Time to merge the US servers... again. Primetime window getting smaller and smaller.

So the story now days is "everyone is leaving SS and moving to SF" (reasons unstated really, but it looks like the usual "follow the queue pops" routine) ... so.. why on earth do a server merge?

Just let human nature take it's course like it has for the last 6 years... and by spring of next year SS will be a ghost town and they can just shut it down, scrape out whoever is left there and move them. Done.

Lol the reasons don't really have to be stated sweaty, but I guess I'll bite.

• With BW moving the west coast data center to the east coast, they alienated a lot of west coast players and the little bit of APAC players that still played this game. This hurt post-Harb and made SF the bigger server.
• People see no reason to stay on SS since it's now like an east coast server like SF, only smaller (and dying each and every day). Better to just hop on SF where most of the east coast and RP players are anyway, thus making the server much bigger.
• SF is becoming the newest server for dead server refugees. It's basically like another Fatman. SS is dying and no one wants to play on a quiet server in an MMO.
• A lot of the PvP talent from SS started noticing the dying pops on the server so they all migrated to SF or DM.

They should just merge already. No one should have to pay 1k cc to transfer each and every toon in their legacy to SF, and it sends a bad message to leave dead servers open for new players who are trying out the game. This is literally the dead servers debacle from 2014-2017 all over again.

I wouldn't call it dead, yet. I was pvp'ing on both servers. Started early on SF 'round 6pm pst and switched about 9pm pst and it seemed both server queues were popping about the same. Check out the French server if you want to see dead.

Anyhow, EA will do what EA does.

I don't doubt that the decision not to have a server located on the West Coast alienated APAC players (and others), but I don't think that is why Star Forge emerged as the more populated server. I have characters on both Star Forge and Satele Shan and Star Forge seemed to have a larger population from Day 1.

The reason for that I think was that while Harbinger had been the most populated server in North America, it was really the only server on the West Coast with any population of note. The rest were dead or dying. In contrast Ebon Hawk was not far behind Harbinger in population at merger and both Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant, while far from being as active as they used to be, still had somewhat more viable populations than any of the West Coast servers except Harbinger.

Star Forge emerged as the server with the heaviest population because there were more players on East Coast servers, they were just spread out between three servers prior to merge, unlike the West Coast servers where most had already consolidated on Harbinger.

I don't think your reasons for a server merge are in the same league as the reasons against it.

Namely the sole few proponents of a one single North American server are Satele Shan ranked PVP players who have no one to play with after Bioware took action against the widespread wintrading and external exploits still taking place FIVE YEARS INTO game's official lifespan.

Given Bioware's underhanded nature of last year's server merge - which saw the company wait to till the very last moment to notify players of their plans to merge their West Coast servers (which also served AIPAC) into a singular East Coast server along with lumping Shadowlands and Jedi Covenent onto RP-dominant Ebon Hawk... one could see how Star Forge players and more than a few Satele Shan players would be apprehensive against any more merges.

When are you merger activists going to learn that merging is never going to be a magic population fix? You are looking at this from one perspective and ignoring all repercussions that come with it. I never advocated for a merge in the past. NOT ONCE. I am almost certain that merging has only hurt the game in the long run. Every time it happens at least one player demographic is alienated. Short term solutions which have long term consequences is not the way to go.

Free transfers are the solution.

Nope. We need to avoid free or cheap transfers. The latter was provided in the past and it allowed the small pool that regularly plays ranked to incessantly wintrade and exploit on dead servers for years. Just merge already. SF is the only and barely viable server in NA at this point.

Sorry, but I disagree. SS is by no means a dead server, and I don't feel the need to move or get forced to move to SF because some feel a merger is needed. They can always transfer themselves if they feel that the population isn't enough for them. Lets face it all they need to transfer is 1 character for the legacy. Just level any others you need since leveling is a joke now.

The endgame PvP'ers and PvE'ers who play on that server would disagree with you on that, especially those that were forced to play an exorbitant amount of CC to transfer their toons to SF or DM for ranked pops.