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. (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. (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. (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.

[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

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 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.

I'd go hobbit hunting and steal all their pipeweed

[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

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 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

Time will tell.

[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

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 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

[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.