I moved my toons to Harbinger years ago to get quicker queue pops FROM east coast servers. I am on the east coast hated my ping being so high but traded it for quicker queue pops.

 

Since the announcement of the new east coast server I move ALL 32 of my toons from Harbinger back to Shadowlands so when Nov 8 hits I can have my east coast life back with a healthy population and decent queue times. (And a lot less toxic environment away from that Harbinger trash).

 

So my question is, how many people have or are planning on doing the same?

Hard to say but I know we had a large number of people that did the same thing.

 

With the server mergers announced, that very night we started hearing from those players and they were asking did we have enough room to get them back into the guild and on the east coast. It's a bit better latency for them and with servers about to be more even in population, there was no reason to not move back to the east coast for better latency.

 

I imagine there are quite a few moving back if they can afford it but it would really be hard to know actual numbers.

I expect the East Coast server will be the highest population. It's getting 3 decent servers merged into it. Harbinger will get to add the population from a dead PVP server and an almost dead RP server. I doubt it's going to change much from what it is now and definitely won't be better than it was a year ago.

I expect the East Coast server will be the highest population. It's getting 3 decent servers merged into it. Harbinger will get to add the population from a dead PVP server and an almost dead RP server. I doubt it's going to change much from what it is now and definitely won't be better than it was a year ago.

 

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

Since the announcement of the new east coast server I move ALL 32 of my toons from Harbinger back to Shadowlands

Wouldn't it make sense to wait until after the server merge. At least there may be free transfers, to reduce the r/l money cost.

Edited October 6, 2017 by JediQuaker

I expect the East Coast server will be the highest population. It's getting 3 decent servers merged into it. Harbinger will get to add the population from a dead PVP server and an almost dead RP server. I doubt it's going to change much from what it is now and definitely won't be better than it was a year ago.

 

On the west coast by the time you could the people who rage quit over names, it will probably be less that just Harb is now.

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

 

Yeah that never made sense to me either. I made a character on Begeren Colony when I was trying out the RP servers and while it wasn't really the server for me, it always seemed fairly active.

 

But then, there are people who call Ebon Hawk "dead", so I don't know how high the bar is here for what constitutes "alive".

Wouldn't it make sense to wait until after the server merge. At least there may be free transfers, to reduce the r/l money cost.

 

3 Reasons:

 

#1. Server transfers will not be available right away after Nov 8th and they are not sure how long they will be offline. They are guessing at least 1 week at this time.

 

#2. 90cc per toon means absolutely nothing to me when it comes to improving game quality for me.

 

#3. After the disgusting experience I have had dealing with the most toxic environment I have ever seen (Harbinger) I have made a conscience decision to ride the east coast till the end. I would rather quit the game than continue one more day dealing with the polluted and disgusting toxicity known as Harbinger.

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

 

Like many things in discussion if you drill down you find out the people who say it is dead play pub side.

 

Same as the main story, if you drill down you find out it sucks for empire but it great pubs.

Yeah that never made sense to me either. I made a character on Begeren Colony when I was trying out the RP servers and while it wasn't really the server for me, it always seemed fairly active.

 

But then, there are people who call Ebon Hawk "dead", so I don't know how high the bar is here for what constitutes "alive".

 

It seems that for many, the "bar" is based on queue times.

 

Anything longer than 5 minutes waiting for a queue to pop is obviously due to it being a "dead" in the eyes of some, even if there were 100 people on fleet.

 

The fact that people choose not to use the LFG tool, preferring instead to do their group content with friends and guild mates is totally ignored by those reliant upon the LFG tool. Also ignore is the fact that many of those reliant upon the LFG tool may well have found themselves on too many ignore lists for that LFG tool to even be able to find groups for them.

3 Reasons:

 

#1. Server transfers will not be available right away after Nov 8th and they are not sure how long they will be offline. They are guessing at least 1 week at this time.

 

#2. 90cc per toon means absolutely nothing to me when it comes to improving game quality for me.

 

#3. After the disgusting experience I have had dealing with the most toxic environment I have ever seen (Harbinger) I have made a conscience decision to ride the east coast till the end. I would rather quit the game than continue one more day dealing with the polluted and disgusting toxicity known as Harbinger.

 

I'm not sure how long the "escape" from the toxic cesspool of Harbinger will last.

 

I fully expect that the Star Forge will have a substantially higher population than Satele Shan, and that much of the Harbinger detritus will be transferring to Satele Shan, causing that server to become a toxic cesspool and leading to much more bullying, griefing trolling of "those pesky" RP'ers.

It seems that for many, the "bar" is based on queue times.

 

Anything longer than 5 minutes waiting for a queue to pop is obviously due to it being a "dead" in the eyes of some, even if there were 100 people on fleet.

 

The fact that people choose not to use the LFG tool, preferring instead to do their group content with friends and guild mates is totally ignored by those reliant upon the LFG tool. Also ignore is the fact that many of those reliant upon the LFG tool may well have found themselves on too many ignore lists for that LFG tool to even be able to find groups for them.

 

Where'd you pull the "5 min" number from? Nevermind - I can guess.

Begeren certainly took some hits lately. Queue times are indeed one way to measure this, but I'd like to point out that, on Begeren, it's possible, on either faction, to queue with both a tank and a healer together for a HM FP and simply not get a pop within an hour.

 

That said, it's not always that bad, and I certainly wouldn't call the server dead, but it's far from an example of a healthy population too.

 

I completed DvL Eternal Tier on every North American server except for Bastion (could idle for weeks waiting for pops, could just not get to valor 5 at all), and I thought the nature of that 'event' made it very useful for comparing server viability, and while Begeren was never the biggest server out there, and while it got a bunch smaller over the years, the difference in difficulty between being able to complete DvL objectives on the biggest servers compared to Begeren was significantly less than the difference between Begeren and the former pvp servers.

 

That said, I'll be very relieved if I'd be able to queue for HM FPs again by myself and actually get a pop, because right now, regardless of my role, I need at least one guildie along to have a reasonable chance within a reasonable time, on Begeren.

 

So I guess I hope the OP's sentiment is not too prevalent....

Where'd you pull the "5 min" number from? Nevermind - I can guess.

 

The "5 minute" came from several of the "merge serves NOW!!!!!" crowd, and I linked the posts from which I took that number on numerous occasions in the various "merge servers NOW!!!!!!" threads.

 

If you wish to see those posts, either the original posts from which I took that number or my posts linking those original posts, you can go back and read through all those threads or do a forum search.

 

I will not do your research for you, though.

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

 

It might not be as bad as some of the east coast servers like Jung Ma, Pot5 but it's not exactly pumping either on the west coast BC is a dying server and that's for sure many people left because of it so saying it has a healthy population is an absolute lie.

I am planning on doing the opposite. I am on Ebon Hawk but plan to transfer all my characters out to the English European server, once I get my monthly CC grant. I anticipate that Star Forge is quickly going to become as toxic as Harb, once it's the largest server. I have no interest in going to Satele Shan, because, Harbinger. I'm going to take my chances with Darth Malgus instead in the hopes that I'll have half a chance of playing open areas and heroics.

It seems that for many, the "bar" is based on queue times.

 

Anything longer than 5 minutes waiting for a queue to pop is obviously due to it being a "dead" in the eyes of some, even if there were 100 people on fleet.

 

The fact that people choose not to use the LFG tool, preferring instead to do their group content with friends and guild mates is totally ignored by those reliant upon the LFG tool. Also ignore is the fact that many of those reliant upon the LFG tool may well have found themselves on too many ignore lists for that LFG tool to even be able to find groups for them.

 

With a game that has zero open world pvp and both ranked and regular pvp instances solely relies on "queue pops" then yes, absolutely yes if you play this game having pvp as your main focus then waiting forever in queues means its dead for you.

 

Now for a solo based player or someone who is part of a very well formed progression group and that the main scope of your game play, than population and queue times mean nothing or don't have much influence on your game play.

 

So you are correct in one sense and that having 100 people on fleet doesn't mean the game is "dead" by definition. But for people who do PVP, GSF, Ranked, Regs, or any other PVE instance that makes use of the queue system, then having 100 people sitting on fleet not in queue means absolutely nothing. And the fact that this game needs 3 to 4 times that number to healthily produce a quick queue response than the people claiming that those servers are dead are in fact correct. To them and that style game play they are most certainly "dead" servers.

 

To be fair, Harbinger for the 3 plus years I have played there has continually produced decently fast queue times pretty much 24/7. It has without any doubt been the premier server for fast and responsive queue times. Thus the reason it absolutely sucked the life out of just about every single server left in this game in the NA. The only problems I have with Harbinger is higher ping, and an obnoxious PVP community. Other than that, the server is working as intended IMO.

 

My hope is that enough people return to the east coast servers now and that there is enough merged into it that the queue times will be comparable to Harbinger. It not, than I have already made a conscience decision that I will quit this game forever. I have played it since the day of launch and never unsubbed. But if this server merge doesn't work I wont return to west coast ever again and will definatly unsub and uninstall forever. I really hope that isn't the case. I love this game but I refuse to wait long for queue pops. And all I do is PVP 24/7.

I am planning on doing the opposite. I am on Ebon Hawk but plan to transfer all my characters out to the English European server, once I get my monthly CC grant. I anticipate that Star Forge is quickly going to become as toxic as Harb, once it's the largest server. I have no interest in going to Satele Shan, because, Harbinger. I'm going to take my chances with Darth Malgus instead in the hopes that I'll have half a chance of playing open areas and heroics.

 

I would join you, however I get a 120-130 ping there. Currently I run 20-30 ping on east coast and 70-80 ping on west coast. I already have 21 toons on TRE so I am just leaving that alone. I play early mornings there when ranked isn't popping on Harb. But my true passion and 80% of playtime will be east coast until it dies or the game shuts down.

 

1 thing for sure, I am done with west coast. And if east coast becomes toxic like west coast then at least I will have a decent ping while the trolls troll. Before I go back to west coast I will uninstall and call it a day.

I would join you, however I get a 120-130 ping there. Currently I run 20-30 ping on east coast and 70-80 ping on west coast. I already have 21 toons on TRE so I am just leaving that alone. I play early mornings there when ranked isn't popping on Harb. But my true passion and 80% of playtime will be east coast until it dies or the game shuts down.

 

1 thing for sure, I am done with west coast. And if east coast becomes toxic like west coast then at least I will have a decent ping while the trolls troll. Before I go back to west coast I will uninstall and call it a day.

 

I will say this, I am not looking forward to paying millions of credits to unlock four different strongholds again. But it's worth it to get away from toxicity. I don't group or do PvP at all, so the queue times don't matter to me. I just want to be able to play the game in peace.

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

 

Because I am a GM on it. I look at fleet and various planets and compared to Harbinger or Shadowlands BC is barely even on life support. It looks to have lost half it's population or more in the last year and it never was a large population server.

 

Don't get me wrong. I always liked BC (after we got merged into it from Lord Ieldis) but it's pretty dead.

I dont know why people say BC is 'almost dead'. It is not, its held a pretty healthy population. I can make a new toon and step into the starter zones to see 30 to 50+ others in general chat, much like harbinger when I am there infact. The GTN is also healthy with items from new CM packs etc, another good sign its not so dead as people claim.

 

I think when people say dead, they think they're talking about population, but really mean community. The playerbase is fine, but no one interacts.... so it seems like there aren't many people.

It might not be as bad as some of the east coast servers like Jung Ma, Pot5 but it's not exactly pumping either on the west coast BC is a dying server and that's for sure many people left because of it so saying it has a healthy population is an absolute lie.

 

Apparently everyones idea of a healthy population is different that doesn't make it a lie.

 

I see groups organizing ops and flashpoints in general chat often

 

PVP queues pop regularly when I queue for PVP -- at least during the peak times, not so much during off-peak.

 

The GTN isn't lacking for items.

 

Starter planets often have over 30 players at any given time creating new characters.

 

I can't run heroics without hitting gates in the open world heroic areas of other players and having to wait on respawns.

 

That's not an entirely lacking community. It's not over populated, but it is steadily populated.

Like many things in discussion if you drill down you find out the people who say it is dead play pub side.

 

Same as the main story, if you drill down you find out it sucks for empire but it great pubs.

 

I do usually play pub side. As to story, I liked the Agent and the Sorc stories better than the Rep stories, although I detested the bounty hunter story even more than the scoundrel.

With the way swtor is bleeding players because of galactic command and the rediculous nerfs to classes these two big servers will probably have to merge into 1 within a year anyhow.

I still think it would have been better for them to have had a West Coast Server (Satele Shan put Harb and Bastion there fast ping for West Coast and all trolls most welcome), an East Coast Server (Star Forge put Shadowlands, Jedi Covenant and Prophecy of the Five) and a Role Play Server (Darth Revan or whatever name, put Begeren Colony, Ebon Hawk and Jung Ma there, house it in Hawaii or Alaska so everyone has bad ping and only role players will want to live there).

 

Sadly it is too late for that or some other solution now.

 

This is still an amazing game despite Galactic Command. My main homes are Begeren Colony and Jedi Covenant. Just for fun I made a new character on the Harbinger, Qaysush a female Sith Pureblood Jedi Shadow, and levelled her from 1-70 over the last five days. Wow what an experience. I had to have chat on because I was constantly looking for groups and the discussions would have made a sailor blush. Trump, race, sex, death threats, scammers, PVP noob name and shame, people abusing the Devs, people saying how bad the game is, people saying the game is dead (why do they play?) was standard each day for the Harbinger. From the moment I hit level 50 I was in a queue for an Operation and it never ever popped - so much for their perfect queue times. I did get some GSF and PvP matches but only once had an instant pop. I did many flashpoints but often was waiting up to an hour for them to pop too. Finally I did get into an Operation through fleet chat and we did Explosive Conflicts but even within our operations group there was a troll who griefed us on purpose pulling extra mobs and gettting us killed and swearing at us all until he finally got kicked.

 

I met many super nice people on the Harbinger like some of the members of that Operations group and the two awesome people with whom I did all the Gree missions in the PvP zone on Illum. (PS note the weekly event the Gree was also basically deserted even on the Harbinger) However overall my experience was that the Harbinger is not the place for me. Good luck to everyone from Begeren Colony going to the Hot Pocket, I would suggest that you transfer at least one toon to the Ebon Hawk now and check it out.

Edited October 6, 2017 by revjasonlee