What is the obstacle for transferring Guilds in a server merge?

[Fenrisulven7]

I'm just curious, what is the obstacle that prevents Guilds from being transferred to a server merge? (aside from double names)

If you need someone to take notes on current guild levels, confirm them, and then recreate them with their ship & level on a new server, I'll do it for free. :cool: (players would have to redo their amenities)

So what am I missing here? Is it a manpower issue or is there something trickier in play here?

[shores11]

I'm just curious, what is the obstacle that prevents Guilds from being transferred to a server merge? (aside from double names)

If you need someone to take notes on current guild levels, confirm them, and then recreate them with their ship & level on a new server, I'll do it for free. :cool: (players would have to redo their amenities)

So what am I missing here? Is it a manpower issue or is there something trickier in play here?

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur and is not needed. If you as an individual player do not like the server your playing on transfer to another of your choice.

[Gniewomir]

and is not needed.

This is irrelevant reply, cause big part of community wants server merge, and for example in my opinion merge is really needed. Also not easy to choose other server when all of them are equally empty.

[bracelet]

I'm just curious, what is the obstacle that prevents Guilds from being transferred to a server merge? (aside from double names)

If you need someone to take notes on current guild levels, confirm them, and then recreate them with their ship & level on a new server, I'll do it for free. :cool: (players would have to redo their amenities)

So what am I missing here? Is it a manpower issue or is there something trickier in play here?

I think the guild ship issue is less tricky than others. Duplicate guild names is the main problem I can think of. Duplicate player names after the transfer would have to be taken into account, but that has entirely deterministic solutions. They just need to remember to test it.

By far the biggest problem is people who have used most character slots on most servers. There are a couple different solutions to that, but there will be unhappy people either way.

They also need to come up with good heuristics that allow people to keep their toon names. This needs to balance when the toon was created AND the kind of hours or money sunk into a toon. They could do worse than adding up the XP on name-conflicted toons, and letting the one with the most XP keep their original name.

Edit: totally forgot about the shared bank. Someone mentioned it below. That is another serious problem. The solution is probably going to be to combine slots up to the cap and make any over flow withdraw only. People will lose the TP they spent for any slots in excess of the cap. They could credit equivalent TP back to the account to compensate.

[Kutalp]

It would be even funnier if there was no boundries between merging Lotro and Ddo.

I would like to see Hobbits and Halflings arguing. Mounts getting compared (Pemp my r1d3). Inquisitives dueling Legolases lol.


Jokes aside I would also like to see a proper merge happen. :D


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR9O5yB5DaypAme631x2CAcGnzWqy1TG R8nAuch8cts3wFvALPO&s

[Brutuscass]

To qoute what SEV stated at the end of 2015


"We plan on revisiting the idea of server merges after we've moved to the new datacenter which is slated for in sometime in the new year.We want to make sure we have lag under control before we concentrate the players. We recently made some fairly large changes to help combat lag, particularly in the Stormhorns and other places where monsters can use persistent AoE effects. We haven't heard any feedback that lag is reduced, but the nature of that beast is that we only hear about it when lag is bad.There are some obstacles to overcome, like making sure shared storage and guild move over and players have good tools to deal with name collisions for both characters and guilds.Sev~"


DDOWIKI (https://ddowiki.com/page/Server_merge)

To repeat if we are going to get a merge it will be when SSG has it all ironed out

I will not go into whether one is needed or not, it would be a pointless exercise in rumination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)) over things beyond our control

[Brutuscass]

It would be even funnier if there was no boundries between merging Lotro and Ddo.

I would like to see Hobbits and Halflings arguing. Mounts getting compared (Pemp my r1d3). Inquisitives dueling Legolases lol.


Jokes aside I would also like to see a proper merge happen. :D


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR9O5yB5DaypAme631x2CAcGnzWqy1TG R8nAuch8cts3wFvALPO&s

I'd go hobbit hunting and steal all their pipeweed

:cool:

[Chai]

To qoute what SEV stated at the end of 2015


"We plan on revisiting the idea of server merges after we've moved to the new datacenter which is slated for in sometime in the new year.We want to make sure we have lag under control before we concentrate the players. We recently made some fairly large changes to help combat lag, particularly in the Stormhorns and other places where monsters can use persistent AoE effects. We haven't heard any feedback that lag is reduced, but the nature of that beast is that we only hear about it when lag is bad.There are some obstacles to overcome, like making sure shared storage and guild move over and players have good tools to deal with name collisions for both characters and guilds.Sev~"


DDOWIKI (https://ddowiki.com/page/Server_merge)

To repeat if we are going to get a merge it will be when SSG has it all ironed out

I will not go into whether one is needed or not, it would be a pointless exercise in rumination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)) over things beyond our control



~5 ish years ago. Would be nice to see a progress report on the headway made in those 5 years toward this end.

[Kutalp]

I'd go hobbit hunting and steal all their pipeweed

:cool:






Time will tell. :rolleyes:

[shores11]

This is irrelevant reply, cause big part of community wants server merge, and for example in my opinion merge is really needed. Also not easy to choose other server when all of them are equally empty.

I hope the comments made on the forum do not reflect your internal self-poll that a 'big part of the community wants a server merge'. For me I can only speak to the 30 plus players I play with daily in Team Speak on Khyber. Myself and 2 or 3 others that actually visit the forum relay topics discussed from the forums at times. Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of those DDO players do not think a server merge is merited.

[concavenator]

and is not needed.

says who? u? tell that to all the ppl who left cus there weren't enough ppl to play with

[Chai]

From our experiences on the HC server, Id say the community would benefit from a merge.

We encountered more than a few people who were playing over there because of the number of LFMs up for lower level content, and the willingness to cooperate to complete content.

I also point to the myriad of server merge threads over the past few years as evidence. We can also aggregate the number of people still posting from those older threads as less than 50% in common with handles posting in newer threads for the same topic. It is highly likely that folks who used to post but no longer do, also used to play but no longer do.

If a big part of the community no longer wants a server merge, this is due to most of those who asked for this 1-5 years ago attriting, so congratulations, a big part of the community no longer wants a server merge. Not the way a business wants to solve that issue I'm thinking.

And btw, 5 years ago was when Sev made his comment that theyd revisit the topic, not when people first started asking for merges. Those threads popped up regularly years before he made that comment.

Whats the progress on this "revisiting the topic?" Which issues are resolved that were not in that era? Which still need to be resolved?

[Kinerd]

i am also interested in the answer to this question, and a broad SSG discussion of server merge in general
I think the guild ship issue is less tricky than others. Duplicate guild names is the main problem I can think of. Duplicate player names after the transfer would have to be taken into account, but that has entirely deterministic solutions. They just need to remember to test it.

By far the biggest problem is people who have used most character slots on most servers. There are a couple different solutions to that, but there will be unhappy people either way.

They also need to come up with good heuristics that allow people to keep their toon names. This needs to balance when the toon was created AND the kind of hours or money sunk into a toon. They could do worse than adding up the XP on name-conflicted toons, and letting the one with the most XP keep their original name.

Edit: totally forgot about the shared bank. Someone mentioned it below. That is another serious problem. The solution is probably going to be to combine slots up to the cap and make any over flow withdraw only. People will lose the TP they spent for any slots in excess of the cap. They could credit equivalent TP back to the account to compensate.can you elaborate on the slot issue? i feel like "let everyone keep all the slots they're using" wouldn't make anyone unhappy, and the same principle for shared banks

as for names, i feel like the easier method that's been discussed before is let everyone keep their display name and use Drizzt0001 Drizzt0002 etc. for things like mail that require it

[TedSandyman]

To qoute what SEV stated at the end of 2015


"We plan on revisiting the idea of server merges after we've moved to the new datacenter which is slated for in sometime in the new year.We want to make sure we have lag under control before we concentrate the players. We recently made some fairly large changes to help combat lag, particularly in the Stormhorns and other places where monsters can use persistent AoE effects. We haven't heard any feedback that lag is reduced, but the nature of that beast is that we only hear about it when lag is bad.There are some obstacles to overcome, like making sure shared storage and guild move over and players have good tools to deal with name collisions for both characters and guilds.Sev~"


DDOWIKI (https://ddowiki.com/page/Server_merge)

To repeat if we are going to get a merge it will be when SSG has it all ironed out

I will not go into whether one is needed or not, it would be a pointless exercise in rumination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)) over things beyond our control



They said quite clearly, they will look into it as soon as the lag is gone. Is the lag gone? I don't think so.

The merger will happen as soon as lag is resolved, which, I believe, puts it the day after never or just before they fix ladders.

[Clemeit]

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur and is not needed.

Unless you have a magic crystal ball that told you that, your reply is as irrelevant as you believe this thread to be. That's your opinion, and it's not the opinion of the community as a whole. If you can't answer the question asked by the OP, it's perfectly acceptable to just move on. The rest of the community will continue discussing server merges - something that has been brought up many times by many different players lately.


Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of those DDO players do not think a server merge is merited.

Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of [the players I play with regularly] think a server merge is merited. See how ridiculous that statement is? Your minimal personal experience is admirable, but it's not that important.

Go back and read the other replies to this thread and the many that have been brought up in the past. There is support for server merges. You just have to reach beyond the echo chamber.

[Clemeit]

~5 ish years ago. Would be nice to see a progress report on the headway made in those 5 years toward this end.

Yeah I found this 100% legit screenshot

https://i.imgur.com/WWtUYBs.png

[MistaMagic]

For me I can only speak to the 30 plus players I play with daily in Team Speak on Khyber.

Probably why I have no idea who you are as you are running in a closed group, but then again WHY would you be against a server merge when it will not influence you at all?. Personaly I do not care one way or the other

[Gniewomir]

I hope the comments made on the forum do not reflect your internal self-poll that a 'big part of the community wants a server merge'. For me I can only speak to the 30 plus players I play with daily in Team Speak on Khyber. Myself and 2 or 3 others that actually visit the forum relay topics discussed from the forums at times. Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of those DDO players do not think a server merge is merited.

Well, at least i'm not omniscient enough to claim i prefectly know what is needed and what is not despite what others might think and instead of it i highlighted that im sharing facts and my own opinion.

Oh, if that's what your TS boyband says then it must be truth for everyone here. I can only speak for my 15 in game friends (guild and other, friend-guild) as well as around 30 who already left + maybe 50 random people i met in game in last 3 weeks who i talked with about population, all of them wanted server merge. Also there's at least few threads in last days with posts from people who would like to see merge. Examples? Sure: Changes The Community Would Like To See, LAG and Server POPULATION a rational view, Concurrent Population and LFM Trends for the Month of December 2019, Want to double population?, With an average player concurrency of 1800-3000, what choices do you make? And few other. I would give you links, but i'm sure you're aware of their existence since you're so good in judging what is needed and what is not (you should know what everyone here thinks to know that). I won't even mention the fact that there're new merge threads literally almost every month for last few years. Seems like everyone don't want merge, just like you and your static group/fanclub.

It's pretty easy to be blind to everything that do not agree with your own point of view, isn't it? I'm glad you're visiting forums, but if you're doing it only to tell everyone what is needed and what is not instead of trying to make any attempts of joining conversation/listening to other people, then i'll be even more glad if you'll be visiting them less.

EDIT:
Probably why I have no idea who you are as you are running in a closed group, but then again WHY would you be against a server merge when it will not influence you at all?. Personaly I do not care one way or the other

And probably thats why he have no idea about the condition of pugging and grouping outside his channel.

[TedSandyman]

There are a lot of technical problems with a server merge that are not always easy to spot beforehand.

How many of you would sit by patiently and keep paying even if the game is down for a few months? Not many I would bet.

The developers have problems fixing current bugs. Does it seem like a good idea to quadruple (or more likely 10x) the number of bugs on their plate?

The real issue isn't technical anyway, it is social.

If SSG declared Ghallanda was shutting down next week, half the people on Ghallanda would rage quit. Or any other server for that matter.

DDO players aren't really known for putting up with changes they don't like.

This would be like nerfing a whole server.

What people really mean when they say 'server merge' is merge all the other servers with mine and leave my stuff alone.

People want more players on their server but they DO NOT WANT to move to another server or they already would have.

I bet if you took a poll of people wanting a server merger, most would say yes.

But if you took a poll saying shut down your server to merge into another, most would say no.

Would it be good for everyone? Without a doubt.

But humans are not known for doing what was good for them.

If they did there wouldn't be any smoking, vaping, soft drinks, or McDonalds.

And we especially don't like being told something is for our own good.

A server merge would really be easy.

1. Declare a server the new live server. All new accounts must be created here. All future merges will be to this server.
2. Declare a server dead. (No new accounts, characters, or updates.)
2. Allow free account transfer from the dead server to the live server.
3. Figure out guild transfer. (Create a new guild on a live server and rename if necessary. Give the new guild the same guild XP, ship, and amenities. Not hard.)
4. If someone attempts to log into a dead server that hasn't logged in for years, send them a message and tell them how to get to a new server.

No technical difficulty at all except maybe the guilds. But I don't see why there should be. It may have to be done manually but there shouldn't be that many.

If you are not on the live server or the dead server, you know that one day in the future yours will probably be considered the dead server. This may incentivize some to go ahead and move.

The real problem is how are you going to handle it when your server is declared dead.

Are you going to rage quit or are you going to think about how much better this will make the game?

I think if SSG had some assurances that it wouldn't cause a mass exodus they might be willing to do something along the lines above.

But there is just no way of knowing without doing it. And I don't think they feel it is worth the risk.

There may be more groups on the merged server, but if the number of paying accounts goes down, it isn't worth it financially.

And the merge hawks might think it is worth the risk. But they really don't know.

And since these people don't have a financial stake in the matter, they may be willing to call for risks that SSG is not willing to take.

[Strider1963]

IMHO , if we have lag now on seperate servers, I would not want to find out what would happen if all servers were merged into one. Lag would be have to be reduced to near zero before a server merge would be a good idea.

[bracelet]

can you elaborate on the slot issue? i feel like "let everyone keep all the slots they're using" wouldn't make anyone unhappy, and the same principle for shared banks

Combining all the character slots someone is using seems like a simple solution, but it is not. It is inherently unfair to people who didn't use any character slots on any other servers. Suppose one person paid for 10 slots, but only used them on one server. Compare that to some one who paid for 10 slots and rolled up 10 characters on 7 servers. After a merge the second player will have far more character slots (and potential storage) than the first player. Obviously the first player is highly incentivized to fill up every single slot on every server before the merge so that they do not have a disadvantage after the merge. Forgetting the rage that would ensue from players that forget to do this, the potential namespace pollution from the players that remembered to do it would be horrific.

The other solution is to combine all the characters from both servers, keep the character slot cap exactly the same, and make only the highest ranked XP ones available to play. Unavailable characters could only be accessed by deleting an available character or, if your slots aren't capped, by buying another slot. This is exactly what happens when you switch to premium from VIP. This would also outrage many folks, but to my mind is significantly fairer and more practical since they already have code to do this.

[Chai]

IMHO , if we have lag now on seperate servers, I would not want to find out what would happen if all servers were merged into one. Lag would be have to be reduced to near zero before a server merge would be a good idea.

If same resources are used to manage same populace in same number of instances, there wont be any more lag if the server number is reduced.

"Servers" nowdays are not a hard barrier to resource allocation like they were in the 80s and previous. We are already seeing some games which used to keep populaces separate on a "per server" basis condense their entire populaces to one "mega-shard" so they can all play together. This has not resulted in the often theory-crafted-on-forums myth of "more lag." simply due to the evaporation of server divisions.

[Chai]

Combining all the character slots someone is using seems like a simple solution, but it is not. It is inherently unfair to people who didn't use any character slots on any other servers. Suppose one person paid for 10 slots, but only used them on one server. Compare that to some one who paid for 10 slots and rolled up 10 characters on 7 servers. After a merge the second player will have far more character slots (and potential storage) than the first player. Obviously the first player is highly incentivized to fill up every single slot on every server before the merge so that they do not have a disadvantage after the merge. Forgetting the rage that would ensue from players that forget to do this, the potential namespace pollution from the players that remembered to do it would be horrific.

The other solution is to combine all the characters from both servers, keep the character slot cap exactly the same, and make only the highest ranked XP ones available to play. Unavailable characters could only be accessed by deleting an available character or, if your slots aren't capped, by buying another slot. This is exactly what happens when you switch to premium from VIP. This would also outrage many folks, but to my mind is significantly fairer and more practical since they already have code to do this.

Combine purchased character slots additively.

If I bought 10 character slots and used all 10 on one server and 4 on another that means post merge I have 6 free character slots on the merge server.

[bracelet]

Combine purchased character slots additively.

If I bought 10 character slots and used all 10 on one server and 4 on another that means post merge I have 6 free character slots on the merge server.

It could work like that. But SSG will likely never see any meaningful revenue from character slots ever again. Given the current one character focus most people take nowadays, they probably aren't seeing much from that anymore anyway.

[Kinerd]

Combining all the character slots someone is using seems like a simple solution, but it is not. It is inherently unfair to people who didn't use any character slots on any other servers. Suppose one person paid for 10 slots, but only used them on one server. Compare that to some one who paid for 10 slots and rolled up 10 characters on 7 servers. After a merge the second player will have far more character slots (and potential storage) than the first player. Obviously the first player is highly incentivized to fill up every single slot on every server before the merge so that they do not have a disadvantage after the merge. Forgetting the rage that would ensue from players that forget to do this, the potential namespace pollution from the players that remembered to do it would be horrific.i agree that Chai's solution makes more sense

[Kinerd]

There are a lot of technical problems with a server merge that are not always easy to spot beforehand. How many of you would sit by patiently and keep paying even if the game is down for a few months? Not many I would bet. The developers have problems fixing current bugs. Does it seem like a good idea to quadruple (or more likely 10x) the number of bugs on their plate?
why stop there... what if the server merge deletes every character? what if it causes every developer to quit? what if it destroys the entire US power grid or, indeed, the entire universe? we've been through this before. it worked fine. it'll work fine this time too.


The real issue isn't technical anyway, it is social. If SSG declared Ghallanda was shutting down next week, half the people on Ghallanda would rage quit. Or any other server for that matter. DDO players aren't really known for putting up with changes they don't like. This would be like nerfing a whole server. What people really mean when they say 'server merge' is merge all the other servers with mine and leave my stuff alone. People want more players on their server but they DO NOT WANT to move to another server or they already would have.
they would have except server transfers cost money and players have no reasonable expectation that another server will be dramatically more populated.

[SiliconScout]

IMHO , if we have lag now on seperate servers, I would not want to find out what would happen if all servers were merged into one. Lag would be have to be reduced to near zero before a server merge would be a good idea.You don't have to, Hard Core had crazy high population compared to MOST servers, in that time I found that I lagged exactly one time playing there when I know it wasn't me. I had 2 other instances of client lag. Compare this to my home server where I see lag about 50% of the time that I play.

I think that is a pretty definitive example of more population not meaning more lag. What I think it might have shown is that TR caches cause lag though as there would have been comparatively very few characters with TR caches. Could just be that it's a new server running from scratch and therefore doesn't have whatever "cruft" builds up on a server over time. Not sure but I can for sure say that HC had well over x2 the number of characters running around (maybe x10) as Thelanis at any given time and it ran a LOT more smoothly.

And, for me at least, when I am talking server merge I mean that there is a brand new server created and two or more existing servers are merged into it. Thus everyone involved is moving.

Solving the bank and guild issues would be paramount, but if they can be solved with a reasonable ROI then I think server merges would largely be a huge net positive. For those running closed groups, you still are because everyone came over. For guilds with a large base or a meaningful attachment you are still good because all of it came over. For those who want to PUG it's better because you have a larger PUG pool to draw upon.

It would be nice if they also resolved naming conflicts based on most active toon in the last year with that name. Thus Joe Blow on Server A who plays daily gets to keep his name over Joe Blow on Server B who was created 8 years ago but hasn't logged in for a year. if they are both "active" then take the one with the most hours played if that is a possible to determine for SSG, or that was created first if not.

Honestly though I think the naming issue is minimal at best I occasionally see ~1 named toons still running around because they'd rather keep the name and that's cool too.

[SiliconScout]

There are a lot of technical problems with a server merge that are not always easy to spot beforehand.

How many of you would sit by patiently and keep paying even if the game is down for a few months? Not many I would bet.

The developers have problems fixing current bugs. Does it seem like a good idea to quadruple (or more likely 10x) the number of bugs on their plate?

...If all "merges" are from existing to a newly created server then the advantage for SSG is that they can complete this merge as often as they need offline until they get it right / WAI. Take snapshots of the existing servers (or use backups of them, whatever works easiest) and run the process on them. See what you get for a result.

I would hope and expect that would be the case considering that it's a "no backsies" kind of event for them. There are a handful of potential unforseens (say a logon issue caused in the launcher due to the deleted servers as an example) but by and large those should be simple fixes. The real heavy lifting is the merge itself an ensuring the intended merge mechanics worked as intended. I expect another potentially large issue is ensuring they have enough trained and effective Customer Support Reps dedicated to DDO for say the first week or two of the merger so that if there are issues they can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

[Zaglor]

IMHO , if we have lag now on seperate servers, I would not want to find out what would happen if all servers were merged into one. Lag would be have to be reduced to near zero before a server merge would be a good idea.
What Kind Of Lag Are You Having? Frame Rate Lag Or Actual Connection Issues? I've Played 98 hours A Week This Whole Semester (Easy semester and I get paid to go to school) and rarely ever encounter any kind of actual packet based lag. Regardless of that fact would you rather have a few months of lag until they can fix it or play single player DDO?

[Zaglor]

Unless you have a magic crystal ball that told you that, your reply is as irrelevant as you believe this thread to be. That's your opinion, and it's not the opinion of the community as a whole. If you can't answer the question asked by the OP, it's perfectly acceptable to just move on. The rest of the community will continue discussing server merges - something that has been brought up many times by many different players lately.



Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of [the players I play with regularly] think a server merge is merited. See how ridiculous that statement is? Your minimal personal experience is admirable, but it's not that important.

Go back and read the other replies to this thread and the many that have been brought up in the past. There is support for server merges. You just have to reach beyond the echo chamber.

tElL hIm hE dOeSnT sPeAk 4 Teh Kommunitiy *Insert Stupid Spongebob Meme Here*

[Clemeit]

tElL hIm hE dOeSnT sPeAk 4 Teh Kommunitiy *Insert Stupid Spongebob Meme Here*


I considered it. And it took every ounce of what little self control I have left to abstain.

[Anuulified]

What if we dont want your server population coming to ours? What if the culture on your server is what caused it to be a ghost town. How do we know your servers people wont do that to ours? Fears come in many forms.

[Zaglor]

What if we dont want your server population coming to ours? What if the culture on your server is what caused it to be a ghost town. How do we know your servers people wont do that to ours? Fears come in many forms.
Your Server is probably equally as dead.

[Fenrisulven7]

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur and is not needed.

LOL. This guy thinks he's in charge of the forums or something...


If you as an individual player do not like the server your playing on transfer to another of your choice.

...although he certainly told that Strawman a thing or two! Poor Strawman.

I'm going to pretend that was meant as parody.



But back to my question - so what I'm hearing here is that Guilds are no harder to transfer during a server merge than toons? Has SSG transferred Guilds (at current levels) in the past?

I was just curious if there was any special problem that would make everyone have to restart their Guild over from scratch.

I take it SSG does not allow you to transfer an established guild to a new server on your own, but that if SSG did a server merge then Guilds would be transferred at their current level?

Thanks
Fen

[Clemeit]

Proposal 1: The guild leader gets a Token of Guild Renown equal to the total amount of renown the guild currently has, and an Official Guild Charter certificate. The guild is disbanded upon transfer. The guild leader can reform the guild under the same name (if available) or a new name, and use the token of renown on the new guild.

If the guild leader is inactive, that token goes to the next in line. If the next in line is inactive, it goes to the most recently active officer. If there are no active officers, your guild is probably dead. Sorry.

Proposal 2: The guild and all of its members are transferred together and fully intact. If the guild name conflicts with one on the new server, the guild leader is given a renaming token.

[lyrecono]

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur and is not needed. If you as an individual player do not like the server your playing on transfer to another of your choice.


This is irrelevant reply, cause big part of community wants server merge, and for example in my opinion merge is really needed. Also not easy to choose other server when all of them are equally empty.

Some servers have a severe lack of players in certain hours.



To qoute what SEV stated at the end of 2015


"We plan on revisiting the idea of server merges after we've moved to the new datacenter which is slated for in sometime in the new year.We want to make sure we have lag under control before we concentrate the players. We recently made some fairly large changes to help combat lag, particularly in the Stormhorns and other places where monsters can use persistent AoE effects. We haven't heard any feedback that lag is reduced, but the nature of that beast is that we only hear about it when lag is bad.There are some obstacles to overcome, like making sure shared storage and guild move over and players have good tools to deal with name collisions for both characters and guilds.Sev~"


DDOWIKI (https://ddowiki.com/page/Server_merge)

To repeat if we are going to get a merge it will be when SSG has it all ironed out

I will not go into whether one is needed or not, it would be a pointless exercise in rumination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)) over things beyond our control


That explains their lackluster attempts to fix the lag XD
Then again, i have painfully learned that claims made by certain turbine/ ssg members should be treated lightly....


I hope the comments made on the forum do not reflect your internal self-poll that a 'big part of the community wants a server merge'. For me I can only speak to the 30 plus players I play with daily in Team Speak on Khyber. Myself and 2 or 3 others that actually visit the forum relay topics discussed from the forums at times. Regarding a server merge I can say that 100% of those DDO players do not think a server merge is merited.


says who? u? tell that to all the ppl who left cus there weren't enough ppl to play with

Claiming you have an amazing population during your playtine on your server is like sending pictures of you wasting waters by the gallons to some drought cursed village on the edge of some dessert. It helps no-one.


IMHO , if we have lag now on seperate servers, I would not want to find out what would happen if all servers were merged into one. Lag would be have to be reduced to near zero before a server merge would be a good idea.

Not possible as long as people:
1) continue to play on potatoes, i'm sometimes amazed to hear what kind of 15 year old pc and laptops some of you use with the lowest possible settins and on screens a modern tablet would laugh at, some of you even try playing it on a mac......

2) people don't play on a decent connection, actually, some of the playerbase plays from truck, mobile homes,drilling platforms, cabins in the woods and untill he went dark, in the Australian outback, something to do with seeing a lot of smoke and and an orrange glow comming his way, least thats the last i heard from him on discord. (If you're reading this on your phone mate, drop a message to let us know you're fine)

3) the devs may use a sub par hosting service maybe?

4) we're dealing with an outdated architecture 64 bits might help some of the memory drain, roughly 2gig vs 64 gig would atleast postpone the memory leak and subsequent issues.

5) a list of issues we're not even previewed to, ranging from internal politics at ssg, financial decissions that might be out of the hands of the devs and technical limitations due to the old code not fully being understood by all the devs.

[psykopeta]

What Kind Of Lag Are You Having? Frame Rate Lag Or Actual Connection Issues? I've Played 98 hours A Week This Whole Semester (Easy semester and I get paid to go to school) and rarely ever encounter any kind of actual packet based lag. Regardless of that fact would you rather have a few months of lag until they can fix it or play single player DDO?

Once SSG admitted there's lag, they're trying to fix it but don't know how, and it stops emfrom making other useful stuff (like merging servers, already quoted in that thread), makes the "i don't havelag, it's your pc" meaningless

PS:if they allow me to move all my toons to 1 server for free, in a pack, everytime i feel it right (cause population changes, etc) i would stop asking for server merges

[Gniewomir]

Once SSG admitted there's lag, they're trying to fix it but don't know how, and it stops emfrom making other useful stuff (like merging servers, already quoted in that thread), makes the "i don't havelag, it's your pc" meaningless

PS:if they allow me to move all my toons to 1 server for free, in a pack, everytime i feel it right (cause population changes, etc) i would stop asking for server merges

They're are trying to fix it, so we're getting new quests, expansions, races, classes every few months and still not a single, decent lag fix, just some multiplayer nerfs (like making night reveals single player event). Draw conclussions by yourself. :P

As you can see i've got join date december 2019 and right now i've got lvl 18 characters on 6/8 servers, so i've got some knowledge about heroic grouping on almost all servers. I assure you, there's no noticeable difference.

[Strider1963]

What Kind Of Lag Are You Having? Frame Rate Lag Or Actual Connection Issues? I've Played 98 hours A Week This Whole Semester (Easy semester and I get paid to go to school) and rarely ever encounter any kind of actual packet based lag. Regardless of that fact would you rather have a few months of lag until they can fix it or play single player DDO?

I have the same kind of lag most people have, server lag, and no, its not all the time, but seems to be more prevalent at hours where there are more people online. Also, theres the problem of porting lag, or even the game hanging or becoming non responsive when attempting to port to a different location. And of course, theres bank lag, where you try to move stuff around in the bank and it takes forever.This is why they restart the servers at least once a week, so it must be a server problem. Its kind of ridiculous to be able to play the game, getting over 200 fps and not being able to move. I have a 3 month old gaming comp, albeit a lower end machine with a decent graphics card and the rig is definately op for an older game like this, for a newer game, it might not be so great. And i still say, no matter what Chai says, the more players on a server, the more lag there will be. This is proven by the fact that during busier times of the day, the lag problem starts popping up, where early in the morming, my time (est), there is rarely any problems. This has been going on for years now, and apparently there's no way for the devs to resolve it, unless its a matter of better equipment which they probably cant afford.

[Chai]

What if we dont want your server population coming to ours? What if the culture on your server is what caused it to be a ghost town. How do we know your servers people wont do that to ours? Fears come in many forms.

If Xoriat shenanigans didnt "ruin" Tharashk players fun when those were merged to Thelanis, I highly doubt any of the kitty cat stuff by comparison happening nowdays is going to cause anyone to bat an eye one way or the other if/when merges happen down the road. :p

[Kinerd]

What if we dont want your server population coming to ours? What if the culture on your server is what caused it to be a ghost town. How do we know your servers people wont do that to ours? Fears come in many forms.

if it did then some servers would still be thriving

since no servers are, it is not a plausible explanation

[lyrecono]

I have the same kind of lag most people have, server lag, and no, its not all the time, but seems to be more prevalent at hours where there are more people online. Also, theres the problem of porting lag, or even the game hanging or becoming non responsive when attempting to port to a different location. And of course, theres bank lag, where you try to move stuff around in the bank and it takes forever.This is why they restart the servers at least once a week, so it must be a server problem. Its kind of ridiculous to be able to play the game, getting over 200 fps and not being able to move. I have a 3 month old gaming comp, albeit a lower end machine with a decent graphics card and the rig is definately op for an older game like this, for a newer game, it might not be so great. And i still say, no matter what Chai says, the more players on a server, the more lag there will be. This is proven by the fact that during busier times of the day, the lag problem starts popping up, where early in the morming, my time (est), there is rarely any problems. This has been going on for years now, and apparently there's no way for the devs to resolve it, unless its a matter of better equipment which they probably cant afford.

"People lag" is due to 1 or more having a ****** connection or pc, the server just makes all of you wait for the slowest in the map or group to catch up. Finding the culprit and exlude him/her from grouping and quests and raids should be fine.

Teleport lag is due to your pc loading a new map, if there isn't enough room in your ram or your hd loads it up too slow, it creates lag, especialy with big maps like kings forrest and the sands.
Remember, due to ddo's old and archeic 32 bit architecture, you can have only a limited amount of ram for ddo, regardles of it's actual size. For a time i used a homebrew aplication that was able to force ddo to use more memory, worked just fine.

200 fps is a.meaningless number when it comes to lag, a pc with 1 gig of ram and dail in connection but a 2080 gtx card will likely preform much worse then your rig despitethe grafix card being more powerful.
And to be fair, ddo barely supports 1080p, a graphics card that can handle ddo well at that resolution shouldn't cost that much money these days.
Take it from someone that used to play this game with 3x 4k monitors, ddo's support for those kinds of resolutions is non existent.

@devs
On the other hand... Doom 2016 (and the hopefully the upcomming doom eternal), looks amazing on that resolution.
Plays a lot more ballanced too.....
Now that is my idea of a first person shooter devs, so stop trying to compete and make ddo playeble for all playstyles through all dificulties.

#melee
#2hf
#stealth
#server mergers

[Fenrisulven7]

so what I'm hearing here is that Guilds are no harder to transfer during a server merge than toons? Has SSG transferred Guilds (at current levels) in the past?

I was just curious if there was any special problem that would make everyone have to restart their Guild over from scratch.

I take it SSG does not allow you to transfer an established guild to a new server on your own, but that if SSG did a server merge then Guilds would be transferred at their current level?

Thanks
Fen

[Tist]

so what I'm hearing here is that Guilds are no harder to transfer during a server merge than toons?

At the end of the day, all characters, guilds, bank contents, player arranged objects, player shared banks, everything, come down to being an entry in a database.
These things can be copied very easily.

At some point in the past, they had staff with the database skills, scripting skills and knowledge of what was stored where, and what might need to be changed during a server move, and they wrote character transfer scripts. They didn't write guild transfer scripts. So, to move a guild in the same fashion as the character server transfer, they would need to task someone to write a script to move some values from one database to another. That person would need scripting skills, database skills, and system knowledge of what values were unique to a server and needed to be altered as the move happened. Any script needs to take into account various issues like name clashes, missing people at the destination server and so on.

There hasn't been any sign that they have this in mind. This is why players suggest alternate methods, such as methods to "reclaim" guild resources into DDO items that would auto copy with a character holding them. EG, give me a guild renown token and a guild create token, and a token for each airship I have, and for each airship room I have, and disband the guild. When I copy across to new server, I use the items and have something similar to my original guild, but created fresh and new. There are still potential issues with this - if a player paid for the airship but is no longer playing, does the airship token go to them? And so you can't re-create it easily on the new server. However, this method, of "cashing in" all your guild things to tokens, and using them on the destination server, doesn't require deep knowledge of the database, or the scripting checks and fallbacks. It could be implemented by staff with a lot less overall knowledge, using existing code - give item to create guild (already exists). give item to have ship (already exists), give guild renown of X value (already exists, but would be sensible to create much higher value tokens - not hard, copy existing item and increase value). This leaves players to sort out the "problems" like destination server has a guild with same name.

[Fenrisulven7]

staff with the database skills, scripting skills and knowledge of what was stored where, and what might need to be changed during a server move, and they wrote character transfer scripts. They didn't write guild transfer scripts*. So, to move a guild in the same fashion as the character server transfer, they would need to task someone to write a script to move some values from one database to another. That person would need scripting skills, database skills, and system knowledge of what values were unique to a server and needed to be altered as the move happened.

Ah. That's the information I was looking for. Thank you.


*emphasis added

[concavenator]

mergemergemergemerge

[Brutuscass]

Some servers have a severe lack of players in certain hours.


That explains their lackluster attempts to fix the lag XD
Then again, i have painfully learned that claims made by certain turbine/ ssg members should be treated lightly.....

Very nicely put and interesting points all of them:D

I do hope all turns out well for your friend in the outback, I can only barely imagine their plight. here we are worrying about a game, I hope they get those fires under control soon.

[myliftkk_v2]

"People lag" is due to 1 or more having a ****** connection or pc, the server just makes all of you wait for the slowest in the map or group to catch up. Finding the culprit and exlude him/her from grouping and quests and raids should be fine.

This is not at all how client-server processing works. The server does not "wait" on any client.

All clients "wait" on the server.

[myliftkk_v2]

At the end of the day, all characters, guilds, bank contents, player arranged objects, player shared banks, everything, come down to being an entry in a database.
These things can be copied very easily.

Copying isn't relevant to the problem of moving data.

It's conflicts around identity and unique columns that have baked in attributes at the data definition language level. Depending on how the tables themselves were constructed, can impose serious difficulties on adding data without resolution of potential conflicts in keys and foreign keys spread throughout the data to be moved. The chaining effect only getting worse when you expand beyond a single account to multiple accounts. Then you add in guilds which have data relationships to accounts, and any whether those accounts are also coming.

It's like pulling on a single strand of spaghetti and next thing you know the whole mess is in your lap.

[sirgog]

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur and is not needed. If you as an individual player do not like the server your playing on transfer to another of your choice.

I for one check every couple of months.

Has there been a server merge? No? OK, still not interested in playing. SSG doesn't get a cent.

The community is dead outside American peak hours. There are enough players to make this feel like a multiplayer game again, but they are scattered across multiple servers.

I'd buy Sharn in a heartbeat if a merge happens, because the game would be worth playing again.

[SirValentine]

This is an irrelevant topic as server merging will not occur


And yet server merging has occurred in the past in DDO. There's no reason they couldn't do it again.

Do you know something we don't? Would the the devs rather pull the plug on 7 dead servers instead of have 1 server with a healthy population for a long time to come?

In a game where our quests/raids/wilderness, and even potentially our public areas, are all instanced, there's no need for separate so-called "servers" anyway.



and is not needed.


That's your opinion. Not everyone agrees.

[Grimtooth333]

And yet server merging has occurred in the past in DDO. There's no reason they couldn't do it again.
There can very well be many reasons that it might be problematic today. Merging servers was no small thing back then, for a seemingly larger team when the game had far less systems, today that would be even more things/issues to add to the list for a merge to happen, with a seemingly smaller team.

As someone here when that happened the process was not quite a flawless one, with extensive downtime's, and some inconveniences. However there have been many additional things added to the game since then, guild-ships, shared storage, ASAH, character slots, etc.

For example, I ended up receiving someone else's mails with items the last time, the items were not bound because then most non-raid loot items weren't, so I was able to track down the owner and give them to them normally. With the ASAH and possible bound items in the mail it would be a different story today, not one easily solved between players on their own. Can warnings be issued by the Devs? Sure, but there are always those that might not read it or be able to log on and do something about it in time.

Then you also could have the FTP people whining about losing the first time bonus favor DP on the different servers if you condense to one or two, that is another wrinkle that might have to be addressed as well today with a merge. The list of possible concerns for various players can go on, and on.

Now personally I don't care if they merged servers, but I do remember it was not all 'rainbows and unicorns' the last time. With a larger Dev team and less in-game systems.

For those of us who were here last time and may remember this... RIP Xoriat! :p

[Chai]

Copying isn't relevant to the problem of moving data.

It's conflicts around identity and unique columns that have baked in attributes at the data definition language level. Depending on how the tables themselves were constructed, can impose serious difficulties on adding data without resolution of potential conflicts in keys and foreign keys spread throughout the data to be moved. The chaining effect only getting worse when you expand beyond a single account to multiple accounts. Then you add in guilds which have data relationships to accounts, and any whether those accounts are also coming.

It's like pulling on a single strand of spaghetti and next thing you know the whole mess is in your lap.

Combine that with not having prioritized the thought that there might need to be a server merge down the road when constructing the tables, then when adding microtrans to the game later on.

They did say they were going to revisit the topic 5 years ago however. Would be nice to hear what the progress on that is, what issues they have addressed, which can be addressed, and which barriers still exist. These issues are not un-solve-able. We know they take time. 5 years has passed. /shrug

[Jerevth]

I started off on the "No Merger" side but my guild has shrunk to around twelve actives, a few partially active (Once a week for gold-rolls) and a long list of friends who've drifted away.

-Condensing the servers into one would very likely reduce lag because it isn't a resource 50/50 split to run two servers. There is a moderate efficiency loss to run separate servers. i.e. Multitasking requires more computing power. (At least with the systems I'm familiar with). Because I am not familiar with the hardware SSG is using now I could be mistaken.*

-A single server would afford new potential gameplay opportunities; server-wide events?

-When the community reaches a certain point I surmise that the loss of players will actually accelerate.

Given the cost to transfer one character- 2495 DDO points- and many of us have upwards of 8 mules, well established (Amenity-wise) guilds, and all the pitas a transfer would impose (Name's taken, clearing the TR cache, friends lists lost) folks may just decide to start fresh, with a more populous game. https://www.ddo.com/en/world-character-transfer-guide

DDO is facing a point where they need to condense the player base or watch the players evaporate. With years invested farming gear, training skills, gathering lives, tomes and so forth, just starting fresh is not an option for many. It would be best for SSG to begin orchestrating voluntary transfers to a single server building on lessons learned to make it more efficient- guild ships mirrored, toon stables transferred, under a controlled process- rather than losing more players.

There would need to be limitations, too. Minimum guild sizes and only those with multi player activity (Not mule guilds- I have one, I'll say good-bye to it.) 20+ toons on each server are not going to all be brought into one server. We all have our mains, our test toons, our name holders and our mules. Some are going to have to go to the bit bucket. Let's face it; being able to bring our primaries and some of our mules onto one server would be much better than starting from scratch in a completely new game. We'd still be somewhat in our comfort zone.

Or...

Faced with a game that is essentially a ghost town and having to start completely fresh (or pay much to transfer all our hard won bits and abandon some significant investments- guild, friends, etc- we may just decide to find a new, more alive game. Not a threat- so long as I have time I will play DDO into its dying days. But I think a decision soon that provides a developed and incremental transfer for free- or at least at a significantly reduced cost- to make it as small a pain in the butt as possible would extend the games life.

SSG plans to stay alive for a while- ongoing development, balance, and they're looking at the screen size increase issue (Bigger screen, smaller GUI) and reducing lag. This is a discussion they need to have.

The OP has a valid concern, the conversation needs to be had. Hearsay doesn't have a place in the discussion- "I know thirty people who don't want it," doesn't fly. If you know six people who agree with your thinking- real people not six accounts with three posts to their name- ask them to join in.

I'll just speak for myself- my mind changed already since the last discussion. I'm for a merger, at this point. The HC server showed what a huge population was like and I really enjoyed it despite my soloer ways.

*I've been careful to temper my own input on the technical aspects as limited to my own understanding. Some of you may be able to correct me if I'm wrong in this instance.

[myliftkk_v2]

Combine that with not having prioritized the thought that there might need to be a server merge down the road when constructing the tables, then when adding microtrans to the game later on.

They did say they were going to revisit the topic 5 years ago however. Would be nice to hear what the progress on that is, what issues they have addressed, which can be addressed, and which barriers still exist. These issues are not un-solve-able. We know they take time. 5 years has passed. /shrug

Exactly. One either designs for what we used to call "multi-client" (where the client is the server) at the data level, or one doesn't. Most places don't because it's cheaper not to, and then they inevitably get painted into a corner when data needs to cross into a different domain. The fact that individuals received "erroneous" mail is pretty much proof the problem lies in the identity and foreign key relationships (which of course get worse with every set of tables added) across everywhere those are stored. It gets even worse if at the DB level one is assigning the identity values according to things like sequences because you can't just override that type of behavior without breaking the DB level sequencing (and DB level sequencing is very effective for most usages).

One either designs for merging data or they don't. Most don't. I've experienced it a lot in healthcare because facilities can easily mis/un-identify patient within digital systems especially in scenarios like unconscious emergency room visits with no, or erroneous id present. There's a long history of technical expertise and electronic data interchange standards on how to move medical data around without killing someone accidentally.

My guess is each time they revisit it, it goes back into the "too hard" pile.

[myliftkk_v2]

I started off on the "No Merger" side but my guild has shrunk to around twelve actives, a few partially active (Once a week for gold-rolls) and a long list of friends who've drifted away.

-Condensing the servers into one would very likely reduce lag because it isn't a resource 50/50 split to run two servers. There is a moderate efficiency loss to run separate servers. i.e. Multitasking requires more computing power. (At least with the systems I'm familiar with). Because I am not familiar with the hardware SSG is using now I could be mistaken.*

-A single server would afford new potential gameplay opportunities; server-wide events?

-When the community reaches a certain point I surmise that the loss of players will actually accelerate.

Given the cost to transfer one character- 2495 DDO points- and many of us have upwards of 8 mules, well established (Amenity-wise) guilds, and all the pitas a transfer would impose (Name's taken, clearing the TR cache, friends lists lost) folks may just decide to start fresh, with a more populous game. https://www.ddo.com/en/world-character-transfer-guide

DDO is facing a point where they need to condense the player base or watch the players evaporate. With years invested farming gear, training skills, gathering lives, tomes and so forth, just starting fresh is not an option for many. It would be best for SSG to begin orchestrating voluntary transfers to a single server building on lessons learned to make it more efficient- guild ships mirrored, toon stables transferred, under a controlled process- rather than losing more players.

There would need to be limitations, too. Minimum guild sizes and only those with multi player activity (Not mule guilds- I have one, I'll say good-bye to it.) 20+ toons on each server are not going to all be brought into one server. We all have our mains, our test toons, our name holders and our mules. Some are going to have to go to the bit bucket. Let's face it; being able to bring our primaries and some of our mules onto one server would be much better than starting from scratch in a completely new game. We'd still be somewhat in our comfort zone.

Or...

Faced with a game that is essentially a ghost town and having to start completely fresh (or pay much to transfer all our hard won bits and abandon some significant investments- guild, friends, etc- we may just decide to find a new, more alive game. Not a threat- so long as I have time I will play DDO into its dying days. But I think a decision soon that provides a developed and incremental transfer for free- or at least at a significantly reduced cost- to make it as small a pain in the butt as possible would extend the games life.

SSG plans to stay alive for a while- ongoing development, balance, and they're looking at the screen size increase issue (Bigger screen, smaller GUI) and reducing lag. This is a discussion they need to have.

The OP has a valid concern, the conversation needs to be had. Hearsay doesn't have a place in the discussion- "I know thirty people who don't want it," doesn't fly. If you know six people who agree with your thinking- real people not six accounts with three posts to their name- ask them to join in.

I'll just speak for myself- my mind changed already since the last discussion. I'm for a merger, at this point. The HC server showed what a huge population was like and I really enjoyed it despite my soloer ways.

*I've been careful to temper my own input on the technical aspects as limited to my own understanding. Some of you may be able to correct me if I'm wrong in this instance.

There's 2 problems with dumping mules (which nominally I'm in favor of). One is things a player has bought for said mule (usually more storage space). This could be offset by giving a player the refund in points, or by giving equivalent storage elsewhere (like shared bank).

The other problem is character bound stuff we've received over the years on old Mules (though most is obsolete).

I'd be in favor of dumping my mules if SSG traded me for shared bank storage to replace what I bought on the mules (I think I have maybe ~15-20 mules), and offered a generous bump in storage during a merge beyond that to account for the ~100 spaces free you lose on each mule. If SSG straightened out the shared bank with additional tabbing and sort capabilities, the whole mule concept could be dropped altogether.

[Fenrisulven7]

There's 2 problems with dumping mules (which nominally I'm in favor of). One is things a player has bought for said mule (usually more storage space). This could be offset by giving a player the refund in points, or by giving equivalent storage elsewhere (like shared bank).

The other problem is character bound stuff we've received over the years on old Mules (though most is obsolete).

I'd be in favor of dumping my mules if SSG traded me for shared bank storage to replace what I bought on the mules (I think I have maybe ~15-20 mules), and offered a generous bump in storage during a merge beyond that to account for the ~100 spaces free you lose on each mule. If SSG straightened out the shared bank with additional tabbing and sort capabilities, the whole mule concept could be dropped altogether.

Do we want a server merge?

Or do we want a server merge with sprinkles and chocolate icing and a slice of apple pie on the side?

Because I think the more we insist on the latter, the less likely it will happen at all.

[Jerevth]

Do we want a server merge?

Or do we want a server merge with sprinkles and chocolate icing and a slice of apple pie on the side?

Because I think the more we insist on the latter, the less likely it will happen at all.

I think we can certainly ask for everything.
They can determine what can and cannot be done and list it as such.
I also think incremental transfers, early, would help identify any issues when comes the M-Day, if they decide to move ahead.

We do know that free transfers are possible, just not how many can be supported per account.
We don't know about guilds or their assets. (Apple pie)
We don't know what the limits (number-wise and character based purchases) are. (Icing)
We know, with transfers, that mail will go away. (Sprinkles)

There are two possible methods- transfer vs merger. I think a new server to transfer to from the old servers might be best; it provides the potential to clear up old names that haven't seen the light in years (abandoned accounts).
Should the owner of said account come back they can transfer via the launcher if the server is offline (maintain the old servers database to transfer toons but logging in is impossible). Reduced resource requirements.After a certain time frame *delete*.

[myliftkk_v2]

Do we want a server merge?

Or do we want a server merge with sprinkles and chocolate icing and a slice of apple pie on the side?

Because I think the more we insist on the latter, the less likely it will happen at all.
I don't think increasing shared bank space is icing.

If players keep the mules, SSG merges the mules. The more toons you merge, the more intertwined conflicts you have to resolve.

If you expand what is already probably infinitely expandable (shared bank - which has grown tremendously since I started playing), then almost all need for "mules" goes away, including moving them. Increasing the shared bank could decrease the overall merge workload at a toon level by a factor of ~40-80% (since mules are not 1:1 with played characters).

[Tist]

It's conflicts around identity and unique columns that have baked in attributes at the data definition language level

My next sentence addressed that. Your whole reply post feels like you just talked about the exact same things I talked about, adding nothing except "it might be badly designed" which frankly is already assumed.

I was replying to, and quoted :

so what I'm hearing here is that Guilds are no harder to transfer during a server merge than toons?

And that is totally the case. Guilds are less complex than characters, way less data and relationships. The issue is solely that there is no guild copy / move script that rectifies the issues I mention and you go over again for some reason as if I had not mentioned them. What was the point of your post?

Guild transfer scripts are still possible. It just requires development time. Knowledge would make it faster but I already said exactly that in my post. The alternatives, such as refund items are also possible at less time cost (and less expensive developer to do it cost). You aren't suggesting it's just impossible are you?

For the sake of the schwing, I also worked (and developed) in healthcare, and international banking, insurance, internet hosting, education, online sales based companies, and I've done work on both server and client mmorpgs and emulators. If you want to see messed up embedded identity keys and so on, look at the Everquest client which has that stuff badly built into the wire protocols and memory structures for it let alone the back end data storage which was basically data dumps.

Don't try and make out like it's black magic. It's not. Transferring a guild is easier than transferring a toon, only the toon transfer script is written and the guild one seems not to be.


Full merging of an entire server's toons, guilds, etc, is obviously more involved than a single toon transfer or a single guild transfer. It's still possible, but I think I would choose (as has been suggested) people to be given guild refunds and free transfers to a designated server, maybe a "new" server with 2 or 3 old servers transferring to it. As I mentioned before this pushes lots of the error checking burden onto the players before they even move. Empty mail, empty shared bank, refund guild. Name clashes resolved by existing transfer system. First come first served, others given name change tokens and appended x or whatever. You sort out which mules and alts from which of your play servers you really want or care enough about, and you buy more slots if you want to have more on the same server, or you dump them when you don't.
Everyone has to move - in a month the original servers will be locked - ideally just like the recent permadeath server, where people can come log in to them only for the purpose of sorting out their stuff and triggering their server transfers if they are after the fact. Leave the resulting one instance historic servers up forever so any returners can do this process at any future point. Reclaim all the "original" server hardware or virtual-ware, and re-allocate it to the new server.

A plan based on technology they have in place or can easily achieve, rather than dealing with the more time- and knowledge- consuming automated server merge.

[Sho-sa]

I for one check every couple of months.

Has there been a server merge? No? OK, still not interested in playing. SSG doesn't get a cent.

The community is dead outside American peak hours. There are enough players to make this feel like a multiplayer game again, but they are scattered across multiple servers.

I'd buy Sharn in a heartbeat if a merge happens, because the game would be worth playing again.

Good to see you again.

Listen to Sirgog, he is wise.

[Pyed-Pyper]

I think a big factor in lag is the accumulated coding "baggage" DDO has acquired over the years. "Baggage" would be every system added since the original code - TR banks, past life bonuses, cosmetics etc etc. Each added calculation factorialed across the population adds up.

I am agnostic on the concept of merges, but extremely skeptical that the logical and technical issues can be resolved in a manner that will do more good than harm.

SSG should focus on increasing the population (crazy idea, I know). Additionally, and immediately, SSG should drastically reduce the cost of transfers and work out some way to offer an 'account' transfer from one server to another. That is, move 1+ characters and items (bank, shared bank, TR bank, ship, guild charter, etc ... anything!) from one server to another.