Server Transfer vs Server Merges and the Great Hypocrisy

This just isn't true. Every game I've played outside of WoW has had server merges (and sometimes transfers as well) within the first year.

EDIT: Since 2003

please point me in the right direction if this has always been answered.

I just watch the 1.3 Highlight video and what little they mentioned about Server Transfers gave me the impression that we can hop around servers as we please.

I just hope they give us a list of destinations servers - a SMALL list - and let us pick the one we want. Mergers should be a last resort. Maybe at some point - not too far off - they should do a mandatory (free) move for those left on small servers, or move those dormant accounts themselves - but I definitely want some say in where I go. Mergers mess that up - and the name/legacy/guild issues would be incredibly annoying.

It's boggling to see that list of servers. I can't imagine why they ever thought that was a good idea.

Mergers are better. They keep the current populations intact.

Mergers have one major issue that simply can't be resolved in a way to satisfy everyone, names. Who gets to keep their name and legacy name in the transfer? Many people love their characters and their name and legacy name and what happens when someone else has their name on the merger? Who gets to keep it? Who has to rename? It would create a massive nightmare for the devs. By going with transfers you accept the fact that if you transfer you might have to change your name. It saves a ton of anger from players by going with transfers, even if it won't solve all the problems.

Transfers highly risk spreading the population even thinner, while merges only make the population more dense. Lots of people are yelling about all the paradoxes with Legacy, but if BioWare took 2 designers, put them in a room for 10 minutes and told them to work it out, then those paradoxes would be solved.
The technology and information to make server merges have been around for a decade, which leads me to believe it's EA preventing the merges because it will look bad, but to be fair the EA name makes the game look bad already and much more so than any server merge could ever do.

It's quite easy to solve the whole naming issue, just give both players a free name change upon their next log in and if they both want the same name then it goes to the person who logs in first. It's the most fair way of doing it.

Not when they're dictating what servers you can transfer to.

the communities that want to remain intact will remain intact even with transfers. People can simply choose to transfer to the same server. Most people in this game however dont care about remaining together since it is normally endgame which develops bonds and this game has none

I am guessing the OP missed Daniel Ericson talking about merging the servers into a few "Super Servers"

Also, server merges are a short sighted solution and in my experience will cause more problems down the road then they fix immediatly.

With server mergers, some playes will lose their names and legacy names due to the "native" server already having a player with those names. This may seem like an insignificant issue, but for some its pretty important. Especially when you account that players put time into building their alter ego, and gaining a reputation under that name. Only to have it taken away due to a merger.

Also looking at guilds that may loose their names as well. Again, may seem like a small issue to most, but to a fair number it is important.

Offering free character transfers before hand to let players choose which server they want to play on with the friends/guildies is a far better solution to start with.

Now, what they may do is consolidate what servers are still close to dead after the transfers and then merge them into larger servers before they move on to the "Super Server" set up, but at this point it is just speculation.

Just my two credits on this.

And what will happen to those servers who are being left? They will be completely empty just wasting power. People who are competitive will be all "f this" when tons of people transfer to their servers, and fanbois will go after them, then we will be back where we started. Seen this happen so many times before. SWTOR has half the number of servers WoW has and 1/10th the population, I would say that calls for server merges. Unless BioWare is going the tricky and troubling route of making everyone server transfer and then slowly shut down the completely empty servers, just to keep EA happy.