Isn't that the RP server? Yes we are aware of it, but does it even come close to the population size of Harb?

I just said it's the #2 NA server and the #1 East Coast server... given numbers people have actually reported on fleet and starter planets in the past, I'd say its activity is somewhere around 85% of Harbinger at least. But the point here is that you're saying there's no viable East Coast options but only mentioning Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant as options, which have SMALLER populations than Ebon Hawk. Your logic is flawed.

Compared to how populations were in the past with 100's of full and active guilds on most servers, IMO EA/SWTOR should give players the option to do a free merge in September to 5 servers once the kids go back to school, but such a move could be optional and only free to predetermined 5 servers to help focus populations. Make Transfer free for 3 months, on coupon per toon. Those that don't move would be free to keep their empty servers (in a perfect scenario for a while) but EA could monitor and dial thier systems back to save on resource costs.

A simple way to move Guild Ships and Guild Strong hold decos is refund the cost to the Guild master post move. Allow the Guild Master to pickup the Guild's one of a kind decos back to their personal cargo that moves using a few toons.

The facts are this old game has to stay profitable to keep hosting so if we can get the quality of play better for the needs of the many for great 8m/16m RP HM/NiM & PvP & rewarding crafting or whatever you like to do, that could be extremely desirable.

WIN/WIN.

PS Anyone know how long SWTOR will remain a live game, 2018? 2019?

Way to garbage an otherwise productive discussion.

Think that actually happened many many pages ago.

A simple way to move Guild Ships and Guild Strong hold decos is refund the cost to the Guild master post move. Allow the Guild Master to pickup the Guild's one of a kind decos back to their personal cargo that moves using a few toons.

Sounds simple on paper, sure, but I REALLY don't think BW will "Refund" EVERY GM. I don't have an exact number on how many there are, but it just seems like an awful lot of work for everybody.

Sounds simple on paper, sure, but I REALLY don't think BW will "Refund" EVERY GM. I don't have an exact number on how many there are, but it just seems like an awful lot of work for everybody.

Also, just imagine the Charlie Foxtrot of a situation that would happen, as anyone who came back to the game after an absence could find that the GM crown dropped to some random person while they were gone, and that random person got 'refunded' all the costs of the flagship and stronghold decorations and expansions... and promptly ran off with their big pile of virtual money and rare decos into the sunset. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would cause a LOT of screaming from the people who actually donated those virtual monies and decorations in the first place.

Not to mention, how do you 'refund' guilds for the frameworks they either spent hours killing commanders for, or months grinding Conquest for, or crafted out of Dark Projects, or bought for millions off the GTN? The easiest way I suppose would be to just give them all the frameworks back, but then you still have the Charlie Foxtrot problem I mentioned earlier.

It's EA'S call on to refund Guild Ships or not, it's fair however since they cost so much, and once upon a time there was a forced merge before Guild Ships and Guild Strongholds. A GM Picking bound donated Deco's to move into their new server via a process like their personal cargo hold could be the easiest method. Perhaps make deco's bound so they can't be sold, but lets try not to get hung up on semantics.

The core issue is a longer term SWTOR game survival itself.

How would you determine one of a kind decorations. If they are still in the game but currently selling for millions, would they be one of a kind. What I would see happening in that scenario is everyone selling decos would double or triple their prices on the GTN to take advantage of the influx of cash to guilds trying to rebuild their decos. Refunding cash for decos is a flat out bad idea.

A lot of the decos I have you can't even buy them for any kind of money anymore. They're just not available. I agree, that refunding cash for decos is a terrible and unfair idea.

It's EA'S call on to refund Guild Ships or not, it's fair however since they cost so much, and once upon a time there was a forced merge before Guild Ships and Guild Strongholds. A GM Picking bound donated Deco's to move into their new server via a process like their personal cargo hold could be the easiest method. Perhaps make deco's bound so they can't be sold, but lets try not to get hung up on semantics.

 

The core issue is a longer term SWTOR game survival itself.

The real resistance to mergers revolves mainly around the potential loss of guild assets (mainly due to their cost and the length of time taken to accumulate them) so it is by far the most important issue to tackle before even attempting mergers. A bad merger experience would likely be much more costly in terms of game population that not merging at all.

Yeah harbinger is pretty bad

I currently play mostly on ebon hawk and it's a pretty good community.

Active population and though I don't RP i respect Thier RPness and we have a good server I do feel bad for servers like prophecy of the five that are like a zombie wasteland and think merges are needed

Also, just imagine the Charlie Foxtrot of a situation that would happen, as anyone who came back to the game after an absence could find that the GM crown dropped to some random person while they were gone, and that random person got 'refunded' all the costs of the flagship and stronghold decorations and expansions... and promptly ran off with their big pile of virtual money and rare decos into the sunset. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would cause a LOT of screaming from the people who actually donated those virtual monies and decorations in the first place.

 

Not to mention, how do you 'refund' guilds for the frameworks they either spent hours killing commanders for, or months grinding Conquest for, or crafted out of Dark Projects, or bought for millions off the GTN? The easiest way I suppose would be to just give them all the frameworks back, but then you still have the Charlie Foxtrot problem I mentioned earlier.

Oh, snap. I didn't even think about that!

Also, just imagine the Charlie Foxtrot of a situation that would happen, as anyone who came back to the game after an absence could find that the GM crown dropped to some random person while they were gone, and that random person got 'refunded' all the costs of the flagship and stronghold decorations and expansions... and promptly ran off with their big pile of virtual money and rare decos into the sunset. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would cause a LOT of screaming from the people who actually donated those virtual monies and decorations in the first place.

 

Not to mention, how do you 'refund' guilds for the frameworks they either spent hours killing commanders for, or months grinding Conquest for, or crafted out of Dark Projects, or bought for millions off the GTN? The easiest way I suppose would be to just give them all the frameworks back, but then you still have the Charlie Foxtrot problem I mentioned earlier.

Why refund anything? Just set it all up on the new server. At most, the only thing lost would be decos. Everything else could easily be duplicated.

EA --> Here is another idea:

Make a new special character slot for each GM, but it's not a normal RP player, you can only view and move/travel inside your guild resources and open banks if you even need too. The name of the Character would be an abbreviated guild name. This characters money would be the guild bank, this characters inventory and cargo would be the guild's lockers and be full of all the donated gear and everything. The characters ship would be the Guild Ship and the characters strongholds would be the Guild's Strongholds. The special character may/may not have auction or mail access to block abuse from rouge auctioning rare decos etc.

Then you use that SWTOR.COM Character to perform special functions like MOVE YOUR GUILD TO A NEW SERVER.

POST MOVE: The GM gest to rename Guild ships and set guild name one time for free.... Once you move that special character would go away.

In that way all the other guild ships and guild strongholds full of rare deco's just how you like them will stay as the guild has established them over the years.

Taking this one step farther is a if the GM does a server move the system emails a free move voucher to each member and the member can decide or not to move. If they execute the move, they get the normal warnings to clean up their mail and legacy banks, then they execute the move offline and then the game just pops that toon back into their old guild name on the new consolidated server so they just need to make thier freinds list again.

Why refund anything? Just set it all up on the new server. At most, the only thing lost would be decos. Everything else could easily be duplicated.

You realize that some decos literally cannot be replaced at this point, right? And many of those that still can cost ten or hundreds of millions of credits on the GTN? You're acting like that would be a simple and painless solution, but it's not.

All deco's and authorizations to open guild ship floors and guild strongholds are stored in metadata that could be copied on the back end like when you move yourself to a new server, you don't loose money or cargo (decos) if you know what your doing.

If it was that simple, then why didn't BW do that the first two times?

You realize that some decos literally cannot be replaced at this point, right? And many of those that still can cost ten or hundreds of millions of credits on the GTN? You're acting like that would be a simple and painless solution, but it's not.

It's a cosmetic item. I understand players attachments to them, but I fail to see how any decoration should ever get in the way of doing what is right for this game. Having a dozen literally dead servers is unhealthy and needs to be addressed. Leaving those servers open does more harm than good.

It's a cosmetic item. I understand players attachments to them, but I fail to see how any decoration should ever get in the way of doing what is right for this game. Having a dozen literally dead servers is unhealthy and needs to be addressed. Leaving those servers open does more harm than good.

Some of those "cosmetic items" had a real dollar cost not to mention the time invested in obtaining them. A lot of people for mergers seem to be of the opinion that what is best for them is best for everyone. There are in fact wrong in that assessment.

It's a cosmetic item. I understand players attachments to them, but I fail to see how any decoration should ever get in the way of doing what is right for this game. Having a dozen literally dead servers is unhealthy and needs to be addressed. Leaving those servers open does more harm than good.

How about we ask all the PvPers to lose their PvP ratings, valor levels, titles, and achievements during a merge in the bargain? That's all 'just cosmetic', right? They don't actually affect anything in game, right? So surely that shouldn't stand in the way of mergers either...

Yeah, I doubt they'd be willing to do that. Just because something isn't important to you doesn't mean it's not important to other people--especially when a lot of the decorations in question were obtained via spending REAL MONEY on the Cartel Market to buy gamble packs and theme packs. Don't tell me my real money investment in a game isn't important. Don't tell me my time investment in a game isn't important either.

You realize that some decos literally cannot be replaced at this point, right? And many of those that still can cost ten or hundreds of millions of credits on the GTN? You're acting like that would be a simple and painless solution, but it's not.

There is an old quote that applies to tech too:

"In War, all things are simple. But, individually, the simple things are hard to do."

The overall process is simple: Backup up the guild sections of each servers database, merge, then restore the guild section of each (old) servers individual DB into the new merged DB.

The complication is that the guild identifiers for each server are probably not universally unique, only unique for that individual server. So, you would have to create a unique ID for each server, apply it to existing guilds on each server, Backup, then run the restore process on the merged server DB.

The process would be the same for every non-universal identifier for each existing server.

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There is an old quote that applies to tech too:

"In War, all things are simple. But, individually, the simple things are hard to do."

 

The overall process is simple: Backup up the guild sections of each servers database, merge, then restore the guild section of each (old) servers individual DB into the new merged DB.

 

The complication is that the guild identifiers for each server are probably not universally unique, only unique for that individual server. So, you would have to create a unique ID for each server, apply it to existing guilds on each server, Backup, then run the restore process on the merged server DB.

 

The process would be the same for every non-universal identifier for each existing server.

 

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Once again, if it were truly that simple, then why did BW not do that during the previous two serer merges, when it was only guilds and guild banks involved and consequently, there were far fewer "unique non-universal identifiers" involved?

Some of those "cosmetic items" had a real dollar cost not to mention the time invested in obtaining them. A lot of people for mergers seem to be of the opinion that what is best for them is best for everyone. There are in fact wrong in that assessment.

What is something that had an actual dollar amount to buy?? Name some of those things that you bought with real money, that you think will be lost. You've got me perplexed as to what on earth it could be...

And stop with that stupid lie. I'm thinking about what is best for the GAME, not myself. DEAD servers are a cancer...they need to be removed. They do actual HARM.

What is something that had an actual dollar amount to buy?? Name some of those things that you bought with real money, that you think will be lost. You've got me perplexed as to what on earth it could be...

 

And stop with that stupid lie. I'm thinking about what is best for the GAME, not myself. DEAD servers are a cancer...they need to be removed. They do actual HARM.

Any deco that came out of the cartel market cost CCs (cartel packs, direct purchases) which cost real money. The definition of DEAD is the problem. JC, Shadowlands, Ebon Hawk, Harbinger and even Begeren Colony (sorry if I misspelled it) are not dead. The PVP servers are dead.

As to an Example: "Jace Malcom Commemorative Statue" came out of a cartel pack which cost CCs and thus real money

How about we ask all the PvPers to lose their PvP ratings, valor levels, titles, and achievements during a merge in the bargain? That's all 'just cosmetic', right? They don't actually affect anything in game, right? So surely that shouldn't stand in the way of mergers either...

Decos can be replaced. Players can't.