When will there be a SERVER MERGE?

Even as I read about those free transfers, it doesn't sound nice at all. If people from low pop move to other low pop, other servers will be even more empty. Why not just transfer characters from few serwers into one? Without asking us, just fix the population! Why not? To earn money on us players who want to play on populated servers? Thats how I feel. I love this game but today after waiting 40 minutes for warzone and no pop up, I'm really annoyed and sometimes feels like I want to quit. I don't want to just sit and look at the screen so I can play for 10 mins in wz every 2 hours. 20 people at fleet? Half of them low levels, some pve people and how can we pvp? This gets even more annoying, and there is even more people quitting the game. Keep up the slow work, f2p model comming out next year if Bioware won't change anything, otherwise game will be dead.

I don't understand how they can possibly look at the "Server Status" page, and not make this a higher priority.

I'd like to use my 30 days of free time when it's actually fixed, because right now they may as well have kept it. I've tried logging in each day but my drive to do anything has been completely crippled. I want to game when I log into a game, not do the same work (see daily quests) and stand around wasting an hour just to find 3 people interested in running something (much less 7 others).

Because server mergers and server transfers are two different tools used for two different situations. Server mergers are like trying to open a door with a hammer; you can do it, but it's not pretty. Server transfers are like using lockpicks; not ideal, but works with minimal interference.

What Bioware will be doing is the following:

1. They will start free server transfers after identifying, say, the bottom 10% based upon population and activity. These will be the servers involved with transfers.
2. From that pool of servers, they will choose one to be a target server, and the rest will be source servers.
3. When the option to transfer goes live, everyone on a source server will be given a period of time to move their legacy over to the target server. This will probably last anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks, and will result in the target server becoming much more populated.
4. Once that batch of free transfers have completed, they will probably start back at step one using a different batch of low pop servers.

Server mergers will only happen when they want to actually remove servers, which is usually when they know for sure they won't be seeing much more subscription growth. In server mergers, they take all of the characters from source servers, and move them to the target server, then shutdown the source servers. When the game goes back live, you would choose your new server and possibly be prompted to rename your legacy or characters. Regardless, you had no choice in where or if you wanted to move, which is why actual mergers are a last resort.

Also, based on experience with server transfers in other games (WoW and LotRO), people that choose not to take the free transfers when offered do so because their guild decides to stay. These very low pop servers are interesting because they are made of of mostly everyone part of the same few guilds, and the communities are very close. As such, they feel more like private servers for your friends than anything else.

RIFT did server transfers last year. Worked really well. They put a server message up that said "move it or lose, we're shutting 'er down", let the players move where they wanted (within reason, obviously not to heavy servers or there'd be queues) and culled some servers. Worked very well with the added benefit that no one really complained because it was their own choices where to go.

I'm willing to bet BioWare does the same thing.

Another unfounded worry I see pop up here is that guilds will disband. No need for that to happen. If BioWare can move entire guilds onto servers during launch, server transfers are a cinch.

question is : When will BioWare get the finger out and allow server transfers i love the game but logging on to the server i play(hex droid) it hardly reaches 50 ppl on imp fleet and last month it havent even managed to reach standard in server population even once getting FP's done without having somone boosting is like getting a snowball trough hell without it melting ...IMPOSSIBLE
most planets are pretty much ghosttowns(hardly reaching 10 players planetwide)

tbh i would speculate BW loosing alot of subs if they dont act quick and start with free transfers so at least a few more servers reach at least heavy

You know I wonder how many people here crying for Merges were the same ones crying for new servers at launch?

I mean I'm with you, servers have to be consolidated either by transfers or merges, but had the whiners not QQed for new servers at launch we'd not really be in this mess atm. So you can thank them for that.

Any Veteran MMO player can tell you that once the MMO Hoppers are gone, this crap always happens.

Mergers need to happen soon. Only 2 servers atm are even listed as heavy and one is listed as very heavy. The rest are standard/light. Granted I'm fortunate with being on Jedi Covenant which is listed heavy atm and is fairly populated (120 ppl on the fleet atm) but then my cousin sends me a message as he rerolled an alt on the fatman out of curiosity. Two instances of the republic fleet with a total of 500 players on the fleet...Damn, really? And then I have friends that came from dead servers to my server and they would tell me how their server only have on average 20 people on the fleet at prime time...

Bioware, you guys seriously need to merge servers.

I say you are full of BS. Did you even play WOW? The one game all MMO's are fighting to beat. When wow did free server transfers it was to entice players to go to low populated servers. Wow could do that because they have heavily populated servers. 98% of SW servers are light to standerd. I am on every freakin night and I see it with my own eyes. So if you do free server transfers you are giving people the chance to move from lite populated realms, there for those realms will be decimated. A server merge is the only way to fix the problem. But they don't want to do that right now. So one thing they must do is a cross server looking for game

Right now stats:

71 servers standard or better
4 heavy
1 very heavy

North american servers only. I dont see the problem.