merging the servers wouldnt really solve anything, if anything it would drive more poeple away due to losing their names
and donations wouldnt really do anything, coh was still profitable according to their last quarters reports so donating MORE wont make them change their minds
donating WILL come in handy if ncsoft is willing to sell coh to the now-former devs, which while is a longshot in and of itself, its the best possible option that can come of this current situation
Hopefully the former devs will take it over (along with the database so no one loses their toons).
If they do this, ill subscribe to a whole year of VIP (like the old marketing/customer service rule goes: for everyone one person who says something - there's 1000 other people saying the same thing).
The servers are all virtual. "Merging" them would do nothing (at least, nothing that saves money), because they're not hosted on separate machines to begin with.
But that's all water under the bridge. There are many many things NCSoft could have done other than jump out of the bushes shouting "booga booga" and waving pinkslips, but that's what they did do, and that's the situation that has to be dealt with.
(But, for the record.. heck, yeah, I'd subscribe for a year in advance - at the full $15/month price, even, not the discounted price for buying more than one month of time at once - if it'd keep the game going)
NCSoft, how much money do you need to keep CoH up for at least another year?
Why not ask for donations?
To cut down on your costs, just stop developing new features/non game breaking bugs and merge most of the servers into one server.