What is it going to take to get you to move to Virtue today?

I have over 100 characters on Virtue already.

...what?

I think the main difference between Virtue and lower population servers is that on Virtue you can have an MS raid going, AND a hami raid, AND a Magisterium badge run, AND three other incarnate trials, AND multiple task forces, all going at the same time.

On a lot of other servers, if they're doing an MS raid, well then, that's the big thing that's happening. Maybe an itrial going at the same time and some TFs, but not nearly as many things to choose from at one and the same time. At least, that's my impression. Any server can do anything in the game, but only larger servers have lots of those things all happening at once.

But at one time I flipped between servers a lot. Now I don't, because there are too many things to do with my friends on Virtue. Friends tie you to a server more than anything, really.

I mostly join teams formed from private channels these days, so I don't PuG a lot. That can really alter how you see a server. But I did two Summer Event runs this morning through the LFG tool, both random PuGs, and got all 10 badges on each run. ^_^

I'm not moving anywhere. I'm happy on freedom.

My first and home server as my sig says is Pinn, I actually thought it was Virtue didn't know I goofed till already had a few characters going. In the begining, I teamed only a few times and didn't really know how to find any so I tried Protector and found teaming to be easy. Then I was introduced to the global channels, decided to join 2 of the more populated channels on Pinn and try it till the next free server weekend as I had planned to move the toons I liked the best to protector.

Then I started paying attention to PinnBadges. It was like coming home. To a big drunken party. I made good friends with people there, they are my people. I also made friends during my time on Protector and have some fun toons there so I play there from time to time as well as a toon or two on other servers to test the differing communities, but I came home and I don't see anything taking me away from there.

Started in onion and will end in onion.

Recently, all my slots on Liberty filled. So, I thought to myself - what to do? I still have a couple of transfer tokens - but do I move a toon off? or just roll one somewhere. Well, where to start? I still have plenty of toons on Liberty, and I lead trials on a scheduled, if not regular basis.

I decided against moving toons off of liberty. Some still need incarnate progress, and they'll continue to get that.

I have toons that haven't been played in years on most of the servers. But, I have 2 50s on Champion and one on Infinity. I won't compare and contrast - the results would be debatable. I did roll a toon on Virtue, and did some hero tips and deciphered an anagram for a couple of levels from some farmer. I see a lot of teaming going on - but all doing things I would rather not do. DFB? yuck. Hero tips? still? There's only so much of the same thing day after day I can accept. I don't see many task forces being formed, but I do see a lot of trial recruiting going on. Some of the names of the recruiters are familiar -and I'll try to keep an open mind about them. I figure my toon will hit 50 in a week or so, just depends on whether or not I cave in and do an itf or two. Am I "moved" there? Hey, if I can form a ugt in less than 10 minutes before noon, I just might. However, a lot will have to do with the quality of players. Liberty and Champion have some excellent players. People that follow instructions, and are willing to switch may not be rare on Virtue - I have no idea. But, if they don't have that, I don't think I'll be "moving" here.

I am not a fan of what I would call "extreme" role play. Some characters that people role-play are fine, but some are just over-acting -or they're role playing someone I'd like to punch in the mouth. That in itself is enough to make me think really long and hard before I would move here.

For now, Champion has the edge, if I were to move anywhere. Or Infinity. But Champion has forums that are far more active than most, and they have the stuff posted that I like to do. Task Forces and Master of iTrials. Virtue has none of that posted. Now, that could be that with a population that large, the leaders don't need to post. I don't know yet. But, from the outside, Virtue is just as low population as the others. Those yellow and red dots don't mean anything to me.

More character slots. 48 isn't enough.

All you need to do is go back in time a couple years to become one of my global friends and then around August 2011 start regaling me with tales of speed TFs at all hours. Sold! Seriously, someone please remember to do that or else the causality won't make any sense.

It would need the entire Defiant list to move over.


I tend to always put quality before quantity.

I have to say over the past couple years, I have not experienced one iota of this easy teaming people speak of(Pinnacle, Victory, Triumph, Liberty). I've joined the channels, played during primetime and off-peak time(I'm PST), tried starting teams(with little success). I'm sorry but during primetime on Triumph and only 17 people red-side, no one is getting a team. Are you telling me there are 500 people on hide? Yesterday on Pinnacle, a Saturday around 12-1pm, 43 people blue-side. Did anyone want to play the new Summer Blockbuster when I used the LFG channel? No.

For years, I've had little luck on the lower population servers. Yes, they are called lower population servers for a reason and even the people that say they have no problem teaming are calling them that when saying things like "I prefer the lower population servers because I know everyone". I have never found it 'easy' to find a team whenever this subject came up. I would try the suggestions on this forum about global channels, start your own team, etc with little to no luck.

I look at these forums and the responses and just hope either there is some secret handshake you don't let others know, you just "get it" but that is only a very small percentage of the population, you're lying for whatever reason or you and the few people you play with are the only ones experiencing this 'easy' mode(last one being the most likely to me). We are all aware the forum posters are but a fraction of the playerbase and I hope your experiences are not representative of most other players on the lower population servers.

All that said, after failing to have teams available at practically anytime, do you know where I actually found them? Hard to imagine, I know, but I moved onto a server that was mostly yellow every day of the week...yes, Virtue. No global channel needed. I get random invites, broadcast/LFG/Help/etc channels are abuzz with people looking for teams. I can start practically any TF and within minutes have a full team. It's wonderful and I'm sorry I spread myself out earlier among so many servers. What did I see on Triumph yesterday? One guy asking for DFB and another asking for Magistrate, followed by "Anyone?" Anecodotal, but so is every post in this thread.

I was hoping for a thread like this because I DO want to move some of my characters. What is stopping me? I don't want to give up all my prestige and bases I've built. I would gladly move to Virtue in a heartbeat if the server transfers would allow for a transfer of everything. Unless cross-server teaming becomes a reality, I don't see some of my favorite characters playing much team content(my 50 crab on Protector, villain side is another one that has yet to play Summer Blockbuster). I don't want to throw all that time/effort I put towards bases out the window. So, yes, I want better features to allow me to move to a server where I don't have to worry about 'getting it' as so many here seem to do. I'm not going to apologize for my choices but just ask that you respect I am different than you and for whatever reason any advice you have provided me over the years did not result in the easy team mode the posters in this thread are enjoying.

Thanks for listening.

<and thanks dugfromearth for posing this question>

The folk who like their low pop home servers have, for the most part, been there forever & are thoroughly integrated into the community. I made my first ever character on Virtue, but we ended up playing on Triumph because one of my pals didn't get the memo and made his character over there. Triumph is still home to all my longest serving characters, and I play there about as often as I play anywhere else.

That said, the high pop servers definitely generate more random teaming opportunities, especially when you play odd hours. These days I'm up at the crack of dawn and on the rare occasions my son sleeps in a bit I'm usually able to catch a team for a few missions on Virtue or Freedom. Not saying it couldn't happen on Triumph, it's just less likely.

I wish there was a mechanism for moving your account slots around. I wouldn't mind retiring several of the unlocked character slots I have on Freedom and moving them to Virtue.

Freedom used to be a lot more alive. It had more Incarnate Trials formed than Virtue did. Heck, I remember back when arena chat was a good place to pick up task force commander TFs, better than the global TF channels, heh.