Ahh, let us drag this dead horse out in the open and give it a good beating!
*WHACK*
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Originally Posted by Alvdraken
Ahh, let us drag this dead horse out in the open and give it a good beating!
*WHACK* |
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Wow you dodge points with deftness. I never suggested merging servers. I simply object to people claiming that teaming is not less common now than it used to be. The claim is just as silly as those who say CoV isn't distinctly different than CoH in terms of grouping.|
Originally Posted by GlubGlub
whatever the cause may be (if there is any "cause") people are not teaming(as far as you and op are concerned). forcing me, or anybody else that does not want to team, onto a server with more people is not going to make me team more, just tell more people "no, thank you". i like the lower pop servers, and want them to stay.
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If I had to come up with a solution, it would be cross server grouping, since most of the content is already instanced.
It has taken them a long time and they move in baby steps but an educated guess can be made that server merging, or maybe more accurately, a serverless game is on the horizon.
The most compelling reason to think it's going to happen is that when character transfers were first introduced, they added the specific caveat that the game might one day go serverless so buyer beware when it came to spending the cash to transfer a character.
It hasn't happened yet because they had two problems to overcome, name conflicts and setting up their infrastructure to handle the load.
On the first point, the latest email changes are just the most recent in a series of changes to make everything revolve around unique global names. They've gone far enough now where they could cut the cord on using individual character names for anything other than floating over your toon's head and everything would still work.
On the hardware side, freedom has been an obvious guinea pig with multiple rounds of hardware upgrades. Loads that used to bring it to its knees during special events now barely cause a hiccup.
I'd speculate that free server transfers were a trial baloon to see how people would behave if the game were serverless. A way to gather much more reliable data than just throwing out a survey.
From the outside, not knowing their priorities or what specific snags are left to resolve it's impossible to say what the timeline is. They might spend another year or two fiddling around with it or they could just spring it in the next issue. However, the smart money is on when not if it happens.
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Yes, it is a huge improvement in convenience. Yet, you still have to actively seek out and make groups which didn't used to be the case.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Or perhaps to solve other issues, like having to refuse spots because there *wasn't* someone to mentor or sidekick available - an issue that is no longer a problem?
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People keep giving all this advice on how you can get groups, and some of it is valid. But all of that advice ignores the fact that the advice wasn't needed 3-4 years ago. You could group just fine from 1-50 without ever forming a group of your own or building friends lists. You could PUG to 50 with no trouble beyond trying to SK the wrong number of people in.
Yes, you can compensate for this difference by doing certain things, but that does not mean that the difference is not there. The very fact that you do need to do these things now and didn't have to do them in the past indicates that there is a very large difference.
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| Oh, wait, no. Has to be dooooooooooooooomthegameisdyingmergeeverything. Yep. Only explanation. |
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While there is a difference to the past, the general claim is that the game is dying because of that when the reality is that the game has changed. The drop in population is not why you don't have the getting bombarded with invites upon login as much as the shift to instances plus the addition of CoV and many more CoH zones as well as the abilty to adjust our difficulties beyond the actual team composition.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
Yes, it is a huge improvement in convenience. Yet, you still have to actively seek out and make groups which didn't used to be the case.
People keep giving all this advice on how you can get groups, and some of it is valid. But all of that advice ignores the fact that the advice wasn't needed 3-4 years ago. You could group just fine from 1-50 without ever forming a group of your own or building friends lists. You could PUG to 50 with no trouble beyond trying to SK the wrong number of people in. Yes, you can compensate for this difference by doing certain things, but that does not mean that the difference is not there. The very fact that you do need to do these things now and didn't have to do them in the past indicates that there is a very large difference. Now you're just being a *********. #1 I never said anything about merging and #2 merging isn't something that's intrinsically bad or indicative of problems. You just want to portray anyone who doesn't agree with you as a panicking kook, because it removes your own need to make an argument. |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Lineage 2 has same issues with people wanting to merge servers. Just thought i'd fill you guys in on that. This being an MMORPG ,it's like very bizarre to me that they have as many servers as they do for both games.
Same exact content on all the servers is kinda dumb. This being a game designed around comic books, you would think they would have been able to partner up with the comic book company's. That way they could have a server styled after say the Marvel universe, DC Universe and maybe another that's a mixed one like the Amalgam comic books.
A real good idea would be to design a server that's international. Meaning both NA and Euro players are able to play on it. Have us do missions in game to unlock each side's opposite side maybe.
Something that would resemble how Batman flew to Hong Kong (think it was that) to get the bad guy in the last movie.
Have villains go to a Europe inspired city to rob a bank and then when they get there they get the locals to help them. When missions complete you have full range of European or North American content. And new friends from across the pond.
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What a cute little post.
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Originally Posted by Colonel-Confederate
Lineage 2 has same issues with people wanting to merge servers. Just thought i'd fill you guys in on that. This being an MMORPG ,it's like very bizarre to me that they have as many servers as they do for both games.
Same exact content on all the servers is kinda dumb. This being a game designed around comic books, you would think they would have been able to partner up with the comic book company's. That way they could have a server styled after say the Marvel universe, DC Universe and maybe another that's a mixed one like the Amalgam comic books. A real good idea would be to design a server that's international. Meaning both NA and Euro players are able to play on it. Have us do missions in game to unlock each side's opposite side maybe. Something that would resemble how Batman flew to Hong Kong (think it was that) to get the bad guy in the last movie. Have villains go to a Europe inspired city to rob a bank and then when they get there they get the locals to help them. When missions complete you have full range of European or North American content. And new friends from across the pond. |
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Then there would be content that you are locked out of if you chose the "wrong server." You have a character that would be violently opposed to the Council? Too bad, only 1/10th of the Council arcs are on your server.|
Originally Posted by Colonel-Confederate
Lineage 2 has same issues with people wanting to merge servers. Just thought i'd fill you guys in on that. This being an MMORPG ,it's like very bizarre to me that they have as many servers as they do for both games.
Same exact content on all the servers is kinda dumb. |
In addition, if each server had unique content, it would greatly increase development time of new content. The four new story arcs we just received would have to become 60 new story arcs. If we are shooting for one content update a year, this might be reasonable.
There are multiple servers so that the game runs more smoothly. If you have an older machine, then you should gravitate towards the less populated servers and learn how to use your global channels and team search tools. If you have a high end machine and can handle Freedom and Virtue, good for you.
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| This being a game designed around comic books, you would think they would have been able to partner up with the comic book company's. That way they could have a server styled after say the Marvel universe, DC Universe and maybe another that's a mixed one like the Amalgam comic books. |
And with Marvel and DC both developing their own MMOs, this idea is even more of a pipe dream.
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| A real good idea would be to design a server that's international. Meaning both NA and Euro players are able to play on it. Have us do missions in game to unlock each side's opposite side maybe. |
Since City of Heroes isn't unique in having dedicated international servers, there may be some sort of economic or legal reason that the servers are separate.
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Something that would resemble how Batman flew to Hong Kong (think it was that) to get the bad guy in the last movie. Have villains go to a Europe inspired city to rob a bank and then when they get there they get the locals to help them. When missions complete you have full range of European or North American content. And new friends from across the pond. |
New story arcs coming soon (ARC IDs will be aded when I finish the arc):
So, you want to join the Hellions? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
Sparks & Steel (level 5-20 Heroic arc)
and
So you want to join the Skulls? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
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Just to point this out... you're basically asking for different games with different content, assuming you can get all the copyright deals going with the different comic book universes (and DC's working on their own game... why would they want to play nice with ours?). You are NOT really discussing servers, which is an entirely different issue than you are talking about.|
Originally Posted by Colonel-Confederate
Lineage 2 has same issues with people wanting to merge servers. Just thought i'd fill you guys in on that. This being an MMORPG ,it's like very bizarre to me that they have as many servers as they do for both games.
Same exact content on all the servers is kinda dumb. This being a game designed around comic books, you would think they would have been able to partner up with the comic book company's. That way they could have a server styled after say the Marvel universe, DC Universe and maybe another that's a mixed one like the Amalgam comic books. A real good idea would be to design a server that's international. Meaning both NA and Euro players are able to play on it. Have us do missions in game to unlock each side's opposite side maybe. Something that would resemble how Batman flew to Hong Kong (think it was that) to get the bad guy in the last movie. Have villains go to a Europe inspired city to rob a bank and then when they get there they get the locals to help them. When missions complete you have full range of European or North American content. And new friends from across the pond. |
It's also worth noting that having an MMO delivered via shards like Star Trek online or Champions Online does have its own issues. It's not all fine and dandy since players are all technically on the same server.
If anything, CoX's problems are unique, as it encourages more altitis than WoW or STO, but does have separate servers.
My closest guess for a solution is that the devs are going to let us team cross-servers. War Witch suggested they had something in the works to deal with the server issue, and that was my best guess from her hinting, heh.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Wow. Some of you regular forumites need to back off the snark. We WANT people to come back and play this game. Sheesh.
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No, let's not - treat horses properly, even when they're dead |
Originally Posted by Alvdraken
Ahh, let us drag this dead horse out in the open and give it a good beating!
*WHACK* |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
rsclark said
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That advice is the same advice I was giving 3-4 years ago. People used to complain that "It takes me a really long time to get invited to a group, and the group is full of idiots when I get there." Mostly those complaints were in the Defender forums, though. Maybe it DOES mean something that the whininess has spread.
| People keep giving all this advice on how you can get groups, and some of it is valid. But all of that advice ignores the fact that the advice wasn't needed 3-4 years ago. You could group just fine from 1-50 without ever forming a group of your own or building friends lists. You could PUG to 50 with no trouble beyond trying to SK the wrong number of people in. |
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Oh? You used to log on and be auto-assigned to a group? |
Originally Posted by rsclark
Yes, it is a huge improvement in convenience. Yet, you still have to actively seek out and make groups which didn't used to be the case.
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No?
Yes, the advice was still needed and valid 3-4-5 years ago. Unless, of course, all you did was stand in PI and get pestered, at the right levels to bridge - which, of course, drove many people to just go on /hide from 41 on.
And yes, you still CAN PUG from 1-50 without forming your own groups, etc, etc. Saying you can't now is just a baldfaced lie. I routinely end up - and no, not on "recognized characters" or anything - having to turn down invites because I'm only hopping on to check the market or pay base upkeep for a couple of minutes before having to go somewhere, and this on non-"large" servers like Pinnacle, Victory, and Guardian. Even redside, yes. These on characters that even other forum regulars - who, if anything, you'd expect to know each other - don't recognize as me. So this isn't "notoriety" or anything.
Now, if your definition - which I have had from others who were making the "It's impossible to team any more!" argument, thus me bringing it up - is "Getting a full, perfect team of 8 and running with nothing but that?" That's your problem personally.
Plus, portraying "building friends lists" as some horrid, off the wall, incredibly nonintuitive way of keeping an eye on good people to team with? Really? I guess "Join or form a SuperGroup" is also equivalent with "Walk ten miles to school uphill in a blizzard wearing nothing but someone else's used shorts" to you?
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| Now you're just being a *********. #1 I never said anything about merging and #2 merging isn't something that's intrinsically bad or indicative of problems. |
You think it's "hard to find a team" now? Try after people leave post-merge because they've lost characters from being out of slots. Or they've lost their SG name - or the entire SG, or the base, which we don't know would be transferrable. Or the lack of new people coming in because they see a server merge and figure the game is a day away from shutting down.
"Isn't something intrisically bad or indicative of problems?" You haven't bothered thinking through past "I want" and/or "I'm lazy" at all.
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... which, incidentally, is something a server merge would also work against. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
We WANT people to come back and play this game. Sheesh.
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Aion, after a month or so, had people screaming about "needing" a server merge. Figure that out (with, what were the numbers at that time, 400-500,000 subs?)
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Originally Posted by Colonel-Confederate
Lineage 2 has same issues with people wanting to merge servers.
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Fixed that for you Bill...|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Plus, portraying "building friends lists" as some horrid, off the wall, incredibly nonintuitive way of keeping an eye on good people to team with? Really? I guess "Join or form a SuperGroup" is also equivalent with "Walk ten miles to school uphill, both ways, in a blizzard wearing nothing but someone else's used shorts" to you?
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Your 400-500,000 subs is not all live played players. Aion from my understanding had serious bot issues as I recall (from what I heard). So it would seem a lot of players quit because of it. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Aion, after a month or so, had people screaming about "needing" a server merge. Figure that out (with, what were the numbers at that time, 400-500,000 subs?)
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They merged servers once already in Lineage 2 awhile back and only 1 of those is still doing decent. The other merged servers have people wanting more merged servers. So point is the 1st server merge worked for a very short bit , but it wasn't the great fix they thought it would be. Because they are wanting another batch of server merges.
Once your down to 1 server after all the merging then what? A server merge doesn't grab new players, and it will only keep old players for just so long. Eventually they get bored and go looking for a fresh game.
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I'm not sure how big of an impact that was. I *was* playing during that time (and I'm not a current subscriber, but for things that had nothing to do with bots/RMT - waiting for 1.9 and some in-game adjustments.) |
Originally Posted by Colonel-Confederate
Your 400-500,000 subs is not all live played players. Aion from my understanding had serious bot issues as I recall (from what I heard). So it would seem a lot of players quit because of it.
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It's hard to compare RMT there with RMT here. We don't have anything close to the issue they had, even at our worst. And the methods - well, some got cracked down on here (email, reporting, and how fast the bans come in) and some just don't exist here (Player "stores" with RMT sites as their "sign" in the middle of busy hallways, for instance.) RMT was (IMHO, again having been through the worst of it *here*) move visible and harder to avoid there - but then again, that game, you *need* in-game money to advance. Sure, here you need enhancements, but they drop. You're not held up in getting new levels or powers or finishing missions because you don't have the gold. There, you are. Raise a skill? Pay money. Get a new ability? Pay. Pay for items to finish quests (or pay, after paying to raise, say, your Alchemy skill, to create whatever it is.) And of course, pay for gear, then pay more for new gear, etc, etc, etc.
My point in bringing them up, however, were that Aion's servers were *visibly* busy (as in, everyone running around, lag from people gathered around teleport sites and stores, having to wait for groups to finish boss spawns, active PVP, etc) and people were STILL calling for server merges there. (There's the side issue with merges, in that game, that you can only have one "side" of characters on your account. If you had Elyos on Lumiel, you could not make any Asmodeans there without deleting all your Elyos - well, barring buying another account. Which adds another wrinkle of problems to merges - one that we don't have to worry about adding to the list here.)
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They merged servers once already in Lineage 2 awhile back and only 1 of those is still doing decent. The other merged servers have people wanting more merged servers. So point is the 1st server merge worked for a very short bit , but it wasn't the great fix they thought it would be. Because they are wanting another batch of server merges. Once your down to 1 server after all the merging then what? A server merge doesn't grab new players, and it will only keep old players for just so long. Eventually they get bored and go looking for a fresh game. |
Also, here, people get very attached to their character names. We have very individual characters. (Most other MMOs I've run across, you end up looking like Fighter #98425, Soldier #0985, Orc#6981209, Mage #98609283 or some such.) Merging would play havoc with those characters and drive *current* players away. Which would also not help the people who insist they can't find a team.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Don't think for a moment that you deserve the time it took to create that. You are not unique. You are not clever. You have not given the subject any thought.
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Unless they began allowing duplicate toon names and made all communication based on your unique global. Which, with the latest changes to email, they have the pieces in place to do if they chose to.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Also, here, people get very attached to their character names. We have very individual characters. (Most other MMOs I've run across, you end up looking like Fighter #98425, Soldier #0985, Orc#6981209, Mage #98609283 or some such.) Merging would play havoc with those characters and drive *current* players away. Which would also not help the people who insist they can't find a team.
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Sshhh! They'll Neg-rep you for pointing that out. >.>
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Originally Posted by Clouded
Wow. Some of you regular forumites need to back off the snark. We WANT people to come back and play this game. Sheesh.
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@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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*shudder* I... I'm sorry... in theory, and to a degree, in practice, that may work. But quite frankly I -hate- this in Cryptic's recent two games. (Although I was pleasently amused by someone flying around as DarmokAndJalad@Tanagra)
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Originally Posted by SkeetSkeet
Unless they began allowing duplicate toon names and made all communication based on your unique global. Which, with the latest changes to email, they have the pieces in place to do if they chose to.
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"My inner mind has become a reality-cracking overgod. He torments me! Help!"
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hehe, predictable -rep :|
Originally Posted by TrueMetal
Sshhh! They'll Neg-rep you for pointing that out. >.>
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| No, just for making stupid comments. |
Actually, yes they do and did.
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
To the original poster:
During the holidays we had free server transfers at a time when the population took a very big dip so there are signs that there is an awareness of the problem. There was some talk this was a matter of spreading holiday cheer and they were so cheerful they felt the need to extend it twice.
The global email also has effects that can be seen as helping this problem. Overall it looks like the devs are going for making it easier to play on different servers rather than merging.