One global one server list once more EU is told they are loosers!

You do realize that even if there is a legitimate long standing problem with the EU players being treated as "second class" players that once this server list merge happens all of that finally goes away completely. This merge is going to effectively wipe out any distinction or difference between a "NA" server and a "EU" server. We will all finally be treated equally by default.

The details of the merge may be problematic and some people may get upset by the name conflicts. But the main reason the Devs are doing this is to DIRECTLY FIX the problem of the "us and them" situation once and for all. You may not like the method to reach the goal of unification, but the goal is what everyone has wanted for years regardless.

I actually noticed that a minute ago and thought it was kind of ironic myself. *smiles deviously*

It's amazing that even with the color and size changes people still haven't gotten this. Might as well give up and nuke this thread from orbit.

hah, it aint eva safe to do nitpick on nobodys grammer on the webz

sez u

I'm glad that you're familiar with the character database structure so you know the decision to handle it this way was based on favoritism, rather than any pesky details like data integrity, costs, etc.

Clearly some compromise needs to be made if two people share the same global.

To say the Devs don't care is clearly wrong. The list merge is of far greater benefit to the EU players than the NA players and in real terms it's taken about 18 months since the forum was united for this to be announced. If they didn't care, they wouldn't merge the list!

I'll just remind you that initially all board members had either NA or EU appended to their name if it was shared - that has been fixed. Personally I trust the Devs to come up with something that will work it out for everyone.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

/sarcasmon

No Iron I think he has a point about the favoritism. Just look at what's actually happening with this server list merge and see who really is getting shafted.

EU players will be getting 11 additional servers to play on.

NA players will only be getting 4. That's a 6 server difference in favor of the EU players.

EU players will be getting 132 free character slots.

NA players will only be getting 48. That's a difference of 84 characters slots in favor of the EU players.

EU players will have the option of buying an additional 264 character slots for their accounts.

NA players will only be able to buy an additional 96. That's a difference of 168 purchasable character slots in favor of the EU players.

It's pretty clear from those numbers that it's the NA players that are being screwed.

NA players should demand the same increases to our accounts that the EU players are getting to theirs. This blatant favoritism has to stop.

Oh and while the devs are at it, they should reschedule the server maintenance to the EU prime playing hours because our poor Aussie customers on the NA servers have been getting screwed out of their prime playing hours by the obvious EU favoritism for far too many years.


/sarcasmoff

Ofcourse this is not what I wanted. Changing anything on the information NC Soft has... has no relation to my Trial Game account.

Now latest news is... we are informed that we get a free reactivation weekend. So for globals its less hassle now. We can login on our old Trials and remove the global and all toons that have names that should/could be reused. That still keeps the problem of the account name.

Waiting for the reply...

And I'm so glad when people misconstrue my comments. And then someone follows up with deliberate snark to bait me.

NCSoft took the account database, and looked at the account names.

They decided that if there is a conflict in place, the login name of the EU player gets the EU prefix.

They decided that if there is a conflict between the global names, the EU player gets a letter chopped off the end.

They drew the line and decided the line was between EU and NA accounts. Then they decided that NA accounts took priority.

That is favouring one group over the other in this decision. It's the very definition of favouring one group over the other. They probably do have financial reasons for the group they picked. Yes they HAD to make a decision and draw a line somewhere. They picked the location of their customer - I disagree with that choice.

I'm not angry at the choice. I'm not going to be particularly annoyed if I become @Fors (@For is pushing it though). I'll change it to @Forseverse anyway if need be. I disagree with the option they took, I'm allowed to disagree with it.

---

Acting like I'm whinging then telling me I should be happy with all the extra slots and servers and players I'm going to experience doesn't change my point one bit.

This isn't a major issue - but don't tell me it's an irrelevant issue. And for goodness sake people, this community is better than that blasted sarcasm/snark that got fired at me.

I'm approaching this topic in a level-headed manner without raging at anyone or threatening to quit. That's doesn't seem to have changed the response - so why did I bother?


ETA - I'm drawing my participation in this thread to a close. I've already said my piece and it got nearly exactly the same response as when I voiced my opinions on the forum merge behaviour. I'm done.

You don't know that. I don't know that either. But the danger in wildly guessing is that people never seem to be aware of any possible way of doing things except the way they thought of, even when there are real world examples of situations that would make their hypothetical incorrect.

Here's the far more likely possibility.

There are two account databases, one for the EU servers and one for the NA servers. This makes sense since at one time the EU servers were actually in Europe, and if the authentication server for those servers were in the US an internet disruption could cause the EU servers to be impossible to log into, even if they were otherwise reachable and functional.

NCSoft has decided not to operate two different authentication servers any more, and are collapsing them. Unfortunately, both server login name and global handle are not just required to be unique, they are designated as keys in the database. EU is being exported and imported into the NA server, because there are less EU records. The EU records are being checked against the NA records and when global handle or account name collide, the EU records are being modified before importing. This cannot happen in reverse because the NA records are already in the database, and key fields cannot be changed in the NA records without a special process occurring. They can be changed in the EU records because those records are being exported and then imported. To change the NA records, the NA record would have to be specifically changed by special process. This would take significantly more time and effort**.

I don't know if it *is* like this, but this should come as no surprise to any dba out there. This is so obvious that anyone not taking this possibility into account cannot possibly have a background that makes their technical suggestions credible.


You specifically responded to someone saying:

The fact that you are interpreting that as a trivial reply tells me you are in fact unaware of the possible complications to this task that could make your perspective that the decision to change EU accounts was purely arbitrary completely false. The bottom line is that you're inviting comments like this by making assumptions about the mechanical process that, whether you realize it or not, are neither obvious nor reasonable. You assume capriciousness because you are unaware of any other possibility. Those other possibilities exist, which makes your conclusion faulty.

The fact that you are in error is not in and of itself the issue. The issue is that you seem so certain about something you are wrong about. That certainty breeds incredulity.


** Obviously globals can be changed and so can account names because it actually happens, but the process isn't necessarily one that could easily be incorporated into a bulk automatic transfer and import.

Yeah, pretty much.

This type of procedure for some installations is often a largely MANUAL process that has to be double-checked at a few points for potential data integrity concerns.

I know that for at least one MMO for at least part of its lifetime, there WAS no automated tool for moving characters between servers. Someone pulled the records for the character and more or less created the character (mostly) by hand on the new server. Not because they COULDN'T make a tool to do it automatically.

But because they didn't trust such an automated tool to never trip over something and cause problems.

Bulk processes have the minor disadvantage that they can't THINK and make judgements when something surprising happens.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.