Merge the servers!
oh gosh here we go again....someone get the list out...
let me think about it......NO
With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better. Your thoughts... |
2. If teaming is an issue for you, you have until the end of the month to move servers.
My thoughts?
No
No
No
Hell No,
and...um...
oh yeah.....NO
Just because you have trouble teaming doesn't mean the rest of us do.
Also, the Search Feature is your friend.
Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes he get you, rips your head off, sucks out your eyes, pulls out your spleen, humps your leg and pees in your boots
There are a number of negatives to merging the servers and they outweigh any positives. I happen to like my server just the way it is, and lumping all the players together will send this game downhill in a hurry. It's one thing when a game starts out with just one server, but cramming all the players together will work about as well as it worked in Africa when numerous disparate tribes were lumped together into whole nations by European powers.
@Demobot
Also on Steam
Wow, is it that time of the month already?
Dr. Incedible, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't normally read the forums but this idea has been discussed many, many times and the general concensus amognst forumites is that it would be a bad idea. If you use the search feature you can probably find the last few threads on the subject (please don't necro them but they have the general arguments against it).
A rhetorical question (without a ?, even) does not make the topic appropriate to Player Questions.
The real question here seems to be "Is it that time of the month again?" to which the answer appears to be "looks like it is".
OP - no thank you.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
To save some time, I'll just copy/paste Memphis Bill's well used post on the subject...
Why server consolidation is not a good idea. Welcome to the forum. You have posted one of the oft repeated suggestions, "Consolidate the servers." Disclaimer Yes. This is a cut and paste reply that I keep handy, as well as a quick bit of instruction on how to search. Neither are meant to cause fights or to be insulting. The search instructions are in, not just because forum rules say flat out to search, but to help you and anyone else reading this use the search tool effectively. The body of the cut and paste reply is the way it is because we've seen these arguments numerous times before. They're a summary of the salient points that come up each time. They are not here to insult you, make you feel stupid or otherwise "bring you down a peg." Instead, they are meant as instruction and information. Please read through the points and the explanation behind them to see the issues that are commonly brought up in response. They may not always match your suggestion 100% - in fact, you may have explained around one or two of them - but they're there for consideration and refinement of your idea. Yes, I do look forward to the time, with some of these suggestions, that someone not only addresses all the points, but does so exceptionally well. It'll probably be added to the end of the cut/paste reply, with credit. For now, though, read and consider the points. They really are just there to help you, and move discussion along to help ideas evolve. If you're going to see this and say an "evil forum vet is just shooting down your idea," or "You think you're the last word because of your post count," you're wrong. Heck, if you say the second, you've just worried more about my post count than I have in the last four plus years. Tongue-in-cheek comments in here are meant as hummor, not put downs. TL,DR section. First, my stock answer, one which I stand by and repeat with all due fervor. HELL NO. Searching effectively 1. Click on "Search" up at the top of the forum. 2. On the left, under "Forum(s) to search," select "Suggestions and ideas." 3. On the right, Keyword Search Terms. This is probably where your problem was if you did search. Try the following, exactly as typed: +server -pvp -"re: " This will search for anything with "Server" in the title, including Servers, Combine Servers, Consolidate Servers, and The Server At Mcdonalds Is Rude. it will eliminate "PVP," so you won't see PVP server requests, and the -re: portion of it removes replies, so you'll see the root of every thread that comes up, letting you see just how many threads there are on this. (The last helps for other subjects, as well.) 4. Click the "In subject" radio button. This is a search, not a cute blonde in a bikini. Here, you want to ignore the body. 5. Leave Username Search blank. 6. Date range, Newer Than, change the 1 to a 3, and the time to Months. 7. Result format doesn't matter. Click on "Submit." As I try this now, (12/3/08,) we have: Consolidate Server Server Stats RSS Feed $server modifier ofr chat Fix the forum server Earlyissue server Merging low population server Combine slow server Server status Global chat on the Character and Server Screens Rated M server Add Ponies, Nerf Vills, merge Servers, PistolMelee Server Visiting Display Central Time on Server Status Page Ignoring the smartalec reply, that's three full discussions about this topic. You should have read one of them if (inevitably) something similar comes up in your search. Now, on to the topic at hand.... Why server consolidation is not a good idea. 1. Just because YOU like living in New York City doesn't mean I can't like Kansas. Yay, you love having huge lag spikes as you get near the black market/wentworths and a busy broadcast. Congrats. Enjoy Freedom. Some of us - many of which you will get replies from with this subject - like *low population* servers. If we *wanted* to be on Freedom, we'd *be* on Freedom. I have characters on Freedom. I rarely play them (and actually moved a character OFF of Freedom to finish leveling it to 50) because *I DON'T LIKE FREEDOM.* I dislike the banality of broadcast, the high percentage of *horrid* teams I've come across there, the lag around any gathering point- and I've got a decent connection and system. For much the same reason, I typically startin Galaxy City instead of Atlas Park - I don't *want* to log in to a costume contest with several 50s spamming powers and nonsense arguments in broadcast. Some of us *like* nice, quiet servers. 2, Kansas, part 2. In addition, servers have their own personalities. No, I don't mean that literally, there's no AI to worry about if you start hearing "Daisy, Daisy" over your speakers or headset. Freedom's a crowded mess. Virtue is the RP server. Pinnacle is the "Drunk" server. Others have specific communities, such as those from Australia/NZ, Europe, etc. 3. "I only saw one other person. World of Conancraft has eleventy billion!" So what? We don't run around camping spawn points in this game. People are in missions. People are spread across many zones. Search on a map or do a /whoall and you'll miss those in missions, as well as those who are, for whatever reason, on /hide. Your "search" there didn't give you a full picture, not in the least. I understand the "feel" of things being "not very populated," but take a good look around when you're in game. Typically, you don't really have a lot of visibility. Standing in steel canyon, there could be multiple, full 8 person groups surrounding you, and it's likely you'd never see them. We have buildings, walls, architecture, trees and more limiting our visibility. Yes, it can make you feel more alone... but that's rarely the case. Add to that that the population is spread between many, MANY zones, most quite large, and among two sides... well... 4. "I put up my LFT flag and nothing happened!" Learn to search. Don't just wait. Form a team yourself. 5. "I AM SPARTACUS!" No, not any more. Remember logging in and seeing all those slots? Everyone has those - some buy more than the base 12, you get an extra one each year, you could have a total of 36 on any server. Everyone does. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one. Now merge servers. Suddenly, CoolBlasterDude from server 1 is getting merged with CoolBlasterDude from Server 2. Who gets to keep their name? Nobody has been able to answer this with any degree of satisfaction. Add a number? But I am NOT CoolBlasterGuy1. And what if the name's too long? Does the older character keep it? What if they're not as active? People are *VERY* attached to their names. They are, quite obviously, part of their character. 6. "This Is SPARTA!" Sorry, Sparta exists already. You are GenericSG 8734 287 9798. What else has a name? Supergroups. And I can *guarandamntee* that the same name is in use on multiple servers. Sometimes it's 'branches' of the same SG, sometimes it's coincidence. But with *everything* involved in an SG - from its identity and reputation on the server, to everything stored in the database about what it owns, what its base is like and such, this would be a disaster in the making. And no, auto merging them when the servers merge, even if they have room to, is not an option. This, of course, assumes that they *CAN* move supergroups as a unit. More than likely, it'd just be a mass character move, with bases, prestige, anything stored in bases and all SG affiliations just gone forever. 7. "I am... where'd Spartacus go?" Remember all those slots? Well, you start with 1/3 of the available ones. You can buy up to 36 total (24 on top of the ones you get initially.) Now, what do you suppose would happen if you merged two servers, and someone has, say, 20 characters on each? Not unusual. In fact, before those extra slots, I had *filled up* several servers. Do those characters just disappear? Do they move? Free move to another server sounds great, right... well, except you now kick them from their supergroup, remove them from their friends lists and more. This makes for angry and unhappy customers. Or rather, ex customers. 8. I will play where I damn well want to. And you can too. And that should be blunt enough. If I want a crowded server, I'll go to Freedom. If I want an RP server, I'll go to Virtue. I do NOT want to be shoved onto another server I *don't* like. If I wanted to go there, *I'd be there.* If the server you're on isn't "busy" enough for you, you have two options that won't bother anyone else. (A) If it's low enough, reroll. You have a ton of character slots for a reason. (B) If you don't want to reroll, server transfers are available, and relatively cheap. They also finish fast - you should be up and running and being spammed to join someone's SG on the new server in a few minutes, in most instances. So YOU can go to the server of YOUR choice without screwing ME over. 9. "It'll free up server hardware for Freedom!" No, no it won't. Freedom, because of the load it tends to have, already has more resources dedicated to it than other servers. And ALL of the servers have been upgraded multiple times. The servers are not allocated exactly the same. The servers that handle less of a load have less dedicated to them. So this argument doesn't fly. 10. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Last but not least (at least until better points come along to be added,) server consolidation is widely viewed in the industry as an MMO going on life support. No, we don't have WoWs numbers (and you should actually pay attention to when and how they got those.) They're an abberation in the MMO industry. COH has had and does have a very successful, sustainable population even at its lowest points, so there's no economic need to combine anything. The flip side of that, of course, has been suggested above - you crowd people together, break up their SGs and friends lists, cause characters to go missing and poeple definitely *will* quit, both out of annoyance and a sense of "The game is almost dead!" In conclusion.... As stated before, when it comes to server consolidation... HELL NO. |
With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better. Your thoughts... |
And if you really think that just because you aren't seeing broadcast spam for teams LFM, there aren't any teams out there, you're sadly mistaken. Use your search comment and LFT flags to let people who are filling out their teams know what you are looking for. Or (heaven forbid!) form your own team. See a couple people out their broadcasting LFT, send em a tell saying what you are doing or would like to do, and see if they want to join you. Chances are, they will.
Use the search window to find people who are teamed in your level range and send someone a tell asking if there is any room for your AT/Level and powersets, if you want to be that specific. Sometimes a particular team may be looking for exactly what you are offering (especially buffs/debuffs) but not knowing you have those sets, they don't invite you. You could be the one person that turns slow going into steam rolling and not even know it. And if they don't know it because you don't advertise it, why would they invite you?
Yes, teams are out there. Any server, just about any time, day or nite. Chances are that if you are on and looking for a team, someone else will be too. Find em, invite em, have fun!
Oh, and merging servers is about more than just losing character names. You have to consider SG names, SG rankings (What happens to a top 10 sg on Justice that hasn't had to compete with the top 10 of Freedom when the servers merge? The Justice SG is no longer top 10, so people may begin to wander, hurting their position even more.) Hey, what happens to character slots? I have virtue and freedom just about full, and a few other servers are semi full. If any one or two of those servers merge with virtue or freedom, I won't have enough character slots... What happens then? Do I lose those characters? Or are the servers themselves changed to allow more characters? Speaking of, doing that means more drain on the servers themselves. They'll have to be upgraded, and certain troublesome areas like Cap or Talos market areas will be much worse. Plus, putting more players on one server means more chances of that server being blacked out, especially during events. What happens when a server crashes? With 11 US servers, if one or two go down, we still have 9-10 more to go around while they fix the problems. If we cut that down to say 4 or 5 servers and 1 or 2 go down, then we only have 3 or 4 to choose from.
Yeah, server merges? Nope, not gonna happen. If the game were failing, we wouldn't be getting new rednames. The dev team is growing, not shrinking. Paragon Studios and NCSoft are pumping money into this game, and it's paying off. Heck, IIRC, we're more stable now in subscribers than we have been for a long time. As old timers leave for whatever reason, we have a steady influx of new players coming aboard. Going Rogue is going to increase that number even more, hopefully permanently.
TLR version: Nope, not gonna happen.
Just my opinion, feel free to disregard...
With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better. Your thoughts... |
I have characters (not toons, Toon is a game made by Steve Jackson Games) on 4 servers and I'm constantly getting invites on every server, on both blue and redsides.
Server merges are the last straw of a dying game, and I bet if they ever happened here, you'd have less players on that one server then you have on every server now.
Server merges are the last straw of a dying game, and I bet if they ever happened here, you'd have less players on that one server then you have on every server now.
|
I play exclusively on Victory. Any time I move off-server, the character ends up abandoned before I hit 20. I know a LOT of other people who play exclusively on Victory, too. I can't speak for them, but if a server merge ever happened, my sub would be cancelled immediately.
If I'm not already on your server, I don't [i]want[/ì to be on your server, and I'm not going to move there.
@Roderick
My thoughts?
No No No Hell No, and...um... oh yeah.....NO Just because you have trouble teaming doesn't mean the rest of us do. Also, the Search Feature is your friend. |
Wow, is it that time of the month already?
Dr. Incedible, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't normally read the forums but this idea has been discussed many, many times and the general concensus amognst forumites is that it would be a bad idea. If you use the search feature you can probably find the last few threads on the subject (please don't necro them but they have the general arguments against it). |
A rhetorical question (without a ?, even) does not make the topic appropriate to Player Questions.
The real question here seems to be "Is it that time of the month again?" to which the answer appears to be "looks like it is". OP - no thank you. |
To save some time, I'll just copy/paste Memphis Bill's well used post on the subject...
Quote:
|
This.
I play exclusively on Victory. Any time I move off-server, the character ends up abandoned before I hit 20. I know a LOT of other people who play exclusively on Victory, too. I can't speak for them, but if a server merge ever happened, my sub would be cancelled immediately. If I'm not already on your server, I don't [i]want[/ì to be on your server, and I'm not going to move there. |
ill never leave victory and the very very few toons i have off-server have *maybe* left the tutorial, i have 1 off sever toon at lvl 14, but i havent use him in like 300+ days now
I also now have my own Copypasta for just this occasion:
And finally... I challenge you.
With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better. Your thoughts... |
I'm not going to share my actual thoughts on this....because this is a family forum and I don't want to get banned.
Things you didn't think about:
You would have to upgrade the character slots on your "mega server" to 396. Yes, 396 slots. Otherwise you would be screwing the people who have filled up every slot on every server.
Losing my toon name would lose Paragon Studios my business. There are a LOT of people that feel the same way. My main character is also my name in the CoX community, losing that character name is akin to identity theft and I refuse to pay money to a game company that would endorse such a thing. Losing a name due to it being offensive or copyrighted is one thing, losing it because everyone got crammed toghether and someone else logged in their character with that name first is another, and I for one, find it unacceptable.
LAG. Massive amounts of lag. Not everyone has a top notch, state of the art computer to play on. If you cram that many people into one place, close to half of them would not be able to play at all due to the extreme ramp up in system requirements to be able to play the game, instead of watching a slideshow. There are over 100,000 subscribers who play CoH. If half those people can't play because their computer can't handle the massve increase in lag, you just lost 50,000 subscribers. The game can't afford to lose that many subscribers.
There are many, many other considerations that I'm not going to go into.
Lack of teams isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with how you look. The population isn't "dwindling", it has stayed pretty steady for a while now, and is showing signs of growing. Going Rogue will probably increase that even more.
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
NO....
NOPE...
Seriously are you ******* kidding me!?!?
People like the OP are either a plague of non-thinking individuals or it's a conspiracy to insight riot by the people over at CO since they have a dying whale...
OMFG just go away....
Oh great another self stylized master of the game who knows what is best for everyone...
OOoo look someone full of conjecture and "real" numbers who can guide us to the promised land...
Ddddoooooooooommmmmmm!
I dunno how to search,I do not know how to get on a global chat,I just dunno...
Meh....
Let's whip this dead horse some more so it's dead some more...
That idea is about as popular as health care...
Your as funny as a chest wound grunt...
No,no,no,no,no,no....no....no,no,no,no,no....no... .no..no...no...no...no...no..no,no,no,no,no....no. ...no(sing this to the Bonanza theme song).
Merging servers is about as popular as raising R'yleh...
You know what threads like these and Christy Canyon have in common?The both have been done a thousand times...
I was going to agree with this ::
My thoughts?
No No No Hell No, and...um... oh yeah.....NO Just because you have trouble teaming doesn't mean the rest of us do. Also, the Search Feature is your friend. |
I have all but one of my currently placed slots filled on all servers. Generally, I do not have a hard time finding a team on most servers.
I'm not saying that I can always get a team of 8. I'm also not saying that I'm running and recruiting for ever team that I'm on.
When I'm running a team, I rarely have a hard time filling a team - unless it is a tf and filling a tf is always a pain because I will not use globals. (There are plenty of channels already available to us).
I see no reason for a server merger.
The servers tend to have different flavor of players. I enjoy going to each one and seeing what is going on.
Some servers are little bit more "close circled" and this can make it a bit hard to find teams on those servers unless you follow the procedure to find teams that these "closed circle" of players have implemented on those servers - those are usually listed somewhere here on the forums and joining global channels that may or may not be full and/or private.
As I said, I will not use global channels in order to get a team. There are plenty of channels built into the game for use in order to get and recruit for teams. Those that intentionally do not recruit people or accept invites from people simply because they are not being communicated to via global channels or because the other characters are not members of their sg/vgs are not helping the longevity of this game by isolating themselves from the rest of the community.
I know that sounds weird when a lone wolf calls down a pack to say that they are not being part of the community. But my PuG'ing and willingness to team with those that I do not know make me part of the greater whole of the community as I'm not affiliated with any one group that I will not team with others or makes others jump through hoops in order to prove that they are willing to conform to in-crowd standards of behavior.
I'm not shocked that any of this goes on. It's natural human behavior. Both for those that intentionally want to dominate and those that find comfort in an elitist crowd. Shunning others also gives some a feeling of power.
At the same time, behavior in this game can cause others to put you on ignore for one reason or another, and this can greatly reduce your ability to find teams. Players can be put on ignore for any number of reasons. I know that I have my own reasons, and I don't think the ignore list is big enough.
(Yes, I know that this makes me sound like I'm an elitist myself. In all honesty, the people that I put on ignore are going to tend not to want to team with me any more than I would want to team with them. Farmers are the main players that I put on ignore. Farmers know that I don't want to team with them. I'm going to report every farm that I find. I would assume for that reason alone, farmers aren't going to want to team with me.)
Now with all that ranting out of the way.
As per standard when it comes to the server-merger discussion - which happens all the time - , the OP didn't list what server they were on!
Ironically, the last server-merger thread that I saw - just a couple of days ago actually - was on the Freedom forums. I found this odd as Freedom is the highest population server. Also, Freedom is a server that do not play on any longer because of the behavior of the players there in general. In fact, some other players have been actively trying to get free transfers from the DEVs so that they could move their characters off Freedom. Some of them just started over to get away from Freedom. Well, we were given free server transfers for Christmas and guess what some players did with them - they moved their characters off Freedom.
Now I'm not saying that I won't play on Freedom from time to time - I do have 14 characters over there. I'm saying that I have 10 other servers to play on that I have 12-15 characters on (each) that seem to have a community of players that I enjoy gaming with much more than those that have chosen Freedom as their home server (I have been good and haven't called Freedom "FarmDumb" for a couple of weeks now, but you will note that term "farm" in there that I'm loath to be involved with.) and that even goes for the ones that expect their server communities to abide by their self imposed teaming rules. I'd much rather be snubbed then to keep being invited or hear about farming going on.
So merging with Freedom - never.
Merging in general - I really think it is a bad idea and see no reason for it.
It all comes down to ::
If you can't find a team, start one.
- Characters that are grayed out are already on teams.
- Be polite, don't blind invite.
- Send a tell with your team's mission level before invite.
- Even better, ask the other player to send you a tell acknowledging that they want to join before sending an invite.
- If recruiting for teams below level 15, always send an invite or add a note requesting that they type "/hc I'll join" because characters may be on trials. (NOTE :: /hc I'll join, will put a message on the [Help] channel - yes, trials can use the [Help] channel, most of the trial players just don't know that they can access it by using /hc as /help was nerfed a while back.
- There are always fewer villains, and villain players have always been less likely to team than their hero counter parts.
- The servers are listed from top to bottom :: the top server is the one you were on last and from there down they are listed from lowest load (at 2nd from top) to highest load (at the bottom). This isn't directly related to population as the servers have different capacities, but, in general, it is, in fact, a reverse listing by population.
- Freedom and Virtue are virtually always the two most populated servers. Virtue being the self proclaimed RP server.
Look around using the /search function and see what kind of archetypes aren't on teams. If you see one missing, then log in with one of those - you're more likely to be snatched up for a team that really has to have that one type of archetype to get their team going right. (in all actually, it the mix of archetypes really doesn't make much of a difference - it's just a matter of how well the players can work as a team).
Lack of teams isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with how you look. The population isn't "dwindling", it has stayed pretty steady for a while now, and is showing signs of growing. Going Rogue will probably increase that even more. |
If you are listening to broadcast for teams, you probably won't find much. I stopped listening to/for broadcast during the flame wars of the "great satan AE/Farmers suck/don't suck/lvl 1 looking for lvl 50 to carry me to 36 whine fests". My SG & coalies hit the more populated channels for teams and task forces. I have experienced the opposite. I have choices on task forces, servers (Protector & Infinity) almost all the time. I can't check ww's without being hit up...
Teaming is out there. Go find it. Filling spots for your team/task force/gm/badge hunt is pretty easy if you know where/how to look. I won't say that some of the channels have their own clique/drama/stupidity... Yes, I think it has been harder to find teams consistently, but merging the server? This is discussion reminds me more of "AE is the devil, farmers evil, fix the market" retreads than anything... server merge?
No.
In the immortal words of Socrates, "I drank what?"
-- Real Genius
*sigh*
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Can we just let this thread die?
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better. Your thoughts... |
If you cannot find/form teams, the problem is you, not the game.
The servers do not need to be merged.
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
I AGREE!!!1!!
Merge the public servants! We don't need two houses of Congress.
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With the dwindling numbers of players and lack of teams available maybe those sitting around in the studios should merge their servers in to 1.
Yes, you may lose your toon name.. but teaming would be a LOT better.
Your thoughts...