When will there be a "SERVER MERGE?"

Okay, this is a book... prepare yourself, LOL. I keep trying because I swear to God I'm going to get through to some people. Read it or skip it... your choice. But if you are STILL angry over this situation, and STILL sitting on an unpopulated server and unhappy about it, you ought to give it a shot.

This is where you lose me. They have already announced server transfers are on the way, but that they just aren't possible in the next month for all players. They have announced this on the web site. They have announced this in the forums. And they said it live over a simulcast summit with developers saying it themselves into the microphones for the entire world to hear.

You aren't LOSING ALL of your legacy investment, or any of your valor ranks or purple schematics, as far as I know.

Have they ever said that your transferred characters will be stripped of valor rankings or schematics?

You are simply waiting a month or two (while theoretically playing a new 4th character) in order to MERGE all of your STILL EXISTENT legacy investments, valor, and purple schems.

At most, you're losing perhaps 1-3 levels of legacy points on the new character as I believe they've announced that your LXP aren't merged, but the higher is chosen. Clearly, if that's the case, your 3 L50s worth of LXP will supercede the new 1 L50 of LXP, but I think that's a small trade-off for being able to enjoy the next 2 months of playing time.

I know it's worth it for me to lose a few legacy levels so that I can enjoy my time today.

The only thing is that your existing characters, funds, and schematics or crafting abilities won't be available to your new character (which you'll enjoy playing) until the transfers are possible and you get to move the old characters over with the new one.

At that point it should be just like you rolled all 4 characters on the same server, with the exception of the already mentioned possible loss of 1-3 Legacy levels or so.

NOTHING TOO SIGNIFICANT NEEDS TO BE LOST OR DELETED. JUST ADDED TO.


Are you saying that you have created all of the characters you are EVER going to create in this game already, in the first 3 months of play, and are NEVER going to roll a new player or allow yourself to experience the other 5 story lines you haven't experienced to Level 50?

Weird.

If not, why not pick now to start your 4th character and find a way to enjoy yourself while waiting for the ANNOUNCED and COMING server transfers where you can merge your existing characters with said new one?


I don't see what I'm doing here as "defending a broken situation", but as imploring you to take a few small steps so that you may enjoy your experience with the game for the next few months while waiting. Clearly you enjoy the game, or you wouldn't have made it to level 50 with 3 characters.

The situation is what it is. You call it "Broken", I call it a symptom of a fantastic innovation in the MMORPG genre (The Legacy System) that is causing a few extra headaches.

Instead of just duplicating data rows from one database to the other and a few name change hassles (like other MMORPGs can get away with), this one involves merging of extended systems and extra XP factors, such as Legacy. In addition there is an additional second-tier name (the Legacy Name, like it or not) that has to be sorted and merged into the new characters on the new servers, when performed.

In addition, because this particular Legacy System allows extra buffs from your other L50 characters, extra bonus abilities and other things, in addition to a simple "data copy", they must have a sophisticated sorting and merging system to determine that "Hey, this guy is merging 3 existing L50s from another server with an L50 already on this server, so now we must add those other 3 Legacy bonuses to this one, so add the 3 sets of proper buffs, the 3 bonus heroic abilities, additional social abilities, and place those new legacy family members into the existing legacy tree."

This must encompass prompts in at least 3 UI facets that I can think of off the top of my head, including the basic name change prompt, the legacy name change prompt (for those that must), and the legacy tree, in addition to those forementioned background states.

That ain't standard, my friend. No other game in existence is doing it. There is no precedent for it and no way to copy and paste it... they are building it from scratch.

And most importantly, it must work, flawlessly, or else it will be a disaster of untold proportions.


No one said you had to create a character that matches your existing characters. I chose to duplicate my Commando, but you are free to choose a character class you have not played before, and therefore no duplication is necessary.

If you have 3 Republic L50s, roll an Imperial.
If you have 3 Imperials, roll a Republic.
If you have 2 Sith and a Jedi, roll a non-Force class.
Et cetera.


Yes, yes, yes, you pay for the game. And you agreed to the Terms of Use when you signed up and paid your fee. No one ever gave you a guarantee of specific performance in terms of the number of players you were entitled to play with on a server. They have no control over this for the most part, and are under no obligation to keep merging servers and expanding servers on a constant week-by-week basis just because of changing demographics and self-entitled players who QQ and /unsub at the slightest imperfection.

And you have paid for and are paying for access to THE ENTIRE GAME SYSTEM, not just one server, and not just a few characters. The game has more to offer, and I propose that you should exercise your right to access some of it during your current time of wait and frustration.

They have already taken action. They are continuing to work on the server transfer mechanics, and have announced that it will be available for all, first for tha Asia/Australia Regional players, then for the rest of us.

They have already heard ALL OF YOU. They are NOT IGNORING YOU. But there is no "Make Flawless Server Transfer System Wand" that they can magically swing through the air and cause this complicated system to materialize. It must be done according to the general principles of software development. It has already been designed. It is already being programmed. But it must be finished, and it must be tested, and it must be implemented, and when done, it must be flawless. Otherwise you'll be right back here complaining again that you lost something, or didn't gain something, or whatever the case may be.

IT IS NOT GOING TO BE DONE IMMEDIATELY. No amount of complaining, screaming, legal challenges, praying to God Almighty, or Cthulhu, or Xenu, or Zarathustra is going to accelerate the timeline. PERIOD. It will be done when it is done, and not before.

Let me say that again. It will be done when it is done, and not before.

One more time. It will be done when it is done, and not before.

Again, they have already announced that transfers are on the way for ALL PLAYERS, not just the Asia-Pacific region. Clearly, if the system functions for the Asia-PAC players, then it will be possible to polish the system, finish it off and roll it out to the rest of the player base. They have never said otherwise.

If you want to cancel, CANCEL! If you want to raise your fists to the sky and shout in anger, RAISE THOSE FISTS AND SHOUT! If you want to build a bonfire and burn things in effigy to ask your God to accelerate the process, PRAISE BE!

But none of this is going to accelerate the process. They KNOW it is a priority, and they KNOW people want it, and they KNOW people are unhappy without it. Unfortunately, that doesn't get the code written. It doesn't test the system, and it doesn't make it flawless. Those things require specific, methodical actions in specific order.

I see that you love the game. I want you to continue loving the game, and I want you to enjoy your time in the mean time while waiting for this fantastic system to come forth.

Because rest assured, you WILL be waiting. You will either wait and play in the mean time with little reason to keep lashing out in anger on the forums, or you will be waiting offline and unsubscribed while you can't play at all. You will wait on your current underpopulated server, or you will wait with the advantages of a more populated server.

But you WILL wait, just as I will. Because we have no other choice other than to stop playing, or quit the game all together. And since we both love the game, I find that to be an unacceptable option.

And I'm betting you do too.

Please, please, PLEASE, I want you to enjoy the game. I want you to continue enjoying the game. And I want you to enjoy the time between now and when those desperately desired server transfers are available.

I implore you... I BEG YOU... seize the opportunity. It is within your grasp.

Peace.

To the above poster^^

I understand your point, but most people feel that they shouldn't have to 'start again'. But think about those that are still Leveling. I have a level 30 Jedi Shadow on The Ravager server and I am unable to run Heroics/FP due to the lack of players. For example, last night there were 3 people on Alderaan (spelling?) including myself; anyone can see that it's impossible for me to do any [Heroic +4] quests as chances are not all of these players want to do the heroic in the first place. The point I'm trying to make is the game is in some aspect UNPLAYABLE! BioWare have neglected this problem for too long, and I believe character transfers will not fix the problem (if anything it will make it worse as everyone will go to the heavy servers and then complain of queue times). Server merges need to implemented for 1.2, and should be high on BioWares priorities.

That's the root of the problem.

Bioware hasn't said one word about population issues on some servers. Why should we the consumer tolerate BW's lack of addressing a major issue with game play that quite a few would consider game breaking. People will let their wallets decide and it doesn't bode well for BW if they don't at least admit that there are some serious server population issues. I'm lucky that when I chose a server during early access it ended up being one of the larger servers in game. Quit often late at night the pop drops into the teens now. Even a month ago it wouldn't of gotten below the 30's. People are leaving and no amount of smoke and mirrors by BW is going to get them back. And if BW continues on it's current course then this game is indeed doomed.

you are dead wrong about "few month"

So 70% of the servers are ghost towns and you consider swtor healthy strong on its feets, meh

İf they allow transfers it will be better for the future of this game. Because as im stuck in a dead server i aint staying long in this game with so many others.

So many say "roll on another server" or "wait till they start transfers." These are BS arguments. Either way you look at these options, is an investment in more MONEY. Re-rolling is more money because it costs you more time, thus more subs paid up when you have already done the legwork on your original server. The second? I don't believe for a minute that any server transfers (outside of the 1-time free offer to asian residents) will be free. Even if they do allow a 1-off free transfer, will you be able to take your main and the 7 alts you have with you? Doubtful.

Then for transfers, the question remains...to which servers? Will I be "fast enough" to do my transfer to an approved West Coast server? Or will I end up on an East Coast server where it will be dead due to my gaming time availability?

The only answer is server mergers. Frankly, i don't give a crap about my Toon name or Legacy name (although I would be surprised if ANYONE had that anyway). When you are on Corellia and you are one of only 4 players on - 1 of them is a chinese gold farmer (no kidding! a level 12 that i followed to a rapidly spawning slicing node) - and the other 2 don't even answer whispers, how do you do the content that garners you better gear and social points. On Drooga's Pleasure Barge (isn't very pleasurable) it is nearly impossible to get even a person to run an Heroic 2+, let alone a 4.

The TROLLS that argue the counterpoint literally have no say/voice. I am happy they are comfortable on a full server. Good for them. However, to argue against an action that would, most likely, save thousands of subs and give peace to those of us who suffer the Low-Pop server Syndrome, is just being a TROLL and being selfish. The merges have nothing to do with them and will not affect them in any way.

Exactly. People argue in EAware's favor because the share holders will freak if they merge servers.

I guess thats more important than there subs because people are leaving the game now more due to the lack of people to play with as opposed to the quality of the game itself. I myself am unsubbed and will only return with transfers. They lose my money and that of everyone else who is unwilling to pay them money to wait a few months.

Its simply unacceptable as a business that relies on monthly subs to be so nonchalant about the situation. People don't care about getting to max level or getting good gear because once there they've got very little end game content to look forward too and even if there was a copious amount of things to be done once you hit 50 odds are you are on a server that doesn't have enough people to participate in the said end game content.

When I left my server was to the point that 9/10 warzone matches end prematurely because we didn't have enough players even if it was the same faction versus itself. It was almost like cheating because we would just queue up to wait 120 seconds to do it again and gain free valor and wins. But once grinding to battlemaster is over now there is no point to the exploitation of our low server population, now were simply stuck... waiting. Waiting for 15 a month. I've got better things to spend my money on and the real issue here is that many people will agree with me and despite the fact that many people may still play, the drop in population means over-all drop in popularity.

If things don't look up with GW2 and D3 around the corner they will be taking some serious hits and the remaining customers will suffer because EAware will be receiving less money, and thus the content will become less polished and over-all the game and its over-all development will decline little by little until there is a small minority of players who play on the remaining live servers. Then they'll either start looking towards F2P options, or try something drastic to raise subs but if that fails then this game might as well start asking LOTRO and the other WoW clones that didn't quite pan out how they should manage to stay limping.

Please Bioware just notice a common theme on the forums, and that is the threads with the most replies often have to do with server population/character transfer. I know that you announced these things, but clearly they are not coming quick enough. I love playing this game, but due to server population on my server it often feels like a glorified single player. For a company that says it is listening to its community, this lack of server merges/character transfers is a blaring point to the contrary. I very rarely post on forums, but the issue is becoming a bigger and bigger problem and the lack of at least a timeline for changes to be implemented is really saddening to someone who likes this game. I would prefer not to reroll on another server and lose all of the work I had put into other characters, but as of right now you are offering us no choice. It has been stated that you address issues that essentially break the game for progression, does this not fit your definition?

But it's NOT a merge! That would be something!! That would have me rethinking starting an alt on another server and playing that (with people, just imagine!!). My understanding from the Guild summit (or maybe a dev post on Oceania) was that would *NOT* be merged that the highest level of Legacy would take precedence and thus a whole lot of lost Legacy levels.


As to everything else, I'm glad it worked for you. I'm slightly taken aback by the fact that you, despite seeming reasonably smart and unlike so many others saying similiar, non-troll like, that you simply can't see why that wouldn't work for anyone else? The entire Legacy system seems, to me, designed to reward playing on the same server. Right now if I were to switch I'd lose enough Legacy levels for pretty much every single unlock (except the GTN I think). I, quite simply, would rather stop playing (and stop paying!) than have to do it all over again. I am being punished by my server choice - which by it's very nature was an uninformed decision - and there isn't even the courtesy of a single comment by Bioware.

I'm glad it worked for you. It won't work for me. I do agree that Legacy is a great introduction, I think there's some nice features for it coming in 1.2 and I think it's potential is pretty damn high. Making it account wide would, at least for me, solve a number of my problems. I would roll another toon without feeling like I was being punished for doing so and I'd play with a bunch of people for a change.

I understand that it's a tricky situation publicity wise and I would not want to be the one who has to figure out how to do it. They can wait and the problem will go away, people will quit. I don't know if enough will quit for it to hit the bottom line or trigger some sort of response. I hope it does. They could just hold their hands up and go back to that 'we won't make the too many servers mistake' and say 'oops' but even then...


Heh. I'll take that bet. Starting over is unacceptable, staying as I am is unacceptable. The most acceptable is cancelling. It sucks, but that's how it is for me.

Please don't be under any delusion though, people are cancelling accounts over this. Folks can chalk it up to forum QQ'ing or a small vocal group but I'm reasonably sure it is more than that and when I cancel I'll be very sure that the survey knows exactly why. My email reminder is all set!

IM VOTING FOR SERVERSE MERGE!))

I SAID EVERYTING

Hope my voice will be listened beetween others