Start merging servers before it's too late...

Michael_Dark - Lost City

I used to be anti-server merge. Then I slowly changed my mind. After having gone back and played some, talked to some old friends... things are getting pretty bleak.

These servers are designed for much higher populations. Instead of leaving them alone to dwindle, start merging. Games with a higher population tend to draw in more users than those that are mostly empty.

I know to some that serves as the death knell of a game, but lets face it, new unique users have dropped. Older players have left.

Merging the servers will bring a lot more competition in TW, it'll refresh the player base as they're will be hoards of people who have played for years that will interact for the first time and if done right could renew interest and people recommending the game.

I know PWE is afraid of doing this. They don't want to have the appearance that things are going south.

The fact is, nothing they can do will extend the life of this game more than to consolidate players. And 2 servers with 100,000 players each is far better than a dozen servers with 8k players each.

Really, one of the main things that was fun about this game was the large population. You would meet, party and run with people you never knew of before and would never see again. Right now, it's pretty much everyone knows of everyone.

I remember running FBs for exp back in the day... there were so many players you could run FB's 24/7 and you'd still have people waiting. What felt like a big city is now like a small town.

Even the gatherings at BH npc and Nirvana seem sparse these days...

Hurrdurr - Lothranis

Dibs Raging Tide merge with LC just so I can stalk Transcend and see if LC's PK skills can justify their epeen.

Sympathi - Archosaur

Server merging is needed to at-least keep the games population interested and alive, they always said its impossible but i think it could be done, the only really shackles holding them back is the choice of PvP and PvE changing and the name-base.

Because of how the servers are mapped out they would have to merge them in away were one server that was PvE Before, would have to go PvP, unless on the west coast they left Lost City un-merged and put the other 3 PvE's together.

Might be messy but all in all they have to do it this year if they want to keep them CS players interested.

West Coast:
Heavens Tear (PvE)
Sanctuary (PvE)
Lost City (PvP)
Archosaur (PvE)

East Coast:
Harshlands (PvP)
Dreamweaver (PvE)
Raging Tide (PvE)

Europe:
Lothranis (PvE)
Momaganon (PvE)

Could be;

West Coast:
Heavens Tear (PvE) + Archosaur (PvE) = PvE Serer
Lost City (PvP) + Sanctuary (PvE) = PvP Serer


East Coast:
Harshlands (PvP) + Raging Tide (PvE) = PvP Serer
Dreamweaver (PvE) = PvE Serer

Europe:
Lothranis (PvE) + Momaganon (PvE) = PvE Serer


Moving characters is possible too, they did it during PWIC, so they could even give the players the option to change servers when they became merged, for example players playing Raging Tides merging into a new PvP server who wanted to remain PvE could have the option of moving to Dreamweaver, as long as it was in the same area of servers.

Tsukyini - Raging Tide

No. Please god no. The lag from all the catshops on RT is already bad enough. Combining RT's catshops with the catshops from even one more server would lead to destruction of the world as we know it. And by "world as we know it", I mean my video card. b:avoid

In seriousness, regarding the merge of PVE servers into PVP ones, I just don't see how they could pull that off and get away with it. Remember the outcry from SP being turned into open PK? And that was just one zone in the game.

Edit: If they did allow people the option of transferring to a PVE realm it might work out alright.

Sympathi - Archosaur

well if they did ever merge servers they should set limits and rules, for example cleaning up the name database would be a massive one for them to do. Excessive alts shouldn't be allowed for the purpose of cat-shopping, the two accounts to a PC/ Connection should be expanded more to cover cat shop alts too.

Theres ALOT of small tweaks and changes that could be implemented both on and off game that would help the game so much, but as we all know they just cant be asked.

The only tweaks they do is to copied and pasted sale homepage posts, changing the dates.

Graviora - Dreamweaver

My only concern would be the issue with names. Perhaps those who are the most active with said name would get the pick of keeping the name or change it.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary

Uhhhh...

Yeah.

Let's get 4-12 times more lag in West Archo, combine different economies, and smash all of the cash shoppers together.

This could end in several ways:

1) The server would crash (assuming you put ALL PVE and ALL PVP on one server, so there would be two total).
2) The game client would kill itself. It would vomit it's code all over your computer. "WTF is wrong with you! There WERE 950 catshops in W Arch, now there is 6,650 catshops in W Archo! KLJFBJLBBJKLSBJSKLBSjklkldfjklsd not enough 1's and 0's!"
3) The big TW factions would have so much trouble TWing with eachother, due to drama, resentment, and just about anything else, that you would actually see a vast majority of people leave from the QQ and anger.
4) More would leave because of the massively unstable economy.
5) Paramedic (using an example here) is a name of a cleric on Sanct. Paramedic also is a Cleric on HT. I think there's one on RT as well. Are all of them on the same account? I doubt it. Suddenly, you have a database cluster****.

Your idea, while it might make sense when looked at in a glance, doesn't really hold up if you scrutinize it. Even if you just combined W Coast, E Coast, and the weird Euro servers, you would be tossing in Archo's economy with Sanctuary's. People who were used to buying X item at 12 mil are suddenly seeing that item only for sale at 24 mil, and are suddenly very poor. They just went from a peaceful, catshop filled server, to a hellish, drama filled, troll cave with thousands of people who have been playing longer than them, and it wouldn't really be fair.

OontzOontz - Dreamweaver

Merge Archosaur with LC. Problem solved.

Hurrdurr - Lothranis

Or just add name of their original server as a tag.

HurrDurr[LR]

Oh wait, damn character limit.

Suranda - Sanctuary

Merging will only accelerate the degradation.

TolanSky - Heavens Tear

from what I can tell merging the servers won't solve the overarching problem that seems to be presenting itself here. The lack of population on some servers will not be mitigated by server mergers. All Mergers would accomplish would be the redistribution of the remaining population to other servers that may or may not appreciate the added members.

Additionally we have to factor in the fact that for whatever reason we each chose the server that we are playing on regardless of the population that happens to be present on that server. Thus it is our own decision to stay on our respective servers and ultimately not the direct responsibility of Perfect World Entertainment to accommodate us because of bad decision making on our part.

Of course I may be biased coming from one of the most heavily populated servers in the game b:surrender

Tsukyini - Raging Tide

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary wrote: »

They just went from a peaceful, catshop filled server, to a hellish, drama filled, troll cave with thousands of people who have been playing longer than them, and it wouldn't really be fair.

Popcorn sales would skyrocket as the WC drama unfolds. b:chuckle

Knownase - Heavens Tear

LC and HT should merge, egos would be sooooooooooo conflicted..........

TolanSky - Heavens Tear

Knownase - Heavens Tear wrote: »

LC and HT should merge, egos would be sooooooooooo conflicted..........

I think Enrage at least would enjoy kicking the butt of every single Lost City Resident between here and the Moon b:pleased

or at least attempting too....

krisnda

Tsukyini - Raging Tide wrote: »

Popcorn sales would skyrocket as the WC drama unfolds. b:chuckle

This ^.

Angel_Spawn - Sanctuary

After they should introduce black list extension stones, the sales would sky rocket.

krittycat

TolanSky - Heavens Tear wrote: »

from what I can tell merging the servers won't solve the overarching problem that seems to be presenting itself here. The lack of population on some servers will not be mitigated by server mergers. All Mergers would accomplish would be the redistribution of the remaining population to other servers that may or may not appreciate the added members.

Additionally we have to factor in the fact that for whatever reason we each chose the server that we are playing on regardless of the population that happens to be present on that server. Thus it is our own decision to stay on our respective servers and ultimately not the direct responsibility of Perfect World Entertainment to accommodate us because of bad decision making on our part.

Of course I may be biased coming from one of the most heavily populated servers in the game b:surrender

Personally, I agree with this.

PWE has said in the past that character transfers will not/cannot be done, so your choice of server should have taken that into account. Sorry to say it, but PWE has no reason to merge... the players should have taken that into their own hands.b:surrender

Xainou - Sanctuary

No ty.

And ijs, if they did it, they'd have to keep pve tp pve and pvp to pvp. I know, in all honesty, I'd quit if my server was full pvp.

Alsiadorra - Sanctuary

LOL sanctuary going to full PvP. That I would love to see. Dead bodies everywhere.

Angel Spawn - and then we'd run out of space again, and need Super Blacklist Extension stones.

laloner

My guess is PWI will see if the next expansion renews customer interest before trying anything drastic.

Viriilink - Lost City

TolanSky - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I think Enrage at least would enjoy kicking the butt of every single Lost City Resident between here and the Moon b:pleased

or at least attempting too....

I'm not sure if PWI had a territory war playoff yet, but I believe in Lost City.

tselliot

Why would PWCN even think about server merging? The just opened up new servers in Europe. They have buisness units covering numerous parts of the world. Their decisions are primarily for their home market. As to PWI, it was said above, if you're not happy with your server, then move to another. You have that freedom of choice now. If China were concerned, they would release more content that would bring in new players.

Michael_Dark - Lost City

As for concerns of lag? Seriously? West arch isn't nearly as populated as it used to be. At one point west was so filled that overflow had to stretch to north and south. Now it's easy to find a spot in any area on any of the servers.

As for PWE having the technical ability? Servers on CN have already had merges. Saying they can't isn't true.

Honestly, I don't see PWE being able to maintain all their servers with the remaining small server populations for a whole lot longer, and keeping servers open and near capacity is a lot more fun for everyone involved...

Bubbles - Morai

tselliot wrote: »

Why would PWCN even think about server merging? The just opened up new servers in Europe. They have buisness units covering numerous parts of the world. Their decisions are primarily for their home market. As to PWI, it was said above, if you're not happy with your server, then move to another. You have that freedom of choice now. If China were concerned, they would release more content that would bring in new players.

Yeah...no...
You clearly haven't seen how chinese mmo companies work their games.

Make game.
Everyone enjoys it.
Make it p2w.
Cater to cashshoppers, ignore f2pers.
Slowly start releasing less and less content, continue making more buyable items.
Players get fed up, leave.
Make the game as milkable as it can be.
Make another game using same resources.
Allow older game to die while milking it as much as possible.
Focus on newer game, make players spend more on it.
Slowly let the older game disappear while make another game or perhaps even more at the same time.
Follow same pattern with the new games, continue until company is bankrupt or bought out.

PW was only lucky it lasted this long.
The original devs who worked on this game had actual talent and consideration into how a mmo should be (and if you haven't noticed, it's not even complete).
Normally most chinese games die off into nothing after a few years to due rampant sales, bugs, bots, or hackers.

Don't believe me?
Look at Wanmei, look at how many games they have.
Look at the ones that use the same engine as this game, and see how much more attention they get.
Also look at how they follow the exact same pattern like this game does.

That's how the cycle of chinese mmo works.

Michael_Dark - Lost City

Bubbles - Lothranis wrote: »

Slowly let the older game disappear while make another game or perhaps even more at the same time.
Follow same pattern with the new games, continue until company is bankrupt or bought out.

PWE tried this, all of their other games are failing or have failed. So, this is still their main paycheck.

The original devs who worked on this game had actual talent and consideration into how a mmo should be (and if you haven't noticed, it's not even complete).

Yeah, it's sad that they didn't get to finish what they started. CN, at some point, must have said "ok, it's good enough for us, byebye" to the original devs. Their work is why PW has stayed alive as long as it has...

Bubbles - Morai

Michael_Dark - Lost City wrote: »

Yeah, it's sad that they didn't get to finish what they started. CN, at some point, must have said "ok, it's good enough for us, byebye" to the original devs. Their work is why PW has stayed alive as long as it has...

Pretty much.
All the other games that PWE has that is from Wanmei are pretty much dull in comparison to pw.
Little does Wanmei realize that if they had kept the original devs, and just worked on pw, they would have something better than most p2p mmos (which would be fair, since pw did start off as p2p).
I wouldn't say a wow killer, but it could've have a lot more potential than it does now.

Also, for what's left of p2p pw, it is definitely something I would play here, since they actually have balanced tb. b:cry

Kerona - Sanctuary

As seen here, some servers are set up for potential merging.

PvE West: Heaven's Tear, Sanctuary, and Archosaur
PvP West: Lost City
PvE East: Dreamweaver
PvE East: Raging Tide
PvP East: Harshlands

As you can see, 4/7 of the Servers do not have name exclusivity and cannot be merged.

Mi$ta - Heavens Tear

Shops should move to Tellus City, ijs!
It's huge!

gyroki

Imo LC is already overpopulated, i c always tons of active toons in every city and hundreds of catshops. And every1 who complains about an empty world: this is even not true. During 2x drop i was flying over the world searching for a good location for screenshots. I expected that every1 is in instances to make money with boss drops. But at every corner i saw squads which were grinding mobs - in every lvl region.
The only reason why no1 is asking for more for FB anymore is that one 100+ is enough to solo every instance. Id not ask for more too.

Btw. frankie said last year in a thread that he would like the ability of switching servers and that they might work on this in future. When i remember right i I suggested in that thread instead of this a "server crossing account stash". Id put a cooldown time of 3 months on every item, so u could trade it only 1x every 3 months. This would be the way to avoid that ppl can dominate more servers. Unfortunately we all know that this forum is not a place to make suggestions cz no responsible person (=management, developer) will respond or discuss with u.


And the only way to bring rly many new players to pw would be to re-create a complete new game/graphical engine. When they would do this there would be a reason for game magazines to write about them (tbh i never read something about pw in a printed magazine and only 1x a short article about forsaken world - in comparison there r dozens of wow magazines at every kiosk..).

Renza - Raging Tide

Graviora - Dreamweaver wrote: »

My only concern would be the issue with names. Perhaps those who are the most active with said name would get the pick of keeping the name or change it.

I'm fairly sure that's already been safe guarded, it's the reason why multiple servers share the same name database for the "emergency" of a merge.

Though yeah this game 100% needs some merges, most games with this dwindling population would have merged ages ago, there is no point in this many servers if each server nearly lacks players, I mean try level a character to 40-50 or so just to do some BHs (as if you was still new to the game), there woulden't be much of a chance of getting any BH squad at all, which is another thing to turn off players that can't be bothered with the epic boring quests at low levels+grind it brings.

Guilds are getting sparse (good ones, not some random guild leader that knows nothing and the 10 members that will log on once a week), there isn't enough people on some servers to properly fill up guilds with active players, the only real guilds with fully active players in them is pretty much just TW factions.

Also the cat shop thing, it will just do what pw-my did, players were basically all over arch and other towns making them seem somewhat alive, instead of the desert that they all are, either way, I doubt a merge will happen till much later in the year, if anything.

Michael_Dark - Lost City

gyroki wrote: »

Imo LC is already overpopulated, i c always tons of active toons in every city and hundreds of catshops. And every1 who complains about an empty world: this is even not true.

I've been playing LC since the beginning of 09. LC is nowhere near being overpopulated. West arch looks empty compared to two years ago, and back then many cat shops were main chars being afk, not dedicated catshops. Most of the shops in arch are dedicated catshops now. You can't really use that as any indicator of population as some players have a half dozen or more dedicated cat shops.

I can also say, remember how many catshops were at DWP? Now it's practically barren.