is it time for one US Megaserver ?

[casirabit]

18 hours ago, DarthCasus said:

Weren't private servers on another certain themepark game capable of allowing owners (or leasers) to tweak specific things about the experience, like speeding/slowing leveling, tweaking drop rates, and such? I think that's what Casira may have been alluding to with private servers, however unlikely the idea may be.

You are correct.  They are private servers, but not private.  When SWG shut down, other individuals opened a way for those of us who still wanted to play SWG.  Like SWG Legends, SWG Legends | Home    It is a private server because it doesn't require any funds for you to play. Still, you do need to have the SWG game for you to connect to the server (not sure how that works), but Legends had also added other aspects to the game that wasn't in the original game before it was shut down.

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, casirabit said:

You are correct.  They are private servers, but not private.  When SWG shut down, other individuals opened a way for those of us who still wanted to play SWG.  Like SWG Legends, SWG Legends | Home    It is a private server because it doesn't require any funds for you to play. Still, you do need to have the SWG game for you to connect to the server (not sure how that works), but Legends had also added other aspects to the game that wasn't in the original game before it was shut down.

Tsk.  @DarthCasusclearly wasn't talking about SWG, because of that word "themepark"... 

[DarthCasus]

8 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Tsk.  @DarthCasusclearly wasn't talking about SWG, because of that word "themepark"... 

I was hoping it was clear enough (they still could be agreeing but swapped to talking about SWG as another example of private servers) but I fully caught their point and would love the idea of private servers like that one other game had either way lol I'd also love something like a more updated SWG on private servers too!

[SteveTheCynic]

2 minutes ago, DarthCasus said:

I was hoping it was clear enough (they still could be agreeing but swapped to talking about SWG as another example of private servers) but I fully caught their point and would love the idea of private servers like that one other game had either way lol I'd also love something like a more updated SWG on private servers too!

Nevertheless, SWG was a *sandbox* game.  (And tonight I'm in one of those "yank people's chains" moods...)

[NicoleMay]

I left SatShan. Star Forge is way better.

I get a merge is the logical thing, but I got toxic people I'm trying to leave behind from SatShan. lol

Still. A US Megaserver seems like a good option.

[GeneralGyro]

with the move to 64 bit and cloud servers anything is possible

[TrixxieTriss]

On 12/24/2022 at 7:41 AM, OlBuzzard said:

@DWhoAND @Jett-Rinn BOTH are very valid points.  I agree with you both!  Especially the character names...  I have a couple of alts that I have already redone from a previous merger...  It was a royal pain in the tail feathers!!   NO THANK YOU ...  (Please, not again).

That said:  NO to the merger!  

Hi old man 😁, how’s it going. Happy NY.

I agree that the naming situation should be addressed properly before anymore server mergers.

But I do think a merger should happen sooner than later because we’ve all seen how low population servers drive players from the game.

Option 2 is for BioWare to make server transfers free for all players all the time. Instead of trying to gouge the wallets of people who are only trying to find others to play with.

Option 2 is something BioWare could do straight away, but we know they won’t because they’re more addicted microtransactions than the health of the game or player enjoyment.

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Hi old man 😁, how’s it going. Happy NY.

I agree that the naming situation should be addressed properly before anymore server mergers.

But I do think a merger should happen sooner than later because we’ve all seen how low population servers drive players from the game.

Option 2 is for BioWare to make server transfers free for all players all the time. Instead of trying to gouge the wallets of people who are only trying to find others to play with.

Option 2 is something BioWare could do straight away, but we know they won’t because they’re more addicted microtransactions than the health of the game or player enjoyment.

Trix ...
[/rubs eyes]
You've been away for some time now! WB! And a Happy New Year to you as well!
...  For whatever it's worth.  I do understand where you are coming from!  AND if I had to guess, I'd say that a part of this entire discussion is something of a foreshadowing of things to come.  IMO ... that's unfortunate.  I also have my own thoughts on a couple of related subjects (not dealing with money) regarding SWTOR and the overall scope of things to come.

That being said:  
**  NO I don't believe that there is an issue with BW charging for server transfers!  I priced the total cost of going back to WoW and spending some time with my oldest son and my granddaughter.   By the time I totaled everything up (including the X-Pack) it was over $100.  That includes (among other things) yes ... the cost of server transfer for my account!  In short BW/EA is not the only ones to charge for that service.  It is a common practice.  
** Much of what seems to be discussed ATM seems to stim around three major points:
1.  "The cloud"  and everything that revolves around that service.  (How many private servers are being utilized and who owns them.)
2.  PvP and Ops groups needing enough people to adequately populate enough groups for a genuinely active agenda all day long (regardless of where players are located).
3.  Other groups such as RP having a secured area to enjoy their style of play.  Regardless of what some folks want to admit IMO RP is a unique setting and really does need to be properly addressed.  This particular group needs just as much room (so to speak) as any other aspect of SWTOR.

Frankly I don't think we've seen all of the relevant data / information to make the call on the exact solution.  To some degree I think we're guessing ...  and yet I also see the necessity to discuss all of the issues and concerns BEFORE someone at the top of the food chain tells us what is happening.  Hopefully when the dust settles everything will work out just fine.

[eabevella]

Tbh I think it might be more possible for bioware to merge the german and french servers into the general EU one (Malgus). I really don't see the point of having 3 EU servers while Pacific Asia has none (I know asians don't exist /jk but there are a lot of aussies players here) other than maybe money issue. Unless the german/french dub version is restricted to those servers, but they could always make them available to all servers if not already so.

[DWho]

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Hi old man 😁, how’s it going. Happy NY.

I agree that the naming situation should be addressed properly before anymore server mergers.

But I do think a merger should happen sooner than later because we’ve all seen how low population servers drive players from the game.

Option 2 is for BioWare to make server transfers free for all players all the time. Instead of trying to gouge the wallets of people who are only trying to find others to play with.

Option 2 is something BioWare could do straight away, but we know they won’t because they’re more addicted microtransactions than the health of the game or player enjoyment.

First, Welcome back Trixxie

Second, your Option 2 is the only one I support. There is no need for server merges and the negatives currently far outweigh the positives for the vast majority of players. Merges would result in losing character names, the inability to create new characters, and degraded RPG play (take a look at the Face Merchants heroic on Coruscant to see what I mean. On Star Forge it is already a given that both instances will be depleted of NPCs when you arrive, and even if you are skipping the bonus you usually have to wait for the respawns and be quick enough to kill at least 1 of the NPCs before the competition does or you don't get the passkey. Now consider what happens if you increase the number of players in the least populated instance). The only issue for option 2 would be server hopping for profit, The free transfers should be only 1 per character currently in existence and bound to that character (no trading or selling).

If you want to play endgame there are plenty of ways to "move" to a more populated server. you could transfer characters (there was or currently is a half price server sale in progress), you could create a new character on any server and be max level in a week or two, ready to play endgame (less if you use one of the free insta-level tokens you get as a sub). Transferring a single character transfers your entire legacy achievements and bonuses to the new server.

On the other hand, after a server merger, there is no solution to the degraded RPG experience. This is after all and RPG-MMO, not just an MMO.

[OlBuzzard]

5 hours ago, DWho said:

First, Welcome back Trixxie

Second, your Option 2 is the only one I support. There is no need for server merges and the negatives currently far outweigh the positives for the vast majority of players. Merges would result in losing character names, the inability to create new characters, and degraded RPG play (take a look at the Face Merchants heroic on Coruscant to see what I mean. On Star Forge it is already a given that both instances will be depleted of NPCs when you arrive, and even if you are skipping the bonus you usually have to wait for the respawns and be quick enough to kill at least 1 of the NPCs before the competition does or you don't get the passkey. Now consider what happens if you increase the number of players in the least populated instance). The only issue for option 2 would be server hopping for profit, The free transfers should be only 1 per character currently in existence and bound to that character (no trading or selling).

If you want to play endgame there are plenty of ways to "move" to a more populated server. you could transfer characters (there was or currently is a half price server sale in progress), you could create a new character on any server and be max level in a week or two, ready to play endgame (less if you use one of the free insta-level tokens you get as a sub). Transferring a single character transfers your entire legacy achievements and bonuses to the new server.

On the other hand, after a server merger, there is no solution to the degraded RPG experience. This is after all and RPG-MMO, not just an MMO.

** Overall, for the merger ...  you said it better than I did!  It should be noted that I also disagree with the idea of a merger.
** I still think there's a couple pieces to this that we haven't seen yet.  Until we see said pieces, I'm still dead set against it!
** NO!  I'm not into the RPG side of things ... but I also see their point and it's definitely a valid concern. 
** If players are unsatisfied with ANY server and feel the need to change their location(s) then transferring their own account is unquestionably the correct solution. 
** Part of the solution to a larger PvP audience is still at the heart of how that aspect of the game has been designed.  There are tons of threads that date back for months (if not years) on the subject.  I'm not a part of that aspect of SWTOR so I can't (and wont) comment any further.  

Bottom line:  Merging servers is not the correct answer at this time.  IF there is something else we as a community need to know to better understand the situation ... then now would be a good time to hear about it so we can look into the matter more knowledgeably.  (I hope this last part makes sense).

[TrixxieTriss]

All things being equal, I don’t want a server merger either. It’s a pain in the butt & I would have to delete a bunch of Alts.

My comments earlier weren’t fleshed out as much as usual (been using Twitter too much since I’ve been off swtor). 

What I should have said is “if” they are going to merge in the next 6-12 months, it’s better to do it before player numbers dwindle so low that a server dies, which will make more people leave the game. That’s what happened last time. BioWare waited too long & people got frustrated & left because they didn’t offer them free/cheap transfers to get off dead servers till it was too late.

I understand that in an active game, like WoW for example, it’s customary to pay for transfers. But if a server is dying or diminished, then the producers should offer those players free transfers & I know WoWs done that in the past because I’ve transferred in WoW for free.

But if we go on BioWares past behaviour, we know they won’t because they are too addicted to microtransactions. That’s was my point. Not that they should give free transfers for the sake of it. But they should if servers are diminished or dying off so much that players can’t play group content 24/7.

Anyway doesn’t look like it will effect me as Im unsubbing again because my characters are stuck at the broken Manaan mission 😡. I’ve tried every suggestion in the bug thread to get past it. Can’t believe BioWare still haven’t fixed it after 11 Months 😞

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[OlBuzzard]

@TrixxieTriss ...  which Manaan mission?  Republic or Empire side?  If nothing else drop me a PM.  

EDIT ... I found the BUG thread!  Still... drop me a PM.

Edited January 4, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[Samcuu]

I dont think there will be a servers merger and the number one reason imo is because of the character slots. They sell those on the CM and it's a big part of their profit stream. Forcing ppl to transfer and losing slots they paid for would be a big issue. If you read through this thread ppl have already stated they have 100 plus slots lol. 

With the move to cloud servers you'd also imagine that cross server queuing is now going to be possible. So if one server has a smaller population it's not going to matter as much for friend finder queues, or the pvp queue ect. Only issue with groups you'd have on low pop servers are world bosses and the like. Cross server queueing would be a massive QOL improvement imo so hope it happens. 

Not fussed about names either with server queues. In wow they display the characters name followed by @Server. So if you are Steve Skywalker on ss and u see ur namesake in a wz it would be displayed as "Steve Skywalker @SF"

Edited January 5, 2023 by Samcuu

[Ryukomaru]

as someone who repeatedly lost character names getting bounced from server to server to server each merger, I'd be very peeved if they do another merge.

Also when I have transferred characters, the game has a nasty tendency to delete dyes off my armor sets, but only the expensive ones that used Cartel coins for.  not to mention the joy of losing all your saved outfits and having to do that all over again.

[DeannaVoyager]

7 hours ago, Samcuu said:

I dont think there will be a servers merger and the number one reason imo is because of the character slots. They sell those on the CM and it's a big part of their profit stream. Forcing ppl to transfer and losing slots they paid for would be a big issue. If you read through this thread ppl have already stated they have 100 plus slots lol. 

 

Yeah... they would have to double (or triple) the amount of characters people can have on their account. I'm not even that bothered about the name changes but I'd be really annoyed if I'd lose my server slots that I paid for.

[illgot]

5 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Yeah... they would have to double (or triple) the amount of characters people can have on their account. I'm not even that bothered about the name changes but I'd be really annoyed if I'd lose my server slots that I paid for.

so why not fill those unused character slots now? That way you will have 200 characters after the server merge? You will basically have double the number of characters most people are allowed with the max normally being 100 characters per server.

Or if you anticipate a single mega server merge, why not make 100 characters on every server and have 500 characters after the merger?

You aren't actually losing character slots if you use them before the merge and if you do you will have at least double the amount of characters most people have, maybe even more if you have over 100 characters from previous merges.

There is only one character slot expansion I can find and that Cartel Market item unlocked +1 characters on all servers not a single server.

Edited January 5, 2023 by illgot

[DWho]

17 minutes ago, illgot said:

Or if you anticipate a single mega server merge, why not make 100 characters on every server and have 500 characters after the merger?

Because you can't. You have to unlock the slots first (the base slots from your subscriber status only count once on the merged server). Also the server limit is 100 regardless of how many you have unlocked at the present time. There is no indication that would go above 100 in the future. So you couldn't have 200 active characters even if you had unlocked enough slots.

The unlocks also only count as +1 account slot (that is how they worked in the last merger and every merger before that). Your total active slots is the base amount for your subscription status plus the total number of unlocked slots from the merging servers. If you unlocked 5 slots, you would have for example 24 +5 slots on the merged server while you could have had 58 characters across two servers. That would mean you need to unlock 24 more slots to even create 1 more character on the merged server.

[illgot]

34 minutes ago, DWho said:

Because you can't. You have to unlock the slots first (the base slots from your subscriber status only count once on the merged server). Also the server limit is 100 regardless of how many you have unlocked at the present time. There is no indication that would go above 100 in the future. So you couldn't have 200 active characters even if you had unlocked enough slots.

The unlocks also only count as +1 account slot (that is how they worked in the last merger and every merger before that). Your total active slots is the base amount for your subscription status plus the total number of unlocked slots from the merging servers. If you unlocked 5 slots, you would have for example 24 +5 slots on the merged server while you could have had 58 characters across two servers. That would mean you need to unlock 24 more slots to even create 1 more character on the merged server.

After a server merge you retain access to all existing characters. If you have 100 characters on Satele Shan and 100 characters on Star Forge, you will have access to all 200 characters after the merge.

If you make 100 characters on every server and there is one mega server, you will have access to all 500 characters.

You won't be able to make new characters until you fall below 100 characters, but you don't lose access to characters above the your character limit or server limit of 100 characters per server.

This has already been confirmed by players who have over 100 characters after a server merge.

If you plan ahead you can take advantage of this to exceed the 100 character limit.

Edited January 5, 2023 by illgot

[DWho]

26 minutes ago, illgot said:

After a server merge you retain access to all existing characters. If you have 100 characters on Satele Shan and 100 characters on Star Forge, you will have access to all 200 characters after the merge.

If you make 100 characters on every server and there is one mega server, you will have access to all 500 characters.

You won't be able to make new characters until you fall below 100 characters, but you don't lose access to characters above the your character limit or server limit of 100 characters per server.

This has already been confirmed by players who have over 100 characters after a server merge.

If you plan ahead you can take advantage of this to exceed the 100 character limit.

The inability to create additional characters after the merge is the core problem. Having 500 characters is completely useless if they come out with a new race that you want to play, you lose all those slots you "planned" for. In addition, if you haven't unlocked a lot of slots, your limit before being able to create a new character could be far less than 100. You effectively lose 24 unlocked slots per server (past the first one) as a subscriber.  Regardless, you have to have purchased at least 76 slot unlocks to be able to make 100 characters on each server, you can't just create 100 characters on a server without having purchased the unlocks

Edited January 5, 2023 by DWho

[OlBuzzard]

Ya know ...

The more information I see on this subject (with the conclusion that said information is accurate) ... the more I become firmly against the idea of a merger to a mega server.
** Loss of character slots ( possibly ..  depending upon how many alts an individual may want)
** Confusion on renaming characters (I have personal experience on this matter, and it IS DEFINITELY a pain in the tail feathers).
** Concerns for RPG groups (You're right ... I'm NOT going to let this one go!)
** Additional complications that no doubt WILL arise OR that I have not personally mentioned in this short list!

Obviously, there was a lot of stuff that I really had not even thought about!

[casirabit]

1 hour ago, OlBuzzard said:

Ya know ...

The more information I see on this subject (with the conclusion that said information is accurate) ... the more I become firmly against the idea of a merger to a mega server.
** Loss of character slots ( possibly ..  depending upon how many alts an individual may want)
** Confusion on renaming characters (I have personal experience on this matter, and it IS DEFINITELY a pain in the tail feathers).
** Concerns for RPG groups (You're right ... I'm NOT going to let this one go!)
** Additional complications that no doubt WILL arise OR that I have not personally mentioned in this short list!

Obviously, there was a lot of stuff that I really had not even thought about!

And for the last concern, I thank you as that is one of my concerns.

 

And welcome back Trixxie.

Edited January 5, 2023 by casirabit

[DeannaVoyager]

17 hours ago, illgot said:

so why not fill those unused character slots now? That way you will have 200 characters after the server merge? You will basically have double the number of characters most people are allowed with the max normally being 100 characters per server.

Or if you anticipate a single mega server merge, why not make 100 characters on every server and have 500 characters after the merger?

You aren't actually losing character slots if you use them before the merge and if you do you will have at least double the amount of characters most people have, maybe even more if you have over 100 characters from previous merges.

There is only one character slot expansion I can find and that Cartel Market item unlocked +1 characters on all servers not a single server.

 

 

Because I don't want to create random characters just to fill the slots. When I make a new character, I usually have a plan for it. I don't want to create dozens of characters I might later use, and hope I picked the correct names, races, factions and classes for them. 

[xordevoreaux]

21 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

and hope I picked the correct names, races, factions and classes for them

And appearance, don't forget appearance. I've rerolled toons before just because I didn't like the way they looked once they popped out of the char gen system because I changed my ever-loving mind.

[illgot]

10 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

 

 

Because I don't want to create random characters just to fill the slots. When I make a new character, I usually have a plan for it. I don't want to create dozens of characters I might later use, and hope I picked the correct names, races, factions and classes for them. 

that's fine but you are losing out.

lets say you have 50 character slots unlocked on every server. If you make a character to fill all 50 slots on every server, after a two server merger you could have 100 characters and after a five server merger you could have 250 characters. That's basically 50-200 free characters. If you maxed out your character limit to 100 per server, that is 100-400 free characters.

lets say you don't want to fill all those character slots and only use 40 of those 50 characters slots because <reasons>. After a two server merge you will have 90 characters and after a five server merge you will have 200 characters.

After the merge you have three options before you can make a new character.

1. Delete enough characters until you fall below your 50 character limit so you can freely create a new character
2. Buy enough Additional Character Slot expansions at 600 Cartel Coins each so you can exceed your current character limit if that limit is below 100.
3. Keep your over the limit characters and spend a few hundred Cartel Coins tweaking your characters appearance.

With a possible 200-500 characters after a server merge, a combination of class story, first combat class, and sex wouldn't be an issue. But that's your choice. Use up the slots before a merger and far exceed the normal server character limit or fork out more Cartel Coins to unlock additional character slots just to catch up to the number you have post merge if you don't exceed 100 character slots.

You have a choice if server merges happen like they have in the past. Start deleting characters until you fall below your normal character limit, buy additional slots until you exceed your character limit, or take advantage of the system and far exceed your character limit then spend a few hundred Cartel Coins to tweak your character appearance if need be.

Of course none of this is an issue unless you play multiple servers and any of those servers combined exceed your current character limit. I'm sitting at 94 characters across all servers and my current character limit is 47. I'm definitely not dropping around 200 dollars worth of Cartel Coins to bring my character limit to 100 so my only option is delete half my characters to make a new one or spend a few cartel coins to change a characters appearance.

Edited January 6, 2023 by illgot