When will there be a "SERVER MERGE?"

How's about they don't have the tech quite ready yet?

Ugh. Honestly, I already took a risk, and I got screwed. One of my guildmates has transferred servers three times. We're all done taking risks here, and we're tired of re-rolling. We want assurances that the server populations will remain stable, and that can only be achieved through a) correctly modeling subscriptions and b) fixing bugs so people will actually want to stay.

I don't know who Daniel is, and he's never told me anything. If they want to communicate with people about GAME BREAKING ISSUES (yes, the magnitude of this problem warrants caps) they need to post something where we're actually going to see it.

When a dozen servers have queues over Christmas break you don't solve that problem by creating 100 new servers that will not be needed past January 4. Who does that??

I appreciate the fact that you're trying to share information and answer my questions, but you're not a BioWare employee. Why haven't there been any yellow posts regarding this issue? They're killing their own game by ignoring the mounting discontent on this issue. It doesn't make any sense.

Clearly it's been oversaid but,
I, too, will no longer be playing the game if no server merges/free character transfers become available before my paid game time ends. Not sure if I'd care enough to pick it back up if either happen afterward.... I just don't get to play all that often, so it takes me a very long time to level up, and doing it all again and again is, well... time consuming, tedious, and not all that fun. Warzones are my excitement but there aren't usually any happening on my server...well, none that aren't ending in 2 minutes if more people don't show, which, they never do.

I have a few characters on 2 servers, but one server is underpopulated, the other overpopulated! My friends seem to choose poorly, which servers to try. I've focused on the under because I've played there longer and won't wait to get into a server when I could get right in on another. How could they even Allow servers to get so populated that you can't log in? Shouldn't servers lock well Before they're overflowing? I probably just don't understand how these things work. But I digress...

I agree with those who say, as long as you enjoy your time in game, what does it matter if you're rerolling or constantly playing the 1-10, whatever. I did make one of everything at the start, to try them out, see what I liked best. But once I found it I kinda wanted to just stick with it...So I guess, I'm not enjoying my time anymore, not now, or if I have to reroll again.

My problem is it Does seem like a bit of a waste, to get a toon or several to 50, and then really never play those again, because the server is dead... I for one would always wish I'd just made them on a different server. I hate wasting time, it could be one of the most precious things we have, and so easy to throw away. I realize you have to just let these things go, if you did/do reroll, but... I guess everyone values their time in different ways.

Anyway. It's a rough situation. Play with friends on dying servers til they all leave and then you're stuck, wishing you'd rerolled sooner, but feeling it's too late to do so, and you've got one diehard who's bent on staying with their high level toons and you can't leave them, but you'd really rather give up altogether because it isn't fun anymore and you don't want to go on playing by yourself, switch to a new server just to find it either dies or fills and you have the same situation all over again!

Solution?
Each name can only be used once, out of every server, perhaps just within each "region"
Anyone can transfer to any server at any time, within their "region"
Your "guild" spans all servers within your "region" so if you transfer your toon to a different server you maintain the same guild name
((think of the "Servers" more as "channels" to this respect... and "region" more as "server"... so you're on the US region and you can pop between the various "channels" depending on which is a little light or heavy at any time of day! how nice!))
"Cap" or "lock" servers when they're "heavy" NOT "full" so there is never a wait time simply to log in! Tho, if the above transferring/naming/guild system were implemented, no one would need to worry about waiting for a server to open, because they could easily hop to a decently full but not overflowing server...

TL;DR: It was fun leveling my toons & pvping til my server's population withered away. I won't reroll because it's likely the Next server I choose will either meet the same fate, Or the opposite, which is equally undesirable. No hostility intended, but I simply don't Want to do it all over again. And again.

I already rerolled 3 times cause of this server problem.

And i want to see some progress about it from BioWare but they did not give any statement or information update about it. I'm angry.

Indeed. Rerolling is a short-term solution and is subject to the same whims of chance.

There need to be fewer servers, and merges between the servers.

That they "don't have the tech for it" makes me wonder if they either made a nosql storage system too complex, or just don't quite understand how their own storage system works, and that makes me worried.

Because, think about it, the only thing about the Legacy right now is a name and an amount of XP. Even after 1.2 they only give you the ability to tie in family trees among your own characters.

So if they're having this much trouble porting data to another server, I really have to scratch my head about what else they are having trouble with.

Obviously they have a limited ability to do so, as they are porting to the Public Test Server.

My server is pretty low population, but it at least isn't single-digit during prime time. However, even at max-50s at prime time, it is hard to get a group together and I rarely see Ops pugged. There's no new blood to fill the ranks of guilds, and things are getting quiet day by day.

Having cross-server warzones will delay the problem somewhat, but only a portion of the population digs PVP. Sometimes I wonder if they should have delayed a little bit more before releasing.

Again... I LIKE this game. I DON'T think it is going to die. I am not "doomsaying." Most of us think the subscriber numbers of this game are FINE! We just think they're too spread out! I agree there are too many negative threads on these forums but stop labeling this one as one of those, because this is constructive. It's not a "this game sucks, bye" thread.

And no it's not just a matter of "you chose a light one at launch" because many servers were standard or heavy at one point and became light later as people did what you suggest: reroll to more populated ones.

But rerolling DOESN'T fix the problem, as I stated before. It just makes it worse for the servers everyone rerolls from.

Please tell me that I dont need to explain to you that the vast majority of people who post on the forums only post here when they are unable to be in game, ie when they are at work/school? Or that they post while playing the game; ie during load screens or in between bg ques?

Given the option to reroll or unsub, I would unsub. The server loads and balancing is BW's folly and to expect player's to "start over" is simply unacceptable as a consumer.

For the record, I was lucky and rolled on a high pop server (Jedi Covenant).

In response to the few people who still think they need 'tech' to merge servers.

This isn't creating a hybrid out of two animals. It's copying a database with a condition on identical names in three fields. It's bandwidth and a little bit of code which, on the code side they already have most of what they need, they just have to set the conditions.

I've migrated immense code libraries and databases before, and I mean immense, we're talking telemetry modeling databases for advanced aircraft and simulation models for multiple types of aircraft along with the various testing scenarios built into the program we were migrating. All of which was home brew so there were no third party softwares to assist and I was migrating to unlike systems (solaris to linux) similar but not the same. When we were told it was needed, we shrugged and did it the next week.

This will be mildly more complicated and I mean that, mildly. Its not something that should take a month to 'figure out'. Transfers and ht eback end for individual character moves/choices is more complicated because of the interaction with the end user. Bulk shouldn't be nearly as complicated code wise.

i have a 2 month sub going, i have roughly 41 days. I am barely logging in anymore because it is no longer fun being the only one on in my guild. Have yet to do any ops, can barely get into wz. After my sub time is up if something has not been done, I am gone, it took me 3 months to get to 50 and i am damn sure not going to re-roll and lose all that i got on my character over this BS.