Its time for a server merge

[archest]

Interconnecting the servers rather than merge them in that AH could be a single database serving all of the servers. game connection between servers could join the players into a single group for questing.
if the quest them selves were on a dedicated server were players would transfer to that server to play the quest and then community back to the home server while leaving. still being connected through the Group channel for communication as they are still grouped.... it would be a massive undertaking to redesign the entire game.

[Captain_Wizbang]

1) It would take the better part of a year just for one server

2) I doubt it's possible with all the changes made to the 2006 code files.

3) Who's going to pay for it?

4) and the BIG reason, these virtual servers couldn't handle the load, based on what we've seen with since it got switched over.

[SerPounce]

When these threads pop up people always either get bogged down in the particulars (which none of us know anyways), or complain about how frequently it's requested. The broader issues is that difficulty of grouping is the #1 problem with DDO. If it weren't for that this would IMO be the best MMO around by a good margin.

While underrepresented on the forums, a lot of people lives just can't revolve around a computer game. Regular groups and scheduled times don't really work. We have to log it for a bit here and there when we can, and that means PUGing. Hard core types can turn their nose up at PUGs all they want, but it's an important part of any MMO.

I don't know if the solution is mergers, or cross server grouping, improving the LFM system, or changing byzantine level requirements for groups, etc. Likely some combination of those and more. But regardless the devs need to hear that this is the top issue for a lot of players so I'm happy every time I see one of these threads even if it annoys some of the regulars.

[Rog]

the game has changed since 2011. the introduction of reaper and racial tr's.
the player population has spread itself out from 1 to 30.
a big part of groups are being made outside of flms though channels.
this happens mainly because the people that like to play mid to high reaper can find people that also prefer the same type of groups though the channels.
i am doing my racial tr 1 to 30 i find doing the extra 10 levels really helps me build reaper points.
this also makes it really hard to find groups posting at level unless your 28 to 30.
i do not know if a server merge would help that a lot.
if your going to merge servers i would prefer one super server.
if the technology is there.

[glennson]

I am and will continue to be against merger.

As a player on Wayfinder I like our small server.

Everybody knows your name and most of your alts.

Almost everyone who wants a merger seems to think Wayfinder needs one.

I think I can easily speak for all the people I play with regularly and say, We dont want a merger.

We run top tier raids frequently and not always on normal or hard.

While there are not a great many people with large amounts of reaper xp or pastlives, these things are not always necessary to have fun.

We have new players joining all the time.

Our server is thriving.

[Chai]

When these threads pop up people always either get bogged down in the particulars (which none of us know anyways), or complain about how frequently it's requested. The broader issues is that difficulty of grouping is the #1 problem with DDO. If it weren't for that this would IMO be the best MMO around by a good margin.

While underrepresented on the forums, a lot of people lives just can't revolve around a computer game. Regular groups and scheduled times don't really work. We have to log it for a bit here and there when we can, and that means PUGing. Hard core types can turn their nose up at PUGs all they want, but it's an important part of any MMO.

I don't know if the solution is mergers, or cross server grouping, improving the LFM system, or changing byzantine level requirements for groups, etc. Likely some combination of those and more. But regardless the devs need to hear that this is the top issue for a lot of players so I'm happy every time I see one of these threads even if it annoys some of the regulars.

Pretty much this.

The soloers won the war and got their way, and as such we havent seen even incremental improvements for grouping in quite some time.

[Zealot0193]

Well when someone says their server is thriving i wonder. In what way?

Im sorry but eventually the devs will have to do something about the dying player population. Weather it be server merges or free transfers or aggressive advertising campaigns.

All games go thru this phase. Weather you prefer to play on small empty servers or not.

I can see something coming within the next year or 2 to warrant a server merge.

The fact that this game had 8 servers back in release almost a decade ago to now really does not make sense. I cannot find any rational reason to justify it. Thats like owning 8 houses but you are running out of money but refuse to sell a house.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Don't you think there's a reason why this hasn't happened yet?

SSG reads these boards, they are aware of players concerns, and would do whatever they can to accommodate us. But there are reasons why this hasn't happened.

Be it coding, hardware, or the fact that they just don't have the resources (money) to make this happen.

[rfachini]

I doubt it would be feasible at this point. Just figuring out how to merge the shared banks seems practically impossible. Many people have over 30 characters per server as well. Would they be able to bump up the number of charter slots to 30 times the number of servers merging? What would a server merge do as far as lag? Some people like getting multiple daily dice rolls (one per server). Less servers means less rolls for them.
For these and other reasons already mentioned, I doubt a merge would be possible even if everyone agreed that it would be a good idea.

[Mindsynk]

How about a 10%(Quest)-20%(Raod) xp bonus for PUGs? Maximum 2 players from same guild in a PUG. That would encourage more grouping, LFMs, mingling etc without merging (i am pro merge btw).
Guilds could still group up but would simply not get the xp bonus. Perhaps a guild group(3 or more from same guild) can get a guild renown bonus along the same lines.

[Maldorin]

At this point I don't care if they merge servers.

If they would just designate a server as "primary" as in the highest population one to go to, and offer free transfers to that server, that would suffice for me.

People so worried about the mergers because this reason and that reason can stay on the old servers and solo to their heart's content.

[Renvar]

Yesterday when I was playing much of the day, the two times I counted lfms there were 18 and 14.

Why so many? Buddy bonus. No meed for a server merge when the incentive to group up exists. I wish SSG would see this.

I tend to agree. More than merging servers, what needs to happen is that grouping needs to be improved.

Things like:

Buddy Bonus
Auto Acquire Quest when joining a group
Fast Teleport to Quest location when joining a group
Better group finding system
Remove limitations on chains and flagging as much as possible.
Remove Bravery Bonus and replace with another XP bonus system that does not make quest level ranges so tight in leveling both heroics and epics (although Epics is obviously easier on level ranges).

There are definitely fewer players on now than there used to be. No doubt about it. But most times when I log in to Khyber, there are 300+ players on the who panel and spread out enough that the can be multiple groups running content in any level range.

I think there just need to be more reasons to group and fewer barriers to doing so.

EDIT: BTW, I don't think merging servers will have the impact people think it will have if you don't fix the above. I think you will just have more people on the same server all still choosing to primarily solo. Because there is no real benefit to grouping. Only pain.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I don't think merging servers will have the impact people think it will have if you don't fix the above. I think you will just have more people on the same server all still choosing to primarily solo. Because there is no real benefit to grouping. Only pain.

This is 100% correct. It's the other side of the coin no-one thinks about in these threads.

A UI overhaul that includes a new social panel system is the most obvious path to take.

Putting more people on any server with the current system won't solve anything.

[zehnvhex]

It's the other side of the coin no-one thinks about in these threads.

Unfortunately SSG's stance on grouping issues is a hearty, "We have no problems getting groups."

No really. That's their official stance.

[SerPounce]

This is 100% correct. It's the other side of the coin no-one thinks about in these threads.

A UI overhaul that includes a new social panel system is the most obvious path to take.

Putting more people on any server with the current system won't solve anything.

I don't get this. I agree that other factors are a big contributor, but if you combine two servers you get twice the pop. Even if only 20% of the pop uses the LFM panel 20% of twice the previous population is twice as many people using the LFM panel.

It might not be the best way to solve the problem, and it might not solve the problem completely, but it would definitely do SOMETHING.

[Zealot0193]

I don't get this. I agree that other factors are a big contributor, but if you combine two servers you get twice the pop. Even if only 20% of the pop uses the LFM panel 20% of twice the previous population is twice as many people using the LFM panel.

It might not be the best way to solve the problem, and it might not solve the problem completely, but it would definitely do SOMETHING.

THANK YOU

exactly if you combine 2 servers then you get twice the population. if they don't want to do advertising anymore for this game at least let the few newbies who find out about ddo join a world with a large sever population rather then an empty world

[zehnvhex]

if you combine two servers you get twice the pop.

Twice nothing is still nothing. The LFM panel itself is terrible. When you see people complain about it, it's not, "Oh hey there were 7 groups but I really wanted to do vale..."

It's, "I sat there for 4 hours and not single group popped."

The problem has never really been one of population. Fix the underlying issues with grouping and you won't need to merge servers because new players won't be bailing on the game 30 minutes after picking it up. Again, at one point we had significantly more people per server and this was still an issue. The problem is that it's hard for people to find one another to play with. This is for a variety of reasons.

---

I mean the biggest one is ye olde social anxiety. Every time you see someone make the same smarmy response of, "Well have you tried posting your own LFM?" it really doesn't take into consideration that a significant number of people who play DND and even worse, a DND MMO are not exactly the cream of the social butterfly crop. Nerds are skittish creatures by nature and not everyone is exactly great at putting themselves out there.

There's a reason pretty much every video game out there uses automated match making now as a primary feature.

---

Then there's all the other hurdles. Do you even own the content? Are you the correct level? Have you already run it? Do you even enjoy that quest series? Will you get there in time? Did you miss part of a saga? Are they running it on a difficulty where you will even get to contribute? Do you even know where the quest is? Is it one of those bizarre quests where you can't join if you aren't on the right part of the chain?

---

And so on and so forth. If I want to do a group in DDO I have to post the LFM, hope somebody even sees it because there's no option in the LFM interface for "Notify me when a new group is posted." Of course I have to post LFM's only for popular content that a lot of people buy since this game has a severe case of content bloat. Wait for them to show up. 9 times out of 10 I severely outstrip them in terms of gear/PL's/skill so they spend most of the dungeon watching me kill things anyways.

I mean...it's like the antithesis of fun. Forming a group in DDO is a chore. Giving me twice as many people to not join, or tossing me a 20% xp buddy bonus to force me to grit my teeth and put up with it is not going to solve diddly or squat.

But hey, the devs run a static so what do they care?

[Captain_Wizbang]

I don't get this. I agree that other factors are a big contributor, but if you combine two servers you get twice the pop. Even if only 20% of the pop uses the LFM panel 20% of twice the previous population is twice as many people using the LFM panel.

It might not be the best way to solve the problem, and it might not solve the problem completely, but it would definitely do SOMETHING.

I have to disagree, sorry. Mergers wont solve grouping issues.

[Epicstorms]

How on earth can you disagree that a merge does not help in solving grouping issues?

How can you even say that grouping is "nothing"? lol.

Like several people said, it will do something. And I personally think it will be a lot of something.

I often post LFMs and simply by having a larger population, that will result in more people applying. That's like... almost fact? I don't get how you can conclude that it will do nothing at all.

[Pyed-Pyper]

How on earth can you disagree that a merge does not help in solving grouping issues?

How can you even say that grouping is "nothing"? lol.

Like several people said, it will do something. And I personally think it will be a lot of something.

I often post LFMs and simply by having a larger population, that will result in more people applying. That's like... almost fact? I don't get how you can conclude that it will do nothing at all.

Twice nothing is still nothing. The LFM panel itself is terrible. When you see people complain about it, it's not, "Oh hey there were 7 groups but I really wanted to do vale..."

It's, "I sat there for 4 hours and not single group popped."

The problem has never really been one of population. Fix the underlying issues with grouping and you won't need to merge servers because new players won't be bailing on the game 30 minutes after picking it up. Again, at one point we had significantly more people per server and this was still an issue. The problem is that it's hard for people to find one another to play with. This is for a variety of reasons.

---

I mean the biggest one is ye olde social anxiety. Every time you see someone make the same smarmy response of, "Well have you tried posting your own LFM?" it really doesn't take into consideration that a significant number of people who play DND and even worse, a DND MMO are not exactly the cream of the social butterfly crop. Nerds are skittish creatures by nature and not everyone is exactly great at putting themselves out there.

There's a reason pretty much every video game out there uses automated match making now as a primary feature.

---

Then there's all the other hurdles. Do you even own the content? Are you the correct level? Have you already run it? Do you even enjoy that quest series? Will you get there in time? Did you miss part of a saga? Are they running it on a difficulty where you will even get to contribute? Do you even know where the quest is? Is it one of those bizarre quests where you can't join if you aren't on the right part of the chain?

---

And so on and so forth. If I want to do a group in DDO I have to post the LFM, hope somebody even sees it because there's no option in the LFM interface for "Notify me when a new group is posted." Of course I have to post LFM's only for popular content that a lot of people buy since this game has a severe case of content bloat. Wait for them to show up. 9 times out of 10 I severely outstrip them in terms of gear/PL's/skill so they spend most of the dungeon watching me kill things anyways.

I mean...it's like the antithesis of fun. Forming a group in DDO is a chore. Giving me twice as many people to not join, or tossing me a 20% xp buddy bonus to force me to grit my teeth and put up with it is not going to solve diddly or squat.

But hey, the devs run a static so what do they care?

asked / answered