Server Merge Discussion Thread

[benficakungfu]

Cant merge servers without killing guilds, and that woulb be alot more harmful to the game mates, you just cant take away peoples property because you feel alone, just no, guys sorry.

[masterceil]

Cant merge servers without killing guilds, and that woulb be alot more harmful to the game mates, you just cant take away peoples property because you feel alone, just no, guys sorry.

 

They're working on keeping property intact...

[Ratajack]

While I understand forcibly moving someone is never fun, but even if all the issues Keith mentioned would be solved with a 100% guarantee why would you still not want to move? A server is just a server, whether it's called The Red Eclipse or The Progenitor. If the people you know and love are at the same server after the merge then you have lost nothing in sentimental value.

Had you raised the issue "I don't want to move because of the technical issues such as names, guilds etc" I would have understood your comment. But not wanting to move "because players are happy where they are"? Who is to say you wouldn't be happier on a merged server? What is it that makes you so happy to want to stay on that specific server even if all the technical issues would be solved with a 100% guarantee that you'll be merged with another server without any issues or losses?

 

That is what I am unable to understand because the argument of technical issues makes sense and I wouldn't want to merge for exactly those reasons. But because of sentimental value? Knowing how much that would thwart the rest of the community? I'd just treasure my memories and look forward to making new ones on the merged servers.

 

 

The technical issues are only one aspect of why people may not want to move.

 

Some people may prefer a more respectful community than at least one server has. There have been many who have expressed a desire not to be placed with the current Harbinger population and many who have already moved FROM Harbinger to get away from that toxic community.

 

RP'ers may prefer to avoid the grief that moving, or being moved, to a non RP server would inevitably occur. An "RP instance" will not prevent trolls from causing grief for RP'ers.

[benficakungfu]

They're working on keeping property intact...

 

as long as they assure that i have no problems with merges.

[Jedi_riches]

The technical issues are only one aspect of why people may not want to move.

 

Some people may prefer a more respectful community than at least one server has. There have been many who have expressed a desire not to be placed with the current Harbinger population and many who have already moved FROM Harbinger to get away from that toxic community.

 

RP'ers may prefer to avoid the grief that moving, or being moved, to a non RP server would inevitably occur. An "RP instance" will not prevent trolls from causing grief for RP'ers.

 

I would prefer no merge myself, if they do manage to sort out the technical issues I hope they just offer guilds a deal to transfer but leave the other servers open, I am already getting annoyed with the population of TRE that I myself am seriously considering moving, the only thing that has stopped me is my guild so far but that will only hold for so long, if even more move to TRE (being the most popular EU server) I would want off ASAP but if merges happen there will be nowhere left for me to go.

[mmiracle]

The losing of character names is one of the key points we are still discussing. We know there’s a variety of issues to resolve including, but not limited to, name collisions, establishing a priority system, purging of old names beforehand, and players attempting to reserve names. We all have character names we want to preserve, so this is a key factor in the overall decision.

 

-Keith--

 

I apologize if this has already been suggested (I have not read all of the posts on this) but WOULD it be possible to give "account names" so that our characters are basically 'current name'@[account name] in the database? I could see this as a relief from name overlaps, a way to ignore an account no matter what character they create, and allow you to friend an account instead of each accounts characters.

[DWho]

How does this dovetail with your statement that you do not want to forcibly move players that are happy where they currently are and have no desire to move?

 

Are you talking about merging servers and forcibly moving people who have no desire to move or are you talking about enabling voluntary individual or guild transfers, possibly to one or more new larger capacity servers, without losing any guild or personal assets in the process?

 

I wouldn't worry too much about this at this point. Making guild transfers easier takes away one of the last complaints that the merge server people have when they say they are trapped on a dead server. A lot are saying the "have to stay" on the dead server because they have guilds there and would lose them. With an option to move guilds they are down to losing names and it costs too much. It costs too much could be solved with free transfers. That would leave them with names as the only reason to not voluntarily move (assuming fixing guild transfers fixes a few of the other transfer related problems as well like legacy storage) to a server that has a population conducive to their gameplay style. Fixing guild transfers does not automatically mean forced mergers.

[darthscotty]

Hello Keith. I think i might have some answers for you guys.

 

I am guild master of a guild on a "deserted" french server (not the worst, but still), Battle Meditation. We are a medium sized guild (35~40 accounts currently) and we are on Battle Meditation since the beginning of the game.

 

Earlier this year, i had a big discussion with the members of my guild to ask them if they were ok to transfer on Red Eclipse so we could enjoy having people to play with at any time of the day/night. On Battle Meditation it is very hard to run flashpoints or warzones with group finder during the day if we are not enough in the guild. Even between 21:00 and 0:00 there is only one warzone running at a time...

 

Most guild members didnt want to transfer for several reasons :

-they didnt want to lose the nicknames they have since 2011 on their favorite toons (and no, adding accents on names is not a good solution for most of us)

-we didnt want to lose our guild flagship (we worked very hard to complete it) and our guild stronghold

-we didnt want to have to decorate our strongholds all over again

-we didnt want to leave all our members who left the game behind, because they can still come back (it happened many times) and i dont want them to find an empty guild when they return

 

Hope this will help you understand why, and that you can find a good solution to our problems.

 

Perfectly put, this is the exact issue I have with server merges. If those issues can be resolved then I am much more open to moving servers, but until those issues are resolved I am going to dig in my heels and be adamantly against server merges.

[TUXs]

For the specific Guild issues you’ve raised, we would need to ensure the entire Guild, their Flagship/decorations, Bank/Tabs/items, and Stronghold/decorations remain 100% intact. The goal would be for the Guild members to notice absolutely nothing different and this means any returning players would still be in your guild unless you specifically removed them. Bottom line for your Guild would be making sure we protect all your hard work.

 

The losing of character names is one of the key points we are still discussing. We know there’s a variety of issues to resolve including, but not limited to, name collisions, establishing a priority system, purging of old names beforehand, and players attempting to reserve names. We all have character names we want to preserve, so this is a key factor in the overall decision.

 

-Keith--

Music to my ears sir!!! I love EVERY bit of your post. Your goals seem entirely inline with my own feelings on the subject.

[Sadriel_Fett]

So, is this something that's ACTUALLY going to happen or just people SPECULATING that's going to happen?

 

After all the time and effort it took to put the decorations on all of those personal and guild strongholds, if merging servers meant we'd have to go back through, unlock all those rooms, and redecorate all that stuff again, plus have to rename a bunch of our toons. I can see a lot of players leaving for something like that. That's like spitting right in the faces of all those players and their efforts put forth in this game. I know that would definitely be a "screw it, I'm done with this game" moment for myself, that's for sure. If you have all the strongholds unlocked and fully decorated, it'd literally take weeks to go back and put all that stuff back the way you had it. If you think the game is dead now, go ahead and merge servers without making it so everyone's items remain the same as it currently is and see how that works for you.

[kodrac]

So, is this something that's ACTUALLY going to happen or just people SPECULATING that's going to happen?

 

 

Scroll up to the last gold post.

[DWho]

So, is this something that's ACTUALLY going to happen or just people SPECULATING that's going to happen?

 

After all the time and effort it took to put the decorations on all of those personal and guild strongholds, if merging servers meant we'd have to go back through, unlock all those rooms, and redecorate all that stuff again, plus have to rename a bunch of our toons. I can see a lot of players leaving for something like that. That's like spitting right in the faces of all those players and their efforts put forth in this game. I know that would definitely be a "screw it, I'm done with this game" moment for myself, that's for sure. If you have all the strongholds unlocked and fully decorated, it'd literally take weeks to go back and put all that stuff back the way you had it. If you think the game is dead now, go ahead and merge servers without making it so everyone's items remain the same as it currently is and see how that works for you.

 

Mostly speculating or wishfull thinking. Your points are exactly the ones that need to be assessed. What would the overall population impact be in a server merge even assuming everything went smoothly. Most of what is being done would be useful whether they merge servers or not. When you have people who complain about their low server populations and yet refuse to move you need to take away their excuses.

[casirabit]

Jung Ma is also an RP server, which is why I mentioned it. Other servers can roll together and enjoy their 3-5 minute Warzone queue times, I'm perfectly happy with my friendlier community and 7-10 minute queues : )

 

If they do what they did last time, they merged RP servers together, pvp servers, and pve servers so this time I am hoping they follow the same except for pvp servers since there really is no reason to have specific pvp servers with the way they did pvp, so hopefully they merge all RP servers together (and it will probably be Ebon Hawk they merged them into since we have a good population) and then the non-RP servers into a server.

[masterceil]

If they do what they did last time, they merged RP servers together, pvp servers, and pve servers so this time I am hoping they follow the same except for pvp servers since there really is no reason to have specific pvp servers with the way they did pvp, so hopefully they merge all RP servers together (and it will probably be Ebon Hawk they merged them into since we have a good population) and then the non-RP servers into a server.

 

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm hoping for : )

[TUXs]

If they do what they did last time, they merged RP servers together, pvp servers, and pve servers so this time I am hoping they follow the same except for pvp servers since there really is no reason to have specific pvp servers with the way they did pvp, so hopefully they merge all RP servers together (and it will probably be Ebon Hawk they merged them into since we have a good population) and then the non-RP servers into a server.

Agreed!!! PvE/PvP and RP server types...that's it. And the name purge is a HUGE thing too imo.

[casirabit]

Agreed!!! PvE/PvP and RP server types...that's it. And the name purge is a HUGE thing too imo.

 

Yea there are 4 of my characters I don't want to lose the name. The other 10 I not so concerned about but those 4 are my mains so those names are kind of important to me, though I doubt many use my sith sorceress name as I researched names before I made her years ago.

Edited August 3, 2017 by casirabit

[TUXs]

Yea there are 4 of my characters I don't want to lose the name. The other 10 I not so concerned about but those 4 are my mains so those names are kind of important to me.

As much as I want servers merged, I really do understand the concern for names. I truly hope they can figure something out that helps everyone keep most of the names they have.

[CaptRogue]

Agreed!!! PvE/PvP and RP server types...that's it. And the name purge is a HUGE thing too imo.

 

They should do this for the health of the game & servers as it is. I'm not sure why they haven't.

I mean c'mon who wouldn't like more people to RP with, if that's your style? Same with PvP.

 

(Granted there is NO more server sets, so all servers are all, but those of us who have been here for a long time still know what servers to steer clear of or which ones to go too.)

 

As for the name purge, they need to just fix it so 6mos of inactivity, your name goes back into the pot. No reason to have a purge.

(Inactivity meaning, no account activity at all. Maybe making a sliding scale kind of thing. E.g.

 

• 6mos all account inactivity, names go into the pot.
  
• 4mos of non use of the name on that account. (Your account keeps a name for a certain period of time even if it's not on a character. E.g. Toon named Tankster. You delete said toon. That name is still yours for a unknown period.)
  
• 8mos inactivity on an certain toon on active account. Warning given, 2 days to login & reset it or name is free.
  

Something like that would work.

INB4 all the people "but that's my name, I'm paying for the game, I shouldn't be made, BLAH BLAH BLAH!!".

For one you don't own nothing in this game. Second, if you've not logged in on said toon for 8mos, you're not playing it, hence you don't need that name. Plus a warning would suffice. Just because you might have a "back story" doesn't matter. Back story can still work on another name. Even with an alt code. lol

If you're gone for 6mos+ from game, aside from military, good chance you're not coming back anytime soon. (Military could just have someone login for them at set period & it resets the timer again. Not hard to do.)

 

In the end there is many things BW/EA could do to fix all that, just all hinges on whether they want to or not.

Edited August 3, 2017 by CaptRogue

[Lundorff]

The losing of character names is one of the key points we are still discussing. We know there’s a variety of issues to resolve including, but not limited to, name collisions, establishing a priority system, purging of old names beforehand, and players attempting to reserve names. We all have character names we want to preserve, so this is a key factor in the overall decision.

 

-Keith--

 

What if someone holds a name on a popular server, but attached to long dead and inactive account? Would my similar and active account on a low population server be given preferential treatment in case of a merger?

 

Example: The name Peter is taken on Harbinger, but the account is no longer active. I on the other hand have the name Peter on the The Bastion and my account is active. In case of a merger would get to keep Peter?

[TUXs]

They should do this for the health of the game & servers as it is. I'm not sure why they haven't.

I mean c'mon who wouldn't like more people to RP with, if that's your style? Same with PvP.

 

(Granted there is NO more server sets, so all servers are all, but those of us who have been here for a long time still know what servers to steer clear of or which ones to go too.)

 

As for the name purge, they need to just fix it so 6mos of inactivity, your name goes back into the pot. No reason to have a purge.

(Inactivity meaning, no account activity at all. Maybe making a sliding scale kind of thing. E.g.

 

• 6mos all account inactivity, names go into the pot.
  
• 4mos of non use of the name on that account. (Your account keeps a name for a certain period of time even if it's not on a character. E.g. Toon named Tankster. You delete said toon. That name is still yours for a unknown period.)
  
• 8mos inactivity on an certain toon on active account. Warning given, 2 days to login & reset it or name is free.
  

Something like that would work.

INB4 all the people "but that's my name, I'm paying for the game, I shouldn't be made, BLAH BLAH BLAH!!".

For one you don't own nothing in this game. Second, if you've not logged in on said toon for 8mos, you're not playing it, hence you don't need that name. Plus a warning would suffice. Just because you might have a "back story" doesn't matter. Back story can still work on another name. Even with an alt code. lol

If you're gone for 6mos+ from game, aside from military, good chance you're not coming back anytime soon. (Military could just have someone login for them at set period & it resets the timer again. Not hard to do.)

 

In the end there is many things BW/EA could do to fix all that, just all hinges on whether they want to or not.

Agreed Capt!!! Exceptions could be arranged with CS, in advance, in the case of military or other types of long absences, but I am 100% in-favor of a purge with inactivity. If I were to return to LOTRO today, I would not expect my names to be there still...my assets and toons yes, but not my names.

[ZionHalcyon]

For the specific Guild issues you’ve raised, we would need to ensure the entire Guild, their Flagship/decorations, Bank/Tabs/items, and Stronghold/decorations remain 100% intact. The goal would be for the Guild members to notice absolutely nothing different and this means any returning players would still be in your guild unless you specifically removed them. Bottom line for your Guild would be making sure we protect all your hard work.

 

The losing of character names is one of the key points we are still discussing. We know there’s a variety of issues to resolve including, but not limited to, name collisions, establishing a priority system, purging of old names beforehand, and players attempting to reserve names. We all have character names we want to preserve, so this is a key factor in the overall decision.

 

-Keith--

 

It might be some work but what about assigning every character a unique ID number? The ID number would not change even if the character goes through a cartel rename. The ID number would stay with that character for the duration of its creation and across different servers, and any character who is deleted, that ID number gets returned back to the pool.

 

The tell and Whisper system would use these ID numbers, and the character names would simply act as an alias.

 

The person's character name would show up instead of their Alias number in chats and such, but on the back end, the system would use these Alias numbers to communicate Whispers and the like. Further, any player who is in your friends list or guild list would show up in chat as a different color then another player with the same name, thus letting you know if a player is the one in your friends list or Guild or not.

 

Also with every player getting in unique ID, it also will allow no confusion when it comes to players getting reported. Legacy names could also have unique identifier for this purpose.

 

Just a thought on a potential solution although it would require some work.

Edited August 3, 2017 by ZionHalcyon

[IanArgent]

So, is this something that's ACTUALLY going to happen or just people SPECULATING that's going to happen?

 

After all the time and effort it took to put the decorations on all of those personal and guild strongholds, if merging servers meant we'd have to go back through, unlock all those rooms, and redecorate all that stuff again, plus have to rename a bunch of our toons. I can see a lot of players leaving for something like that. That's like spitting right in the faces of all those players and their efforts put forth in this game. I know that would definitely be a "screw it, I'm done with this game" moment for myself, that's for sure. If you have all the strongholds unlocked and fully decorated, it'd literally take weeks to go back and put all that stuff back the way you had it. If you think the game is dead now, go ahead and merge servers without making it so everyone's items remain the same as it currently is and see how that works for you.

 

It's something they're looking into; investigating ways to prevent/mitigate the technical issues (which are more than just strongholds and outfits, per the gold posts. Merging of active legacies across multiple servers with different levels of unlocks at the legacy and character level is a can of k'klor slugs.)

[masterceil]

It might be some work but what about assigning every character a unique ID number?

The ID number would not change even if the character goes through a cartel rename. The ID number would stay with that character for the duration of its creation and across different servers, and any character who is deleted, that ID number gets returned back to the pool.

 

The tell and Whisper system would use these ID numbers, and the character names would simply act as an alias.

 

The person's character name would show up instead of their Alias number in chats and such, but on the back end, the system would use these Alias numbers to communicate Whispers and the like. Further, any player who is in your friends list or guild list would show up in chat as a different color then another player with the same name, thus letting you know if a player is the one in your friends list or Guild or not.

 

Also with every player getting in unique ID, it also will allow no confusion when it comes to players getting reported. Legacy names could also have unique identifier for this purpose.

 

Just a thought on a potential solution although it would require some work.

 

I had the same thought yesterday, but had to leave work before I could type up a post and forgot to do it once I got home lol.

 

The database should already have this infrastructure in place - the back-end should already be using a unique number (likely an increment based on characters created, ever). They would just need to do as you suggest and let the interfaces (such as clicking a name in chat to whisper it) support this. The number ought be invisible in most cases, but an abbreviated form of it ought be available in some cases (like when you've got 20x Spartacuses on Fleet and need to pick out a specific one to /whisper or /invite or whatever).

 

Also, thanks for making the post that I forgot to make lol

[Kalarie]

Casi and I are on Ebon Hawk, which gets on just fine without Harbinger. Let the west coast get rolled into Harbinger, leave us out of it. We can take Jung Ma, and Shadowlands/Jedi Covenant can have the rest

 

Don't roll anything into Harb. That hamster dies too often. Roll Harb into Ebon Hawk.

[TUXs]

It might be some work but what about assigning every character a unique ID number? The ID number would not change even if the character goes through a cartel rename. The ID number would stay with that character for the duration of its creation and across different servers, and any character who is deleted, that ID number gets returned back to the pool.

 

The tell and Whisper system would use these ID numbers, and the character names would simply act as an alias.

 

Just a thought on a potential solution although it would require some work.

Not a bad idea #30760