Server Merger Musings 2016Follow

For years some have been asking for another round of mergers of the live servers, and others asking for the pre-Phinigel progression server pairs (Fippy/Vulak and Ragefire/Lockjaw) to be merged. Personally, I think it is likely that most live servers have viable populations during prime time, but anyone not in a more-serious raiding guild isn't seeing it because of the combination of massive world + anonymous players + instances.

However, some servers --maybe Trakanon (I play there at times) are pretty small pop. I think there are a couple of options:

1. Do nothing (I'm play on Vulak too... no one in general chat, usually less than 4 if you who all, and there isn't a legion of anon), which maybe works but doesn't stop the somewhat steady calls for mergers...

2. Merge the lowest pops away and do something new (special rulesets, a new regular rules server, etc.) with the freed up hardware.

3. The traditional merger in which 2 longstanding servers become a hyphenated name and the prior merger partner name is lost.

Downsides to the traditional methods (low servers fed into others, half the live servers merged into the other half) are usually cited by raiding guilds that suddenly have overlap competition with no history or sharing/pecking order (as per Official boards thread upon thread), the casual population tends to not have a problem except remote farming spots may be popular again due to different server cultures or one new multiboxer. Also, people get ramped up that the "game is dying" when servers are merged. As well, long-lost returning players can't find their old characters easily if they were on one of the now "buried" server names.

I think Phinigel points the way to a new option though, Phinny server is set up differently than any prior servers and can hold a much larger population. It also has instancing of older raid content, and the better than I thought it would be pickzone feature enabled in a lot of places. With the instancing expanded up to the era where this was already the norm, and pickzone intelligently tuned to suit it, I think live servers could be merged in a new way:

-Think of a room with multiple doors leading into it, this is what the server select screen would be. So every server name is shown, but they don't represent the actual number of servers. A group of server names all login to one new super-Phinny-style server with the key Phinny features (but not the XP rate...). When you create a character you could assign any server-origin tag that is in that group. Here's a mock-up of what that could look like (that doesn't actually account for real populations):

Group #1 Luclin / Stromm / Veeshan + Drinal / Tarew Marr / Maelin Starpyre / Vazaelle

Group #2 Xegony / Zebuxoruk / Druzzil Ro / Xev / The Combine / The Sleeper + Vox / Trakanon

Group #3 Bristlebane / Solusek Ro / The Tribunal / Ayonae Ro + Cazic Thule / Brell Serilis / Fennin Ro / Torvonnilous / Faceless / Tranquil

Group #4 Bertoxxulous / Tholuxe Paells / Saryrn / Mithaniel Marr + The Rathe / Karana / Prexus / Terris-Thule + Povar / Morden Rasp / Quellious / Rodcet Nife

Group #5 Tunare / E'ci / The Seventh Hammer / Lanys T'Vyl / Mayong + Erollisi Marr / Morell-Thule / The Nameless / Innoruuk

Group #6 Antonius Bayle / Kane Bayle / Venril Sathir / Sebilis / Kael Drakkel (can you add it to another group and just acknowledge that half the pop of the super server would be Euro time?)

Group #7 Fironia Vie (unique economy and healthy pop last time I logged in there)

Group #8 Fippy Darkpaw / Vulak ‘Aerr (Fippy is still moving towards live)

Group #9 Ragefire / Lockjaw (could alter the rulesets here perhaps and justify keeping them separate, may presently justify that anyways)

Group #10 Zek / Rallos Zek / Tallon Zek / Vallon Zek /Sullon Zek (unless killing PVP altogether not much you can do with Zek)



Thoughts? Any merit to the idea or worst bit of thinking ever?

Allowing players from multiple servers to group in an instanced zone would be beneficial to the game. One thing I do enjoy on Phinigel is the ability to enter a new instance of even low level zones like Crushbone. That means they already have the mechanics worked out and just need to add the cross-server aspect. This would definitely enhance the lower level game, which I define as any player under 105, or at worst, under 100.

One thing I'd suggest they add is this: when you zone out of an instance you find yourself back in the non-instanced version of the neighboring zone. Often I've forgotten the instance # of the zone I just left. I'd like the code to do something like:

Announce to you which instance # you just zoned out of.

or

Automatically suggest that instance # when you go to zone back in.

I've seen as many as 10 instances of a zone so it can be confusing!

Edited, Jan 17th 2016 8:36pm by Sippin