What happened to COH?

I think the canned reply stands up pretty well, actually. That's why it continues to get thrown out when this sort of thing comes up. As to your critiques:

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Originally Posted by Frosticus 1-4 are just some dude's opinion. One shared by many I'm sure, just as I'm sure many would enjoy a more populated experience.

Not quite. They're problems with this notion. You are, however, correct that they're subjective assessments and/or statements of preference. However, the status quo is on the side of those against the server merge. Therefore, the onus is on those for the server merge to make a case that justifies superseding those preferences.

Imagine the reverse scenario, a game with one giant server and some players want to shard it into multiples for whatever reason - less lag, a greater value on the individual player, whatever. It's up to the people who want things changed to make their case as to why the apple cart should be overturned for all the people who like their game quite well as-is, thank you. Same thing here.

Despite being matters of preference, these aren't trivial concerns. If my primary servers were merged into others and I was forced to play on a Freedom-clone and/or lost many of my names, SG names and characters, then it would be difficult for me to maintain interest or enthusiasm for this game. That's one of the few things that I can honestly say would likely make me walk away from this game forever. And I suspect I'm not alone in that.

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Originally Posted by Frosticus If I can solve 5, 6 (with the assumption that bases could move) with about 2 seconds of thought I'm sure someone smarter than me could do it too.

Even leaving aside the Standard Code Rant, moving bases doesn't address the primary concern which is the naming issue. There isn't a good solution to this issue because it's an issue with the fundamental nature of the game's naming system. Captain Amazing (Triumph) and Captain Amazing (Pinnacle) can't both be Captain Amazing if the two servers were to be merged.

They'd have to either be forcibly renamed, take some kind of tag, or else add a number or other differentiating character. Even if we take the best possible scenario and postulate a newly designed system that allows both players to keep their names with some kind of hidden tag that isn't visible, now you've got other problems, like when I try to invite a given Captain Amazing to my TF. There's a bigger issue here than you're making it seem.

Since you're not contesting #7 I'll assume the canned reply speaks for itself.

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Originally Posted by Frosticus 8 - back to dudely's opinion 9 - neither freedom or virtue hit more than 2 dots last 2x xp event, hardware has been upgraded well enough to fulfill the task now. 10 - CoX has survived plenty of death knells around the community and has even weathered some bad PR as lately as i14. If a merge was determined to be the course of action it would work out better than if it was determined to be important and it wasn't done.

8 - And back to the onus is on the guy who wants things to change. Forcing a change like this is going to alienate some players. Probably lose some players. It's not a simple nor is it a straightforward undertaking. If there's not a damned compelling reason to do it, then the potential losses are likely going to outweigh the imagined gains. If the reason is that a larger pool of players is 'needed', there's plenty in the canned reply to debunk that. If no defensible justification for merger can be argued, then things should remain as they are.

9- Reply kind of misses the point. The point was that a server merger doesn't free up hardware because you still need the same hardware to handle the same traffic. Merging Liberty into Freedom doesn't free up more hardware because now you need more hardware on the Freedom server bank to support the folks from Liberty.

This combined with the fact that, as you pointed out, no server is critically underperforming from a hardware perspective, makes this pro-merger argument defunct.

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Originally Posted by Frosticus It hasn't been necessary to date and I think it is fair to see where the game stands after the dust settles. If it staves off CO it is pretty bullet proof, though CO seems to be doing everything it can to make that as easy as possible for CoX heh.

Chances are good that our game will weather CO and DCUO and whatever else just fine. Fans of the genre, who comprise a large share of our playerbase, will probably try some or all three of those games at one point or another, but the pendulum swings both ways: our players may try their games, but their players will likely try ours too. CO Devs swing a nerf hammer and we'll find our populations up, and so forth. At this juncture I think CO may end up being more a boon than a threat to CoX.

Unless our Devs do something crazy like a server merge.

I belong to two other gaming communities and these types of threads are very common. For some reason, some people feel the need to let eveyone else know that they are upset with some aspect of the game, so they create a thread in some fruitless attempt to convince others that the game is dieing. I say fruitless because the disscussion holds no purpose what so ever. Are they trying to get everyone to stand up and promote the game to gain subs? nope. They are unhappy and are facing the door but dont want to walk out by themselves.

One of the communities I belong to is a game that came onto the market in 2001. For 8-1/2 years now, you can bank on a weekly thread from a bitter player who is just upset at the developers because of game mechanics changes or lack of changes that suits their play style. So they make a thread to let everyone else know that they are P.O.'d. I point and laugh followed by a wave goodbye.

A very well-reasoned reply, thank you. I think you're a bit dismissive of the attachment people may have to their names, SG names, etc, but there's a large amount of subjectivity inherent in that issue. George may not mind going from Captain Amazing to Captain Amazing (Pin), but for John it might be a major irritant. I don't want to blow this too far out of proportion (i.e. I don't see this alone as grounds for a ragequit DOOM session), but I also don't feel that dismissing it out of hand as "complaining" is just.

Even more so for Supergroups - some might find "Justice 4 All" and "Justice For All" to be equivalent. Others might find them very different indeed. Personally I don't like using numbers in my words and I prefer to use complete and correctly spelled words. I'd prefer my SG name to reflect that and it would bother me if it didn't. Enough to quit the game? Probably not, in my case, but especially in a game that has being able to individualize oneself as a prime selling feature, I don't think character or SG name issues can be waved away as inconsequential. I'm aware that for some players they are just that, but for others they are a vitally important part of the game experience.

And to take up your factory analogy, you're assuming that the two factories are producing identical products. If Factory A produces Hero-Os and Factory B produces Ascendant-Os, then shutting down one and consolidating assets also means losing whoever was a dedicated consumer of Factory B's Ascendant-Os. Maybe down the line Factory A will develop it's own version of Ascendant-Os, but will the people burned by the loss of their favorite cereal be willing to try a new flavor? That's a bit strained as analogies go, but there it is.

You brought up the distinct server cultures and yes, while a merged server would certainly develop its own culture (perhaps incorporating elements of the old servers and entirely new random elements), there's also something to be said for the communities we already have, communities which have existed for five years and are part of the core subscription base of this game. Toppling those pillars could be a calamitous move.

As for the Freedom-clone remark, I freely admit that was hyperbole to make a point.

Another point in your reply I'd take issue with is the phrasing "not yet necessary", the implication being that it will be necessary at some indeterminate point in the future. But as you said yourself in your discussion of the Standard Code Rant, we can't know what those conditions might be.

Obviously market forces are paramount, but can we really say definitively that there will come a point when it will clearly be economically advantageous for NCSoft to merge servers, despite the fallout such a move would certainly cause on the servers affected (i.e. does the money saved outweigh the money lost in cancelled subs?). Speaking hypothetically, yes, if such a time did come and conditions were thus, then a server merge would be called for. I just don't see it even on the horizon, not for years if ever.

I gotta say I agree with most of Forbin's Canned Points.

Most of my characters had a Name, Background Story, and Theme in mind before creation. It would piss me off extremely if I lost even one of my characters Names.

I, like most other SG Leaders, are most likely very fond of our Sg's as they are right now. I don't want my Name changed, I don't want to be Merged with another SG that has the same name, I most definately don't want to lose my SG. Either of these things again Piss me off extremely.

I play on Triumph, I've always played on Triumph. I like Triumph. I don't want to play on Triumph/Pinnacle or Pinnacle/Triumph. I would like to stay right where I'm at.

I can only speak from my own in game experience, and all of this is of coarse my opinion, and how I feel about this particular topic.

But I think alot of the points being so readily dismissed as "Opinion" may be a concern to more people than you think.

Sorry I didn't mean to actually use two different SG names it was supposed to be the same name twice just with the location indicator after the name. I really appreciate you reading well enough to pick that up, it is unusual

For player names it would look something like this.


Title
name
badge title
Super Group
Server

With font just as they are ingame relative to your name. Heck even make Server only appear on mouse over just like SG.

Considering how you can stack so many titles above and below your name as it currently stands I just don't see how one more would be the toppling point.

TBH I'd do it for everyone on every server regardless of merger status so that we get one step closer to cross server pvp! Plus if it is done for everyone then it adds the Johnson and Johnson no tears formula® to the mix

Starting to go in circles here, so I won't belabor this too much, but I wanted to respond to this bit:

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Originally Posted by Frosticus I realize the addition of another title under your name is scary for some people, but I think that one is going to happen relatively soon regardless of server merges. Castle has stated he is no where near finished with the pvp revamp and despite the horrid job done so far I'm confident he realizes how important cross-server pvp will be if that area of the game ever hopes to grow. The question is: if I told you that you don't have to lose your name, your sg name, or anything else that you've grown accustom to would you still be afraid? It is just as true as saying you would because neither is known with absolute certainty and that is why putting those things on the list is imo in pretty poor taste.

While I recognize that this is an area where fearmongering tactics and DOOMcrying are common on both sides, I think you're being unfair in your characterization here. Yes, we don't know how they'd do a server merger, if they did a server merger, but these name concerns aren't conjured out of thin air as a fearmongering tactic. Perhaps it could be phrased better in Bill's canned speech, but I think the point is that as it currently exists, the naming system for both characters and SGs presents serious impediments to a server merge.

If a poster were to say "merge the servers now!", those would be perfectly valid counterarguments as to why the Devs should not do so (even if it were in all other respects advisable, which is an issue in itself). Stating these things as though they would happen is perfectly acceptable in that context, because without further Dev changes to the way names work (such as the title you mention, for one), that is just what would happen. I really don't see it as a fearmongering tactic but more as a way of making very clear what the realities of the situation are as of now, albeit a somewhat dramatic one, so as to make it obvious how complex the situation is (rather than being a 'simple' matter of collapsing the servers, BAM! and done).

This is a natural concern based on the way names are known to work in the game as it stands now. Names are saved by server, as are SG names. Most seasoned players know this. It's only natural to be concerned as to what happens if two servers collapse into one or if a server gets absorbed into another. And this isn't even getting into character slots - some people already have a full 36 on multiple servers. Granted, that's probably an easier fix (you just allow more total slots per server as part of the same package as the merge), but that doesn't make it a specious or hyped-up point.

To put it another way: of course no one knows for sure that people would lose names / SG names / characters in a server merge, but people do know how things are now and voicing issues like these can only help to ensure that they are addressed if such a merger ever occurs. Personally, I hope it's a very long time coming, if it ever does.

To the OP

There are alot of good games that recently came out also. I know I been playing Batman and RE5.

A while ago one of the devs mentioned the idea of a serverless environment - similar to CO, I think - but I seem tor ememebr he was taking about it more as a "what if we could find a way to do this" rater than a "we're seriously looking at this idea".