The problem is that is a big IF. Merging server databases is not like cutting and pasting an excel spreadsheet. There are a lot of things that can go wrong and that is the concern. Imagine if someone said, when you enter this area there is a 99% change you won't lose all your rating 248 gear and you happen to be in the 1% that does. Then someone says, well, don't worry about that you can just re-grind for it. And oh by the way, your command rank was also set to 0 so you have to start at Tier 1 again too. You would be one very unhappy camper wouldn't you.

 

That is the kind of issue that losing personal assets is. Imagine that multiplied by 100 for guilds. My guild unlocked most of its flagship with the schematics or encryptions (I don't recall which it is) that we got for finishing in the top 10 in Conquest for many months (that is a tremendous amount of work for a relatively small guild). In a merged server situation we would have no chance of repeating that and would have to grind out the billions of credits it would take if the flagship did not transfer. That is just a tiny part of what guilds could lose. Add in guild strongholds expanded with credits and all the decorations in them and the cost to guilds becomes astronomical. That is why story players, who tend to be in guilds, are so afraid of server mergers.

 

These are issues that could be worked out but as far as anyone knows right now, the problems from the last server merge still exist and are compounded by the vastness of guild assets now.

Well in context of this thread how many people exactly are even implying/stating we should merge regardless of issues with losing personal/guild items, names etc.?

As I see it there are those wanting merges not knowing there are these issues and those that want merges on the condition they are fixed. I can't recall anyone actually being pro merge regardless of the issue? At least no one putting forward a serious discussion point.

Now that being the case and assuming everyone is on the same page around "don't merge until you can fix this" ... why does it kept being brought up?

I think bringing it up once for Bioware to see is all fine and well but some people bring it up every single time anyone says anything to do with merging as though the person who was pro merge did indeed want to merge regardless.

I think that point has been done to death now - don't merge until technical issues are fixed - got it. Now to actually further discussion what more is there than that?

Latency issues if merging between different geo locations - weigh that up against the point you would actually get a much better experience from easier finding group activity (latency isn't a huge deal unless you are talking 300+ for most solo content I've found as an apac player)

The other issue that comes to mind is what to do about the RP players being able to RP if they did indeed end up on a mega server... is this a storm in a tea cup and wouldn't really be that much of an issue at all? Would separate RP instances help? More active moderation.

I think once the technical issues are solved and something could be done about RP is there really that much harm in one server per coast?

I

If BW finds that the cost of merging them is too high, then on the server selection screen they could label low population servers as such and put them at the bottom of the heap with a nice little dividing line from the remaining 3 American servers: Harb, a JC-SL merge, and Ebon Hawk.

They could label those old PVP servers low population and put them at the bottom of the heap, with a nice little dividing line from the remaining 4 American servers: Harbinger, Jedi Covenant, Shadowlands and Ebon Hawk.

There is no reason to merge Jedi Covenant and Shadowlands. Even in this thread, there are plenty of people who are very happy on those servers and have no trouble doing most group content. There are even guilds running ranked PVP teams, and OPS.

Or if they find that having such low populations servers don't justify the cost of maintaining them, they could merge the low pop servers at BW's convenience. It's not reasonable to expect a company to maintain a server that's operating at single digit capacity.

Only BW knows the cost of maintaining their servers. If BW does not feel that the cost of maintaining such low population servers justifies the negative impact that merging those servers would have on the players on those servers, then I see no reason to merge them.

Label those "dead" old PVP servers as "very low population" and add a confirmation box so that anyone choosing to play on those servers knows what they are getting into when they choose those servers.

It wasn't the story people that picked up and jetted off, it was the raiders when they went 2 years without a raid. Gear is their goal and when they were done and there were no new raids to get things they left.

You do realize you have absolutely no data to support that view right? Also if you are right and we look at the player numbers when there were new raids you are basically saying we should focus far more heavily on raiding instead of story right? I mean because that's a really large dip in player number you are talking about over 2 years and if all those players were raiders leaving then clearly raiding is far more popular than story?

Not that I believe this at all, I believe balance is key but I needed to point out how unsubstantiated your comment is and how nonsensical it becomes if we turn it around to say raiding is therefore more popular.

Truth is people left in drovers over the past 2 years because there wasn't enough fresh content to keep them interested long term. Key word being content - Group,solo/story whatever - content.

I can't see how you can call story players that are altholics as a minority, where are your numbers?

Believe it or not I wrote the above before reading that line. Now I'm laughing .... where are your numbers to support your statement? Why ask someone else for numbers in the same post you make an equally unprovable statement that has to do with numbers?

for merges where none are needed.

That is subjective. You say they aren't needed for how you play the game but for anoher player they are needed to help boost population for him/her to group with. Only really BWA know if it's actually need to help grow the game/keep it alive even though I personally lean towards this view.

I refuse to lose billions of in game credits and real life US dollars just because people want a queue pop in under 2 minutes....

Who is saying this? I called you on that strawman nonsense when you tried it on me and you neglected to follow that part up so why are you trying it again? Cut the sensationalism - no one wants you to lose billions so servers can merge (well I'm sure someone wouldn't care but that's the true minority here).

people who won't even give up their 90CC they get free to transfer themselves.

The point you are missing is even on the most populated servers queue times are growing - simple transfers won't solve that hence merges.

Well I don't think EH merged to Harb would ever be a good idea until the game is all but dead due to latency issues that would cause to the server's ex players being consumed.

 

In saying that imagine a EH merge to all east coast servers where you lose nothing and they address the issues around people ruining RP somehow (which is still an issue right now if people so choose to do so on those RP servers) ... if that could be done then server merges are almost a no brainer positive for all concerned.

Since we're imagining a fantasy world, imagine a world in which everyone could fly under their own power. imagine a world in which everyone was force sensitive. Imagine a world in which no one ever had to work, ever got sick, or ever had a bad day.

I could go on, but fantasy is not reality, no matter much some people might wish it were.

There is no reason to merge Jedi Covenant and Shadowlands.

That's not true at all - better queue times, more social interaction, better GTN market are a reasons I can think of.

The unknown in this thread is how do people who aren't subbed or aren't view merges? Would they return? Would they sub? None of us know and yet that's probably the most important aspect to BWA because obviously if those few of us who sub and happen to be on the forums are majority happy as we are because we are happy to sub for the game but what about the others?

Ballpark figures if merging lost 5% of players and gained 15% ... smart business dictates merge away ... likewise it could be the other way around in which case avoid merging like the plague.

Only BW knows the cost of maintaining their servers. If BW does not feel that the cost of maintaining such low population servers justifies the negative impact that merging those servers would have on the players on those servers, then I see no reason to merge them.

I personally believe the cost is minimal as the servers are no doubt co-located in the same location on the same coast. The hardware already exists, data usage already pays for itself (the more players consuming data the more revenue from said players *hopefully*. This is why I assume they've never cared about merging from a cost perspective and at this time it would have to come down to what benefit would it bring them in regards to attracting more people to stay in the game (or the reverse).

Label those "dead" old PVP servers as "very low population" and add a confirmation box so that anyone choosing to play on those servers knows what they are getting into when they choose those servers.

If you want down that path I would think one time free transfers off the server per toon also just to returning palyers could clear off them easily - also keep working on the whole guild transfer issue etc. since one day things will merge and might as well get a head start on it.

Since we're imagining a fantasy world, imagine a world in which everyone could fly under their own power. imagine a world in which everyone was force sensitive. Imagine a world in which no one ever had to work, ever got sick, or ever had a bad day.

 

I could go on, but fantasy is not reality, no matter much some people might wish it were.

Hey if the only issue is the technical points and you've made that point numerous times ... why continue to go on and on about it? We get it already ...

Well in context of this thread how many people exactly are even implying/stating we should merge regardless of issues with losing personal/guild items, names etc.?

 

As I see it there are those wanting merges not knowing there are these issues and those that want merges on the condition they are fixed. I can't recall anyone actually being pro merge regardless of the issue? At least no one putting forward a serious discussion point.

 

Now that being the case and assuming everyone is on the same page around "don't merge until you can fix this" ... why does it kept being brought up?

 

I think bringing it up once for Bioware to see is all fine and well but some people bring it up every single time anyone says anything to do with merging as though the person who was pro merge did indeed want to merge regardless.

 

I think that point has been done to death now - don't merge until technical issues are fixed - got it. Now to actually further discussion what more is there than that?

Latency issues if merging between different geo locations - weigh that up against the point you would actually get a much better experience from easier finding group activity (latency isn't a huge deal unless you are talking 300+ for most solo content I've found as an apac player)

The other issue that comes to mind is what to do about the RP players being able to RP if they did indeed end up on a mega server... is this a storm in a tea cup and wouldn't really be that much of an issue at all? Would separate RP instances help? More active moderation.

 

I think once the technical issues are solved and something could be done about RP is there really that much harm in one server per coast?

 

 

 

I

I'm not going to go back and read through every post in this thread, but there have been posters who have basically said "So what if people lose some things." or "I would support a merge of servers 'X' and 'Y', but ONLY if server 'Y" is the destination server". Why do you think they put that condition in there?

One reason why people keep bringing up all the issues surrounding server merges might well be to keep them visible and not have them get buried under all the repetitive "Merge servers NOW!!!!! I NEED more LFG fodder!!!!!!" demands.

I think the "merge servers" point has been done to death, but people still keep bringing it up.

Those who have concerns regarding server merges have just as much right to keep bringing up those concerns.

Hey if the only issue is the technical points and you've made that point numerous times ... why continue to go on and on about it? We get it already ...

Yours is not the first post in which someone has basically said "Imagine if everything were sunshine and roses and server merges went perfectly and no one lost anything or was negatively impacted in any way. Wouldn't you want to join the sunshine and roses parade?" People can imagine all they want, but ultimately reality is a far cry from those fantasy imaginations.

Those technical points are not the only concerns held by those who oppose server merges, but they are high on the list of concerns. There have been other concerns raised in this thread and all the other spam "merge servers" threads, but I'm not going to back to quote them so that those in favor of merging servers can just ignore them or dismiss them again. Anyone truly wishing to acknowledge those other concerns can go back and read them for themselves.

Why continue to go on and on about merging servers? People have made their points numerous times. We get it already.

Well in context of this thread how many people exactly are even implying/stating we should merge regardless of issues with losing personal/guild items, names etc.?

 

As I see it there are those wanting merges not knowing there are these issues and those that want merges on the condition they are fixed. I can't recall anyone actually being pro merge regardless of the issue? At least no one putting forward a serious discussion point.

 

Now that being the case and assuming everyone is on the same page around "don't merge until you can fix this" ... why does it kept being brought up?

 

I think bringing it up once for Bioware to see is all fine and well but some people bring it up every single time anyone says anything to do with merging as though the person who was pro merge did indeed want to merge regardless.

 

I think that point has been done to death now - don't merge until technical issues are fixed - got it. Now to actually further discussion what more is there than that?

Latency issues if merging between different geo locations - weigh that up against the point you would actually get a much better experience from easier finding group activity (latency isn't a huge deal unless you are talking 300+ for most solo content I've found as an apac player)

The other issue that comes to mind is what to do about the RP players being able to RP if they did indeed end up on a mega server... is this a storm in a tea cup and wouldn't really be that much of an issue at all? Would separate RP instances help? More active moderation.

 

I think once the technical issues are solved and something could be done about RP is there really that much harm in one server per coast?

 

 

 

I

Agreed, no server mergers until the technical issues can be resolved.

As far as latency goes, you would need one server on the West coast to cover the APAC players otherwise their latency would go over 250 ms. Since I have an 80 ms latency from the midwest to West coast I would guess east coast to west coast would be about 100-120 ms. That could be manageable but could also impact PVP (16 man raids might also be affected) if the latency spikes for some reason. It might be better to have east and west coast servers. That is also making the assumption that the server used is upgraded sufficiently to avoid any "Too Many Instruction" errors from increased traffic. At this point I would assume that there is sufficient input bandwidth on existing servers to handle the traffic but that would have to be looked at too. Alternatively, you could have an RP server on the east coast and the main PVE server on the west coast.

As for RP, at a minimum I think they would need some kind of restricted chat to keep out the chat spammers (my favorite is the person who posts hundreds of spaces constantly so you can't read what's in the chat window). The other issue is the abilities that override character control (like the dance bomb, tinsel bomb, snowball cannon, etc). If you had an RP instance I suppose you could make items like that not work in that instance but that would prevent the RPers from using them. I only rarely RP on Ebon Hawk so I'm not really an expert on what constitutes interference. Someone from there would probably be able to give you more examples. More active moderation overall, especially hotspots like fleet and DK could help, especially if the penalties are applied swiftly and publicly (I know Bioware/EA do not like shaming but it might be the most effective way to deter those that might think about causing problems but hadn't yet). Really moderation would help for all the servers.

That's not true at all - better queue times, more social interaction, better GTN market are a reasons I can think of.

 

The unknown in this thread is how do people who aren't subbed or aren't view merges? Would they return? Would they sub? None of us know and yet that's probably the most important aspect to BWA because obviously if those few of us who sub and happen to be on the forums are majority happy as we are because we are happy to sub for the game but what about the others?

 

Ballpark figures if merging lost 5% of players and gained 15% ... smart business dictates merge away ... likewise it could be the other way around in which case avoid merging like the plague.

While I understand the concerns that some have expressed regarding people who are not even playing this game who MIGHT POSSIBLY decide to try (or return to) this game, I think BW should be concerned with those who ARE playing this game NOW, not with some Tom, Dick or Harry who MIGHT play someday in the undetermined future.

I personally believe the cost is minimal as the servers are no doubt co-located in the same location on the same coast. The hardware already exists, data usage already pays for itself (the more players consuming data the more revenue from said players *hopefully*. This is why I assume they've never cared about merging from a cost perspective and at this time it would have to come down to what benefit would it bring them in regards to attracting more people to stay in the game (or the reverse).

I also believe the cost to maintain those "dead" old PVP servers is minimal, which I why I think the best solution regarding those servers is to label them as "very low population" and to make those players acknowledge that they understand they are choosing to create characters on a "very low population" server. This would mean that those players choosing to remain on those servers would not lose anything or be negatively impacted, unless they chose to be.

If you want down that path I would think one time free transfers off the server per toon also just to returning palyers could clear off them easily - also keep working on the whole guild transfer issue etc. since one day things will merge and might as well get a head start on it.

I'm against free transfers, but if you want to go down that road, then a one time free transfer for every character created before "X date" (whatever date BW wants to set) would be a much fairer way to go. I see no reason why Johnny should have to pay 90 CC per character to move from the cesspool that is Harbinger to a server with a more respectful community, but Billy can transfer from Bastion to Harbinger for free.

Even if BW were to do that, I doubt that we would see a massive migration of players. Many of those remaining on their current server are there by choice, whatever the reasons for that choice might be. Some simply prefer not to be on an overcrowded cesspool of a server. Others do not want to transfer and lose any personal or guild assets.

I highly doubt that free transfers are going to make Johnny suddenly want to play on an overcrowded cesspool of a server or make Billy suddenly be willing to move and lose his guild with all of its guild assets, not to mention all his personal assets.

I'm not going to go back and read through every post in this thread, but there have been posters who have basically said "So what if people lose some things."

Well I've seen none so it certainly isn't a majority view, certainly not one to seemingly get worked up over as though everyone who is pro merge supports such a view as some would seem to be doing.

or "I would support a merge of servers 'X' and 'Y', but ONLY if server 'Y" is the destination server". Why do you think they put that condition in there?

 

One reason why people keep bringing up all the issues surrounding server merges might well be to keep them visible and not have them get buried under all the repetitive "Merge servers NOW!!!!! I NEED more LFG fodder!!!!!!" demands.

Buried under the posts you can't actually quote and thus must be quite rare? Wow, must be a landslide ...

Or instead bury reasoned discussion under sensationalist claims of how no one cares about people losing their stuff?

I think the "merge servers" point has been done to death, but people still keep bringing it up.

Might be because ...

Just wanna pop in and say, keep the feedback coming! The team has been actively discussing the thread and we appreciate everyone's viewpoints. For the most part the thread has been constructive and devoid of personal attacks, keep that coming!

It would be nice to keep following that constructive part though instead of what is becoming a tired strawman argument of "but our stuffs will be gone" as though everyone in favor of a merge supports people losing their stuff (they don't)

Those technical points are not the only concerns held by those who oppose server merges, but they are high on the list of concerns. There have been other concerns raised in this thread and all the other spam "merge servers" threads, but I'm not going to back to quote them so that those in favor of merging servers can just ignore them or dismiss them again. Anyone truly wishing to acknowledge those other concerns can go back and read them for themselves.

Then let's hear these other concerns. If you don't have any that's fine - your stance on the technical issues has been made perfectly clear. Eric posted in THIS thread for continued constructive discussion so not sure why anyone would need to go read other threads for someone to make a point that hasn't been made here?

Why continue to go on and on about merging servers? People have made their points numerous times. We get it already.

Because Bioware are actively discussing merges and in particular noted this thread for people to continue to discuss?

I'm more curious if it's been done to death and everything that's been said has been said before and you are aware of all this ... why are you here posting? Had you not made your point in those other threads that people should supposedly go and read?

As far as latency goes, you would need one server on the West coast to cover the APAC players otherwise their latency would go over 250 ms. Since I have an 80 ms latency from the midwest to West coast I would guess east coast to west coast would be about 100-120 ms. That could be manageable but could also impact PVP (16 man raids might also be affected) if the latency spikes for some reason. It might be better to have east and west coast servers. That is also making the assumption that the server used is upgraded sufficiently to avoid any "Too Many Instruction" errors from increased traffic. At this point I would assume that there is sufficient input bandwidth on existing servers to handle the traffic but that would have to be looked at too. Alternatively, you could have an RP server on the east coast and the main PVE server on the west coast.

I agree 1 server per coast would have to be a minimum - no 1 mega server for the US.

I don't particularly want to play at 300ms if for whatever reason west merged into east and I'm sure there are people using the east servers who feel the same.

I think the servers themselves probably wouldn't struggle too greatly with current population simply because I'm of the opinion at it's peak servers like Harb housed more population than we have on the entire west coast right now anyway. I could be wrong and the other negative to be considered is if things were to pick back up it's not really that viable to just open a new server and move people off a super populated one to that one ...

As for RP, at a minimum I think they would need some kind of restricted chat to keep out the chat spammers (my favorite is the person who posts hundreds of spaces constantly so you can't read what's in the chat window). The other issue is the abilities that override character control (like the dance bomb, tinsel bomb, snowball cannon, etc). If you had an RP instance I suppose you could make items like that not work in that instance but that would prevent the RPers from using them. I only rarely RP on Ebon Hawk so I'm not really an expert on what constitutes interference. Someone from there would probably be able to give you more examples. More active moderation overall, especially hotspots like fleet and DK could help, especially if the penalties are applied swiftly and publicly (I know Bioware/EA do not like shaming but it might be the most effective way to deter those that might think about causing problems but hadn't yet). Really moderation would help for all the servers.

Yeah the chat concept should be global for everyone not just RP.

RP isntances without toys wouldn't work as RPers no doubt want to use them.

RP instances I think is a good idea with rules attached around behavior from there BWA could monitor reports and see what would be required in the monitoring and management of them. It's unlikely any sort of real time moderation would occur thus if a n RP session does get ruined not much can be done besides those players knowing that entire account is perhaps on a 30 day ban from any RP instance as a start and progressing punishments from there ...

I'm guessing with RP instances it's not really as much of a problem as some would lead us to believe and with visible enforcement I think it would be even less than what RPers put up with on RP servers now.

If BW finds that the cost of merging them is too high, then on the server selection screen they could label low population servers as such and put them at the bottom of the heap with a nice little dividing line from the remaining 3 American servers: Harb, a JC-SL merge, and Ebon Hawk.

 

Or if they find that having such low populations servers don't justify the cost of maintaining them, they could merge the low pop servers at BW's convenience. It's not reasonable to expect a company to maintain a server that's operating at single digit capacity.

Fair enough but what you propose with all the money spent on legacy cargo slots, as well as strong holds? I mean I personally don't make alot of money to spent millions upon millions unlocking strong holds all over again... I did it once because at the time I had no desire to move servers. It was only after I came into CM stuff that I couldn't sell when I made the hard decision to jump onto a high pop server. I really don't think it's fair for those of us on the low pop servers to have to completely rebuy everything we had simply because BW deems low pop servers unreasonable. Do you think that's fair to drop 10 mil on one of the strongholds to completely unlock, where it took you quite awhile to save that much money in the first place because lets face it, unless you are farming CONSTANTLY, the economy of said servers is non-existant.

Well I've seen none so it certainly isn't a majority view, certainly not one to seemingly get worked up over as though everyone who is pro merge supports such a view as some would seem to be doing.

 

 

 

 

Buried under the posts you can't actually quote and thus must be quite rare? Wow, must be a landslide ...

Or instead bury reasoned discussion under sensationalist claims of how no one cares about people losing their stuff?

 

 

 

Might be because ...

 

 

 

It would be nice to keep following that constructive part though instead of what is becoming a tired strawman argument of "but our stuffs will be gone" as though everyone in favor of a merge supports people losing their stuff (they don't)

And ALL of the concerns people have regarding server merges are part of that feedback.

Feedback is not limited only to "merge servers" support.

While I understand the concerns that some have expressed regarding people who are not even playing this game who MIGHT POSSIBLY decide to try (or return to) this game, I think BW should be concerned with those who ARE playing this game NOW, not with some Tom, Dick or Harry who MIGHT play someday in the undetermined future.

On the contrary, I think they should definitely be concerned about those not currently playing the game.

All signs point towards a decreasing population so that needs to be turned around, if that means you lose a few to gain many then so be it. Only they know the true metrics of course but there is no real argument to be had that population hasn't declined these past 6-12 months imo.

I'm against free transfers, but if you want to go down that road, then a one time free transfer for every character created before "X date" (whatever date BW wants to set) would be a much fairer way to go. I see no reason why Johnny should have to pay 90 CC per character to move from the cesspool that is Harbinger to a server with a more respectful community, but Billy can transfer from Bastion to Harbinger for free.

Because if they are dubbing those servers low population per your point above then that is a reason why it would be free and how it would differ.

An admission that those servers do not meet BWA's expectation of a full MMO experience to those that had previously (or currently) play on them and thus a free one time one way transfer to a server that of their choice that does meet the criteria for that experience.

I guess when you describe Harbinger as a cesspool it is subjective and also depending on what makes your experience that way there are things that can be done about it (ignore for example) for free where as there is nothing you can do about running an operation on a dead server if you don't have 8 people to run it with thus you are entirely prevented from experiencing a paid feature of the game without having to pay more just to go somewhere where it becomes possible.

Even if BW were to do that, I doubt that we would see a massive migration of players. Many of those remaining on their current server are there by choice, whatever the reasons for that choice might be. Some simply prefer not to be on an overcrowded cesspool of a server. Others do not want to transfer and lose any personal or guild assets.

Probably not in one rush but over time it might be enough to draw players back at no real cost to the other servers. There would of course have to be consideration given to farming bots but as long as it's "created before X date" that would stop them constantly making new account to farm dead servers then transfer to sell. At the very least it would remove the "I'm stuck on X dead server lets merge" reasoning from the merge debate.

And ALL of the concerns people have regarding server merges are part of that feedback.

 

Feedback is not limited only to "merge servers" support.

All? I'm still waiting to hear more beyond "technical issues" ... from BWA's perspective they could solve that and everyone would be happy?

I noted a couple of others around latency that I personally believe prevents massive country wide mega server and something to help RP griefing/abuse (though it's an ingrained issue of the whole game that should be addressed and not just for RP players) that would also be for consideration.

Constructive discussion should be about as I see it "these are the problems - what are some ideas on how BWA could solve them" as opposed to just "merge anyway!" or "don't merge it's not needed!"

One of the main reasons I hated high pop servers was, everyone doing dailies runs around and snakes spawns/mission objectives that some of us engage mobs to get to. Just the other day I was doing a Nar Shadaa heroic daily and I was about to get a bonus objective when someone runs in right after I snagged a group of mobs, steals the node I was going to get and runs off like I was completely invisible. This kind of thing infuriates me, I will actually go out of my way to avoid nodes if I feel someone is also gunning for it out of shere kindness and respect. I'm very fair but when people do this to me in droves it makes me regret bothering to come to a high pop server. So what is your answer to that "Just suck it up" Why should I do that when I can do just fine on a low pop server where no one is competing for mission nodes or bonus objectives?

You are free to do that on a low pop server but just remember this is an MMO and it's enver designed so you can have an instance to yourself just to avoid that problem.

More to the point what can be done to help if/when merges do occur? The node could be locked to the person engaging the related mobs, smaller instances thus less people competing for the nodes ... couple of ideas anyway.

 

I'm guessing with RP instances it's not really as much of a problem as some would lead us to believe and with visible enforcement I think it would be even less than what RPers put up with on RP servers now.

RP is only one of those non-technical concerns that people have and it seems to me that you basically dismiss it as "not really much of a problem". That is my interpretation of what you wrote, though. Whether you meant it to come across that way, I cannot say.

I don't think they need to merge any servers - yet.

I do think they should give people a 1 time only free transfer for any character made prior to a particular date. This will allow everyone to move where they want. After X date, those characters need to pay the fee to transfer.

For queuing in group activity it should be no more pre-mades and limited to pairs for queuing. Additionally it should be cross-server. That way if someone wants to be on POT5, they will have the same chances to get a group pop as someone on Shadowlands or Harbinger.

Finally, if they do merge, they need to figure out some way to do the following:

- Merge or transfer guild assets

- Allow players a free pass to move if they don't like the destination server.

- Enable everyone to keep their names.

As much as I grew to hate STO, there was one thing that was great they did. Every name was (something)@Username. Since not username if the same, every name by default is different. So while it would be completely sad to have 300 Luke Skywalkers running around fleet, they would all be different names.

One of the main reasons I hated high pop servers was, everyone doing dailies runs around and snakes spawns/mission objectives that some of us engage mobs to get to. Just the other day I was doing a Nar Shadaa heroic daily and I was about to get a bonus objective when someone runs in right after I snagged a group of mobs, steals the node I was going to get and runs off like I was completely invisible. This kind of thing infuriates me, I will actually go out of my way to avoid nodes if I feel someone is also gunning for it out of shere kindness and respect. I'm very fair but when people do this to me in droves it makes me regret bothering to come to a high pop server. So what is your answer to that "Just suck it up" Why should I do that when I can do just fine on a low pop server where no one is competing for mission nodes or bonus objectives?

This is one of my biggest complaints too. As much as I hate instancing things like this need to be instanced or least allow you to meet the bonus missions in an instance if you choose.

Fair enough. That would get us through the summer and allow the populations to build back up in the fall before making the decision. Once the decision was made to merge servers, I'd expect another couple of months for the systems to be in place to do the mergers, so I see your point about not waiting on the decision, since right now it doesn't appear there is anything in progress on server merges (not really like flipping a switch so I would expect it would take some time). I would still like to see a test of those systems before merging larger servers like JC and Shadowlands (assuming their populations don't drastically plummet - which I don't expect but could happen).

If they were to offer the free legacy transfer option, they would have to have the base technical system in place to merge the accounts if you have a legacy on the destination server. That would mean they would be nearly setup for a merge of a whole server if it was required. So if they did determine there was a need after the free transfer option, it shouldn't take more than 3-4 weeks to prime the move. Most of the hardware is already in place, it would just need to be properly tested.

Just a thought, really just a twinkling of a thought regarding the possible loss of names..

We now have a system in place that allows a space between a name to essentially have two names, ie, Captain Kirk.

What if people who clash with and only have "one" name are offered the option to have two names?

It they already have a second name exactly the same, then add a possible a third space so they could have three. This would mean they could even do, James T Kirk.. of course Bio would need to change the name system to allow single letters. This could even be seen as a special reward.

The system would determine who logged in first and took advantage of the name change. If they do, then the second person with that name loses the option to change the name because they already have the name they wanted to protect.

Of course if there are more than 2 servers merged it might mean 2-4 people with the same name. In that case there would be a need for some other option, not sure what.

Another possibility is a special title that even shows up in chat so people can distinguish between people.

Remember this is just a brain fart and not fully fleshed out. I'm sure there are flaws, but also ways to make it better.

Please don't attack it out of hand or me for suggesting it.

I'll try to refine it and think of some other ideas. Maybe some of you guys could too. It might actually be fun and take away from some of the tension currently happening here.

One of the main reasons I hated high pop servers was, everyone doing dailies runs around and snakes spawns/mission objectives that some of us engage mobs to get to. ... So what is your answer to that "Just suck it up" Why should I do that when I can do just fine on a low pop server where no one is competing for mission nodes or bonus objectives?

Bugged me, too. I'm enjoying my time on Pot5. I played on JC for two years; then primarily SL for about a year and a half. Then, I started on Pot5, expecting to spend little time there. Instead, I've spent most of my time on Pot5 for the past year.

Label those "dead" old PVP servers as "very low population" and add a confirmation box so that anyone choosing to play on those servers knows what they are getting into when they choose those servers.

I like this idea. And, I think changing the server descriptions on both the ingame server selection screen, and the swtor.com server status page, needs to happen as soon as possible. Players should be able to know which is a RP server. With PVE/PvP instances, there's no longer any such thing as being a solely PvP versus a PVE rule set server.