Server Merge Discussion Thread

[JediTahiri]

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

 

Yeah and I don't believe them. The devs are just not good enough to get it done or they don't want to invest in actually making the game better. They just care about CM garbage and leaving the servers practically dead. So we have to sit in long *** queue times

[Icykill_]

Yeah and I don't believe them. The devs are just not good enough to get it done or they don't want to invest in actually making the game better. They just care about CM garbage and leaving the servers practically dead. So we have to sit in long *** queue times

 

Regardless wether you believe them or not.. they said it's impossible and they aren't going to do it... why keep asking for something that Bioware have now said on two seperate occassionas that they can't do it?

 

I feel your pain about queue times... But cross server is dead and buried

[JediTahiri]

Regardless wether you believe them or not.. they said it's impossible and they aren't going to do it... why keep asking for something that Bioware have now said on two seperate occassionas that they can't do it?

 

I feel your pain about queue times... But cross server is dead and buried

 

I haven't kept asking about it. This is the first time I have ever mentioned cross-server queues. I just find it ridiculous that people actually believe that bs when they say it's impossible. That is a flat out lie. Almost all mmo's have cross-server unless they use a mega server. Bioware just lies time and time again. They can never admit they were wrong.

 

The thing that annoys me the most about server merges is they seem to care about SOLO players. They should have nothing to do with merges. They do not do group content so queue times and being able to get groups do not concern them. Merges will help the actual mmo players. Which is what Bioware should be catering to. Your character name is hardly a big deal if you are a solo player also.

[CaptainBlackjack]

Just an observation concerning the requirements to be met in order to merge servers. It has been stated by both sides that Bioware would need to ensure all SH Deco's, Cargo inventory, Outfit settings and Guildship, Guild SH and associated Deco's, Guild Cargo hold inventory should be unaffected by a move. I think we can all agree on that condition.

 

So if all of those conditions are somehow met the pro merge groups would expect all of the current server populations who clearly are the larger group of players involved in this plan to pick up thier Kit and move to a new home possibly lose long term well known names and in some cases be forced to deal with unsavory general chat trolls and ingame trolls, these are players who have established guilds with friends, they are not regular users of LFG and will not present a significant increase to the use of that tool.

 

Then we have alternative which is if all of these requirements are met and moving to a new servers poses no serious threat of loss then it would be more civil and correct for the smaller player population to pick up and move thier Kit to a new server or established server. This would increase the population of those servers and bring more of the LFG users to the already populated servers there by increasing the LFG que population they wish to participate in without causing undue inconvenience to the larger player population. This will remove the need to force a whole sale move of the larger player population simply to satisfy the needs of a small group of players who do not currenty play with others in orginized groups or Guilds. For those who have underpopulated guilds this will enrich the opportunity to recruit new members and allow more Guilds to be active in group content and pvp.

 

Looks like a win win frome my point of view !

[Andryah]

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.

 

The have stated plainly, multiple times, that they will not be doing cross-server. Why are you ignoring this fact?

[JediTahiri]

The have stated plainly, multiple times, that they will not be doing cross-server. Why are you ignoring this fact?

 

Why are you ignoring the other replies I have made with someone on this issue? Congrats you can just repeat something someone else already mentions. Goodjob

[Andryah]

Why are you ignoring the other replies I have made with someone on this issue? Congrats you can just repeat something someone else already mentions. Goodjob

 

And.. you did not answer the question.

 

Oh.. you played defensive pretense in your reply to Icykill, but that boiled down to... "I don't care what they said.. I want what I want.. no matter what". You are destined to be disappointed because they have chosen not to do cross server.. and made that choice years ago. Yet.. here you are demanding they do it anyway.

 

Icy made the point she did because your position is derailing the discussion, which should stay focused on the known current issues with merges, and suggestions and discussion about how to over come them. We really don't your hand grenade of "cross server NAO!" in the discussion. Of course you are free to toss the grenades, but that will just get you on a bunch of peoples /ignore list.

 

So.. one more question... do you want to be part of constructive discussion, or just toss hand grenades that make absolutely no sense given the facts on their being no plans for cross server?

Edited July 18, 2017 by Andryah

[JediTahiri]

And.. you did not answer the question.

 

Oh.. you played defensive pretense in your reply to Icykill, but that boiled down to... "I don't care what they said.. I want what I want.. no matter what". You are destined to be disappointed because they have chosen not to do cross server.. and made that choice years ago. Yet.. here you are demanding they do it anyway.

 

Icy made the point she did because your position is derailing the discussion, which should stay focused on the known current issues with merges, and suggestions and discussion about how to over come them. We really don't your hand grenade of "cross server NAO!" in the discussion.

 

I never said any of that, in that context. I can tell you are one of those people that twist around everything people say and make accusations if they don't share the same opinion as you. I don't just ignore an entire conversation and then make accusations that the person never said. So I am not gonna even bother with you.

[IntegrationArch]

The sustained discussion including some toxic ranting (let’s stop squabbling) , sustained and overwhelming unanswered extremely long fix requests, lack of BW earth shaking announcements for months about course corrections, BW staff changes, no hints about megaservers nor painless Guild Migrations, only minor BW hints about re-engaging the systems and minor QoL, we can conclude:

 

1. SWTOR, whether we like it or not, was placed by EA in low maintenance self-attrition mode. Perhaps in 2018 after The Last Jedi & winter Holiday peak we may see 6.x, but it may be light. EA won’t allow 6.x to take steam out of Battlefront II. By then the population impacts of Battlefront II launch to accelerate this games state so EA can make the final decision.

 

2. The game's limited and buggy old engine, cartoon like game appearance,32 bit and server glued selfish player base, overall subscription profits, will necessitate SWTOR to set an irreversible glidepath. Then after the grieving period, possibly EA could build a brand-new Star Wars game with Frostbite 3 (EA’S platform of choice) for multi-platform support.

 

3. Because of the longevity of Keith’s tenure at EA/BW, if above is true EA, they will give this to Keith for an opportunity to fold in many of our SWTOR feature requests into something new yet unannounced. This is tenuous because all the early SWTOR replacement rumors from April have been thwarted as no final executive decision has been made.

[Talon_strikes]

I feel like eventually BW will be forced to merge servers again, which they should. There are PvP and PvE servers that shouldn't exist because they're too low of a population. This is an MMO and there shouldn't be dead or low pop servers. If BW does not merge servers then that is directly in contrast to what they did when they opened up server transfers (that were also FREE) and then ultimately closed all of the dead servers and merged them into the populated ones.

[Andryah]

I never said any of that, in that context. I can tell you are one of those people that twist around everything people say and make accusations if they don't share the same opinion as you. I don't just ignore an entire conversation and then make accusations that the person never said. So I am not gonna even bother with you.

 

Sure Pal.

 

Yeah and I don't believe them. The devs are just not good enough to get it done or they don't want to invest in actually making the game better. They just care about CM garbage and leaving the servers practically dead. So we have to sit in long *** queue times

 

I haven't kept asking about it. This is the first time I have ever mentioned cross-server queues. I just find it ridiculous that people actually believe that bs when they say it's impossible. That is a flat out lie. Almost all mmo's have cross-server unless they use a mega server. Bioware just lies time and time again. They can never admit they were wrong.

 

Your viewpoint is both clear and pejorative. You want cross server, insist that it can be done, and that the studio is just lying about it. Completely contradictory to studio statements otherwise.

 

Your war is with the studio, not Icykill and not me.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Andryah

[TUXs]

I never said any of that, in that context. I can tell you are one of those people that twist around everything people say and make accusations if they don't share the same opinion as you. I don't just ignore an entire conversation and then make accusations that the person never said. So I am not gonna even bother with you.

It's typical of him. Don't fret it.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I can tell you are one of those people that twist around everything people say .

 

I can twist my own words. I don't need you for that.

[Icykill_]

I haven't kept asking about it. This is the first time I have ever mentioned cross-server queues. I just find it ridiculous that people actually believe that bs when they say it's impossible. That is a flat out lie. Almost all mmo's have cross-server unless they use a mega server. Bioware just lies time and time again. They can never admit they were wrong.

 

The thing that annoys me the most about server merges is they seem to care about SOLO players. They should have nothing to do with merges. They do not do group content so queue times and being able to get groups do not concern them. Merges will help the actual mmo players. Which is what Bioware should be catering to. Your character name is hardly a big deal if you are a solo player also.

 

When I say stop asking for it, I'm saying to people in general to stop beating the dead horse because BIO aren't going to do cross server.

 

Do you work at Bioware?.. do you know how they have their backend setup?.. no... so you can't just come out and call it BS when you have no information to back up that statement except to say other MMOs have cross server.

 

I do agree something needs to be done soon for the MMO part of the game or it will be the end of the game.

[Jedi_riches]

I haven't kept asking about it. This is the first time I have ever mentioned cross-server queues. I just find it ridiculous that people actually believe that bs when they say it's impossible. That is a flat out lie. Almost all mmo's have cross-server unless they use a mega server. Bioware just lies time and time again. They can never admit they were wrong.

 

The thing that annoys me the most about server merges is they seem to care about SOLO players. They should have nothing to do with merges. They do not do group content so queue times and being able to get groups do not concern them. Merges will help the actual mmo players. Which is what Bioware should be catering to. Your character name is hardly a big deal if you are a solo player also.

 

Do all MMO's use exactly the same engine? it sounds to me like Bioware heavily changed a Engine to suit their needs and have possibly modified it beyond the ability to add in stuff like cross servers without severe gutting of the existing engine which is almost as easy as starting a brand new engine which is not going to happen to a 5+ year old game.

 

Also Merges will affect solo players more than you think, players already have problems with ninja's and other players stealing all objectives as it is without adding more players to that mix.

 

If you really want more 'MMO action' you are free to move to a more populated server, however, there are many players that like quieter servers and once you merge servers you leave those players no place to go other than out the door and leave the game.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Jedi_riches

[IntegrationArch]

Do all MMO's use exactly the same engine? it sounds to me like Bioware heavily changed a Engine to suit their needs and have possibly modified it beyond the ability to add in stuff like cross servers without severe gutting of the existing engine which is almost as easy as starting a brand new engine which is not going to happen to a 5+ year old game.

 

Also Merges will affect solo players more than you think, players already have problems with ninja's and other players stealing all objectives as it is without adding more players to that mix.

 

If you really want more 'MMO action' you are free to move to a more populated server, however, there are many players that like quieter servers and once you merge servers you leave those players no place to go other than out the door and leave the game.

 

In summary this game uses HeroEngine Alpha branch if you want to google and study it, yes it's circa 2009 for XP.

 

Yes it's ancient and db is MySQL or Oracle but BW don't want to modify it to support cross server PvP or anything. As they say "He's dead Jim."

 

Your 2nd concern BW said old servers won't die and be merged, old toons can stay as is on them without fear, new megaservers were discussed for better populations but nothing has been clearly given a timeframe or approval when to expect them.

Edited July 19, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[Ratajack]

In summary this game uses HeroEngine Alpha branch if you want to google and study it, yes it's circa 2009 for XP.

 

 

It is probably far more accurate to say this game's engine began life as a HeroEngine Alpha branch, but now bears as much resemblance to that HeroEngine Alpha (let alone the current HeroEngine) as a Yugo does to Aston Martin.

[JediTahiri]

Do all MMO's use exactly the same engine? it sounds to me like Bioware heavily changed a Engine to suit their needs and have possibly modified it beyond the ability to add in stuff like cross servers without severe gutting of the existing engine which is almost as easy as starting a brand new engine which is not going to happen to a 5+ year old game.

 

Also Merges will affect solo players more than you think, players already have problems with ninja's and other players stealing all objectives as it is without adding more players to that mix.

 

If you really want more 'MMO action' you are free to move to a more populated server, however, there are many players that like quieter servers and once you merge servers you leave those players no place to go other than out the door and leave the game.

 

That may be true. But I have no sympathy for solo players ************ about players stealing objectives. That happens in every single MMO. It's not like they don't re-spawn quickly anyway. If you are going to play a MMO that is just something that happens in all of them. you have to accept it. It is no excuse to not merge servers and create good environment for the actual MMO players. If you are a solo player than you can keep doing solo content no matter what Bioware does.

You can't just move to a more populated server. They are ALL at "light" population at all times, rarely the Harbinger gets to "Standard", which still the queue times are just too long. I like to play GSF a lot and it takes forever to get a match.

[DWho]

That may be true. But I have no sympathy for solo players ************ about players stealing objectives. That happens in every single MMO. It's not like they don't re-spawn quickly anyway. If you are going to play a MMO that is just something that happens in all of them. you have to accept it. It is no excuse to not merge servers and create good environment for the actual MMO players. If you are a solo player than you can keep doing solo content no matter what Bioware does.

You can't just move to a more populated server. They are ALL at "light" population at all times, rarely the Harbinger gets to "Standard", which still the queue times are just too long. I like to play GSF a lot and it takes forever to get a match.

 

Perhaps if all the people who say they want a more populous server would actually move to more populated servers instead of staying put hoping for a merge so they don't lose their names, strongholds, etc. there would be a populated server. You are expressing the opinion of the minority of players when you say you don't care about solo content. Like it or not this game is primarily an online RPG with MMO elements and without "solo" players this game would be dead. Bioware has flat out stated there will be no server mergers in the near future and any population consolidation is squarely on the shoulders of the players. They have committed to make the process easier but have stated that no one will be forced to move if they do not want to.

 

The same people who complain it takes to long to get a WZ or GSF pop seem to be perfectly fine that anyone doing story has to wait around for respawns (a lot of which are longer than the time between WZ pops on most servers during server prime time). Two sides of the same coin. What improves play for one side worsens it for the other.

[xordevoreaux]

Idea for US servers:

 

Step 1. Create a new server designed specifically as a merge point. Leave all other servers alone.

 

Step 2. Create a preference option flag Yes/No, per character, whether a player wants a particular character to be merged to the new server (eyes wide open that difficulties may arise with strongholds/guilds/etc.) If set to No, then when a merge occurs, the toon does not move off the original server.

 

Step 3: All new players creating their first toon are only given the option of playing on the new server, thus maintaining its population rather than repeating the mistake of splintering the population across dead servers (which we have now when new people start playing and pick a dead server having no idea at the time that such is the case).

 

Step 4: For any server not caught up in the merge at all, let character transfers to the newly created merge server be free.

 

Step 5: Do not permit people to transfer off the new server to avoid starting the splintering all over again. Point of no return if you go there. If you want to play on other servers, create toons on those servers.

 

Win-Win: The people wanting a high-pop server have it, new players start off on a high-pop server, and the people who, for whatever reason, wish to remain on a dead server may do so.

 

And put the server mid-country like Denver so as to split the east-west latency as fairly as possible.

[casirabit]

Idea for US servers:

 

Step 1. Create a new server designed specifically as a merge point. Leave all other servers alone.

 

Step 2. Create a preference option flag Yes/No, per character, whether a player wants a particular character to be merged to the new server (eyes wide open that difficulties may arise with strongholds/guilds/etc.) If set to No, then when a merge occurs, the toon does not move off the original server.

 

Step 3: All new players creating their first toon are only given the option of playing on the new server, thus maintaining its population rather than repeating the mistake of splintering the population across dead servers (which we have now when new people start playing and pick a dead server having no idea at the time that such is the case).

 

Step 4: For any server not caught up in the merge at all, let character transfers to the newly created merge server be free.

 

Step 5: Do not permit people to transfer off the new server to avoid starting the splintering all over again. Point of no return if you go there. If you want to play on other servers, create toons on those servers.

 

Win-Win: The people wanting a high-pop server have it, new players start off on a high-pop server, and the people who, for whatever reason, wish to remain on a dead server may do so.

 

And put the server mid-country like Denver so as to split the east-west latency as fairly as possible.

 

Regarding Step 2 and the guild problem. The way to handle that is talk to the guild and see what everyone wants. If more people want to stay where they are then that is where the guild remains. Doesn't mean the person has to but they would already know the views of the guild before they make the decision if being part of that guild is important to them.

[IntegrationArch]

Step 0 just create a new megaserver now

[Ratajack]

Step 0 just create a new megaserver now

 

And how many would transfer to a new "megaserver" if BW does not solve all the issues surrounding guilds and guild assets, as well as personal assets, including names?

 

Remember that everyone has the opportunity to transfer to a more populated server now, but many are choosing to remain on their current servers, whatever their reasons for doing so may be.

[IntegrationArch]

Wave 1 just migrate now 90 cc and go. Money easy to make in game. [ many just dont like harby but could like a freshly minted REBIRTH Server] Edited July 19, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[IntegrationArch]

Wave 2 if BW figures out Guild deco xfer stuff