people they can't disagree on any topic is naive at best. I shudder to think what would be in this game by now if we weren't allowed to disagree.

 

Still, you have missed the point altogether. But I can see arguing with you will only mean more misunderstanding, so I'm just going back to my hippie commune to cook up a brew

[Icykill_]

What I don't quite understand is, although the amount of people has very clearly dropped on my "home server", - VERY clearly ! - the GTN prices NEWVER go down. They still sell with highly inflated prices to an ever-declining population.

 

Less people selling them, less people buying them. As long as the sellers don't actually need the credits right there and then, they can just sit on the inflated price until someone who is impatient or has more credits than sense buys them.

They basically control the market and there is nothing we can do. The only way to brake an inflation market like that is to increase supply enough that those sellers have to drop the price or their items become worthless,

I'm pretty sure it's the same few people per server doing it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were linked to credit sellers who want inflation so people get impatient and buy credits off them,

Bioware can fix this inflation issue if they just released older gear more often and at better drop rates. Ideally it would be good if they just had a store to buy exactly what you want and remove RNG altogether.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[Andryah]

It's the core of the dispute...Self interest vs. the betterment of the group experience...

 

Sums it up pretty well, but not in the way you intended.

 

Happens to be true of most discussion threads in the forum too.

[Andryah]

Welcome to SWTOR, where we welcome newcomers by saying "We hope you enjoy your stay or die".

 

You can't have forums without conflict and even if you could, why would you?

 

If everyone agreed, we wouldn't need forums. Some things people will say or feel other people will either agree with or disagree with and often when they disagree they will say why.

 

Whether its a "few vultures" or many "vultures" you will still have the same type of conflicts.

 

If you are looking for a place without conflicts, may I direct you to Fairyland. Last door at the end of the hall with a picture of a puppy licking an ice creme cone on it.

 

Conflict is the essence of the human experience. There isn't so much Crime, killing, evil and War in the world because everyone hates it, it's because so few don't.

 

^^ Pretty much.

[Andryah]

I was replying to someone else on a totally different subject regarding my idea to start a "wall of crazy" (like the Devs have) for ideas people might have to make QOL etc better in the game. It was intended to only be an ideas thread and not a criticism thread or a platform for people to attack others or turn into a big argument like just about every other thread... hence, why using my words like that has twisted my meaning behind it... here is my original post on the topic..

 

This is a discussion... D I S C U S S I O N ... thread. It's not meant to be a suggestions based thread, much less a "wall of crazy" thread. And yes.. any discussion between different parties will result in some suggestions being presented, with disagreements and opposing viewpoints, etc.

 

Now.. I'm all for suggestion threads, and even a wall of crazy thread... but they deserve to be their own threads, rather then whip sawing this one all over the place. Your wall of crazy idea is basically a hijack of the thread topic because you are encouraging the throwing of spaghetti against the wall to see what it looks like, and then balk if people disagree with the pattern it leaves on the wall. ANY "wall of crazy" style discussion in the forum will be, by definition, contentious and divisive as players can and will have different views, priorities, and wants/needs.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Andryah

[Theeko]

Just make mega servers now imo

 

US West 1, 2, 3

US East ""

Europe ""

Other ""

[Talon_strikes]

What I don't quite understand is, although the amount of people has very clearly dropped on my "home server", - VERY clearly ! - the GTN prices NEWVER go down. They still sell with highly inflated prices to an ever-declining population.

The inflation occurred due to 2 exploits in the past that created a lot of credits. I remember many players posting on social media how they simply got warnings or temp bans for engaging in exploiting and the illegal credits they made were not revoked in the end.

 

What BW needs to do is continue cartel item direct sales. Any item being worth tens of millions of credits or more is flat out disgusting and plain wrong.

 

As far as this goes with server merges, I don't think merges will help fix the inflation. Dead servers are dead servers and don't have a healthy supply of items. The dead servers simply need to be merged.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Talon_strikes

[fushnchips]

Just make mega servers now imo

 

US West 1, 2, 3

US East ""

Europe ""

Other ""

 

more like US PvE US RP

 

EU PvE EU RP

 

a total of 4 servers

[Icykill_]

more like US PvE US RP

 

EU PvE EU RP

 

a total of 4 servers

 

If that happened it would increase lag for people based on where the servers are located. I think doing that would be a death nail for the game.

Forget the fact that people like me would stop playing if our lag from the APAC region went any higher. Let's look at people only based in the US.

I often see people complain they won't play on the east or west coast because it's not their reagion and it adds lag. It's mostly only 20-40ms and doesn't put them above 100ms. But they get angry about it if they get this lag from the servers in their region.

How do you think they will feel if they have lag added because the server location changes for them? Lots will just stop playing.

Now let's jump back to people outside of the US who obviously play with much higher lag if they connect from out side the US. Just 20-40ms ontop of already extreme lag can be the difference of getting an ability off to stop a player killing you or wiping in a raid.

Adding even more lag by having one-two central servers will drive a large chunk of players away who are more sensitive to lag issues.

[Icykill_]

The inflation occurred due to 2 exploits in the past that created a lot of credits. I remember many players posting on social media how they simply got warnings or temp bans for engaging in exploiting and the illegal credits they made were not revoked in the end.

 

What BW needs to do is continue cartel item direct sales. Any item being worth tens of millions of credits or more is flat out disgusting and plain wrong.

 

As far as this goes with server merges, I don't think merges will help fix the inflation. Dead servers are dead servers and don't have a healthy supply of items. The dead servers simply need to be merged.

 

They should have those direct sale items stay on the market for a few months as well. We used to have that when the CM first started and the most desired at the time were listed. But that changed and those direct sale items were never replaced or updated.

 

It's not hard for the Bio guys to jump onto the GTNs and see the most desirable, yet unaffordable items on the GTNs. Adding these onto the CM as direct sales items for a few months at a time and rotating through them so they don't cause inflation if they are unavailable for long periods of time would decrease the inflation, which also puts a big dent into the credit sellers business.

Lots of other games do exactly this and is successful and reduces the credit sellers, farmers and spammers over night.

To me this seems a logical way to combat the credit sellers. The current systems and defence against them obviously isn't working as well as needed. It's time to attack them from another front and that is to lower the demand of people wanting or needing to buy credits because of hyper inflation.

[Icykill_]

This is a discussion... D I S C U S S I O N ... thread. It's not meant to be a suggestions based thread, much less a "wall of crazy" thread. And yes.. any discussion between different parties will result in some suggestions being presented, with disagreements and opposing viewpoints, etc.

 

Now.. I'm all for suggestion threads, and even a wall of crazy thread... but they deserve to be their own threads, rather then whip sawing this one all over the place. Your wall of crazy idea is basically a hijack of the thread topic because you are encouraging the throwing of spaghetti against the wall to see what it looks like, and then balk if people disagree with the pattern it leaves on the wall. ANY "wall of crazy" style discussion in the forum will be, by definition, contentious and divisive as players can and will have different views, priorities, and wants/needs.

 

Once again, you didn't read my post I was referring to.,. It wasn't about this thread /sigh

 

I was asking the community "if" they would be interested in having a suggestions thread "wall of Crazy" (as Keith/Eric refer to their ideas board in the office). Not a discussion/argumentative thread, just ideas only.

It was never my intent and I never said this thread should be that or that discussion wasn't health here (which it isn't when it's just attacks and tearing people down)

It was only a question to ask if people were interested and if they would participate under those sort of guidlines,

Its obvious from the attacks on me an over this idea and people not bothering to go back and read what was actually said that it wouldn't work because "some people" just can't behave in a manner that is supportive and positive. All they can do is tear people and ideas down for no other reason than Lulz and to be contentious to upset others.

 

So let's leave it at that. The idea is dead, just like many others in this thread and across the forums because as I've pointed out... "we can't have shiny new things" because others break them in a toxic environment.

[HuaRya]

more like US PvE US RP

 

EU PvE EU RP

 

a total of 4 servers

 

If ESO and FF can house all of North America on one server then certainly the population of SWTOR. And they have long since shed the labels of PVE/PVP/RP and let the guilds decide what they are into.

[Icykill_]

If ESO and FF can house all of North America on one server then certainly the population of SWTOR. And they have long since shed the labels of PVE/PVP/RP and let the guilds decide what they are into.

 

I've tested both of those games and the Ping is 100-200ms more than swtor... 😳

I'm not sure where they have them located, but It's definitely unplayable for me in pvp

[DWho]

I've tested both of those games and the Ping is 100-200ms more than swtor... 😳

I'm not sure where they have them located, but It's definitely unplayable for me in pvp

 

As of about a year ago, the ESO servers were in Texas (USA) and Germany. Rumor is that the FFXIV servers are in Japan and Montreal (Canada)

[fushnchips]

If ESO and FF can house all of North America on one server then certainly the population of SWTOR. And they have long since shed the labels of PVE/PVP/RP and let the guilds decide what they are into.

 

I play FFXIV and they have lots of servers the only games that I know that are a single server are ESO/Wildstar. So where do you get the details of FF being 1 server and Balmung is an RP server that is so full they had to lock it down.

 

FFXIV Server list

[fushnchips]

If that happened it would increase lag for people based on where the servers are located. I think doing that would be a death nail for the game.

Forget the fact that people like me would stop playing if our lag from the APAC region went any higher. Let's look at people only based in the US.

I often see people complain they won't play on the east or west coast because it's not their reagion and it adds lag. It's mostly only 20-40ms and doesn't put them above 100ms. But they get angry about it if they get this lag from the servers in their region.

How do you think they will feel if they have lag added because the server location changes for them? Lots will just stop playing.

Now let's jump back to people outside of the US who obviously play with much higher lag if they connect from out side the US. Just 20-40ms ontop of already extreme lag can be the difference of getting an ability off to stop a player killing you or wiping in a raid.

Adding even more lag by having one-two central servers will drive a large chunk of players away who are more sensitive to lag issues.

 

20-40ms being the difference to wipe in raid ? I played no issues with 300+ ms on TRE and the EU guys would have been at 10-90ms I think you just don't want the better options for the game even a buddy of mine who is a Twitch Partner and SWTOR Influencer plays from Germany and does everything on a US server including Ranked and only Nightmare, HM stuff so this just puts everything you said about PvP and raids down the loo sorry Icy but this ping business isn't as bad as you make it out.

[omaan]

This game gave free transfers to players FROM low population servers TO higher population servers back in 2012 before the first forced server merger. So while most games might not do it, this game has a history of having done it.

 

People have guilds, ships and 1-2 friends who always have reasons not to transfer. And many other reasons why not to transfer (for example putting back things in all strongholds again). Server merges or cross-server queues or death of swtor. There is no third way, sorry.

Edited July 3, 2017 by omaan

[Icykill_]

20-40ms being the difference to wipe in raid ? I played no issues with 300+ ms on TRE and the EU guys would have been at 10-90ms I think you just don't want the better options for the game even a buddy of mine who is a Twitch Partner and SWTOR Influencer plays from Germany and does everything on a US server including Ranked and only Nightmare, HM stuff so this just puts everything you said about PvP and raids down the loo sorry Icy but this ping business isn't as bad as you make it out.

 

You misunderstand what I mean. If you have 400ms Ping and can just scrap by, adding another 20-40ms is enough to cause big problems.

If you only have 100ms Ping and you get another 40ms you will hardly even know it's there.

 

Look you may not think it's an issue for you and your friends, but it is for me and many others. Just because you can live with it, doesn't mean we can.

 

Please understand that it is game breaking for some.

[fushnchips]

Please understand that it is game breaking for some.

 

That's right for some and that few are the ones that most likely will have to come to terms with and what Bioware ends up doing and you seem to be a big time pvpr so how much ranked do you do may I ask ?

[Nothing_Shines]

This game can't handle all of the North American players in just two servers. I guarantee if you do this, you will have another mass exodus as you break guilds, lose assets, people lose character names, and the game runs like garbage across the board. Remember how it was really hard to raise the character limit to 52 per server? Now crush everyone on to two servers and that isn't going to over tax the system? And if it isn't going to overtax doing that, was it a blatant lie about character limits?

 

POTF & Jung Ma have like 20 people between the two of them. They've had free or low priced transfers for over a year. Let's not screw up the vast majority of players to accommodate a handful.

 

Servers like JC have perfectly fine populations as is. There are constantly running ops PUGs, pvp and gsf. I hate the idea of merging again, however, if it is inevitable ...sigh...

 

There are what? Eight US servers? First step. Purge all old character names not logged in for over 1 year across all servers. Then run an internal comparison check to see how many players would be affected through server merge by conflicting character names to see how many are going to need compensation of some kind for getting gypped by losing names. Then, AT MOST, I would designate the top 4 population servers and open the doors with free transfers to those servers for 4 months. Get the small and tiny pops to self-transfer as much as possible, leaving only holdouts and people with guild assets that will need BW help to transfer over case by case.

 

Four US servers in the range between JC and Harb would be more than good enough.

[MissilyMilcasia]

This game can't handle all of the North American players in just two servers. I guarantee if you do this, you will have another mass exodus as you break guilds, lose assets, people lose character names, and the game runs like garbage across the board. Remember how it was really hard to raise the character limit to 52 per server? Now crush everyone on to two servers and that isn't going to over tax the system? And if it isn't going to overtax doing that, was it a blatant lie about character limits?

 

POTF & Jung Ma have like 20 people between the two of them. They've had free or low priced transfers for over a year. Let's not screw up the vast majority of players to accommodate a handful.

 

Servers like JC have perfectly fine populations as is. There are constantly running ops PUGs, pvp and gsf. I hate the idea of merging again, however, if it is inevitable ...sigh...

 

There are what? Eight US servers? First step. Purge all old character names not logged in for over 1 year across all servers. Then run an internal comparison check to see how many players would be affected through server merge by conflicting character names to see how many are going to need compensation of some kind for getting gypped by losing names. Then, AT MOST, I would designate the top 4 population servers and open the doors with free transfers to those servers for 4 months. Get the small and tiny pops to self-transfer as much as possible, leaving only holdouts and people with guild assets that will need BW help to transfer over case by case.

 

Four US servers in the range between JC and Harb would be more than good enough.

 

One of the interviews they did said they would likely make new servers, presumably to allow for free access to names and guilds. It seems the snag in the plan is when people lose outfits, legacy tabs, and stronghold setups, they're gonna unsub. Those are the things bioware has to work on.

 

Also, it'd probably be good to mix up the players. Harbinger in its current state is absolutely dreadful, as well as toxic, and to see that broken up in someway would be to bioware's benefit.