Server Merges?

[Stellarthief]

Because there is no point to map conquest. but battles all appear at the same areas in big concentrations. you don't have many spread out medium battles across all continents most of the time. that's what i meant.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Lonehunter

I Just want to be clear Planetside isn't meant to have a major battle raging on every continent or territory. Right now there is always fighting on every continent, even locked ones (on Waterson anyway). It may be small but it's there. We need more continents and no server mergers in my opinion.


Planetside isn't meant to have a major raging battle on every continent. PS1 had like 10 conts, in it's prime 2 maybe 3 would have population locks so they were full of players. It adds another layer of strategy through defense, blitzkrieg, and allows a chance for smaller battles, which any outfit that isn't 100 people is begging for right now.

Planetside 1 wasn't meant to have raging battles on every continent. From the way the developers talked about the game, Planetside 2 is meant to. I think the main reason they got rid of the lattice system was they were expecting major battle fronts, but that's just not happening. More continents will just remove any major battles. Unfortunately the vehicle and base design speaks more to what I'm saying than what you are stating. Liberators are not meant for any small scale fights, either are the MBT's. They're made for large battles, they're made to be countered by large battles. Bio Labs are not meant to be taken with a small group. Unfortunately a small group can work their way to one and take it right now, but it's very obvious due to their size and design that massive battles are designed to take place at them. A lattice system would certainly make that happen, but so would simply increased players on each continent and I think PS2 really shined its first month because of this.

I'd bet my house that when I log on today there's going to be platoons on Indar and maybe a platoon of enemies on Esamir or Amerish.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

I suspect any such thing is going to be coincided with the other continents releasing.

I sincerely hope not. Given the amount of bugs that have been introduced with this last patch, I can't imagine them adding a continent and server merging at the same time. We'd end up with half the characters gone missing and the other half being mutated dinosaurs.

[Baneblade]

Banebladesaurus Rex? I can work with that. As long as my camos remain.

Do you think dinosaurs can handle the new SMG?

[QuantumMechanic]

So aside from Miller, most all servers reach medium population during primetime, and are at low population at all other times. Some servers are at low population 24/7.

I was recently convinced that SOE has no plans to do any server merges yet, because somebody tweeted Smed about it and his reply was, "We have plans for low population servers". Sorry, I don't have a reference link to that tweet right now.

Due to my schedule, I can't play during primetime hours. I usually start gaming around 11:30 PM or so, just as it's winding down. So I pretty much stuck with a low population experience. Connery (most populated US West server) is so desolate post-midnight on weeknights that I just gave up playing, and I only log in on weekends now.

And what about SOE's "plans for low population servers"? I'm guessing they are going to try to incentivize new players to roll there, with XP or resource boosts. And I don't see that making any significant difference.

[Sledgecrushr]

With a universal character system we definitely would not want server mergers.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by QuantumMechanic

And what about SOE's "plans for low population servers"? I'm guessing they are going to try to incentivize new players to roll there, with XP or resource boosts. And I don't see that making any significant difference.

I'm worried this is their plan as well. Unfortunately I think they believe that all the new-player oriented updates coming in February will bring in more players which will fill the servers.
Which means server merges are even farther off :\

[Neutral Calypso]

Things have gotten interesting on Connery. VS and NC joined forces in an effort to oust TR from Indar. TR has made it a point of pride to own Indar in perpetuity for the past few months or so. And we have lately been fighting and fighting and FIGHTING to keep ownership of that Continent (sometimes by a thin little thread).

[Hamma]

If we do see a merge I don't think it will be until Server Transfer Tokens are released.

[Shamrock]

It is absolutely imperative that they keep the pops up and stable or initiate merge's, my last experience of this was Warhammer online, EA took an eternity to merge servers after the pops began to drop and I think they actually made more people quit altogether as a result.

As for plans for low pop servers the only viable plan is injecting more population, and this means more marketing muscle to bring in new players; which im all for if this is the case, its the primary reason why I don't mind the e-sports angle if it gets more FPS players aware of PS, SoE should be as aggressive with its marketing push as its budget allows.

The high pop servers are just a legacy of PS1, most of the vet outfits from Werner went to Miller, Emerald to Mattherson, Markov to Connery; so when new players logged in for the first time they saw these were already high pop and it just snow-balled from there (I suspect the reason to not keep the original names was an attempt to spread the pop more evenly, but I might be tin-foiling )

[EVILoHOMER]

Yeh when I quit in December the population already declined massively, it was so populated at launch and then they stupidly opened more servers and it watered it down. Then come December like the population halved from the launch population, which is expected. However we still had loads of servers from when it was packed and now in peak time most of them are pretty empty. People generally tend to naturally merge to the biggest servers, which there is like 3 or 4 of.

Planetside 2's biggest problem and why I quit is population spread during non peak times. A lot of my time playing isn't during the peak and even Miller late at night or during the day is empty, I could go round capturing bases on my own sometimes.

They need to ditch servers altogether really from the players side and merge the population together so during the day has just as big battles as peak time in the evening.

[EVILPIG]

I'll say it again. Add 3 more conts soon and fold all regional servers so we have 1 West, 1 East, 1 Euro. Keep adding conts and there will be fighting all over Auraxis.

[Neutral Calypso]

Wicked swine has a point.

[Badjuju]

Originally Posted by Shamrock

It is absolutely imperative that they keep the pops up and stable or initiate merge's, my last experience of this was Warhammer online, EA took an eternity to merge servers after the pops began to drop and I think they actually made more people quit altogether as a result.

As for plans for low pop servers the only viable plan is injecting more population, and this means more marketing muscle to bring in new players; which im all for if this is the case, its the primary reason why I don't mind the e-sports angle if it gets more FPS players aware of PS, SoE should be as aggressive with its marketing push as its budget allows.

The high pop servers are just a legacy of PS1, most of the vet outfits from Werner went to Miller, Emerald to Mattherson, Markov to Connery; so when new players logged in for the first time they saw these were already high pop and it just snow-balled from there (I suspect the reason to not keep the original names was an attempt to spread the pop more evenly, but I might be tin-foiling )

I'm on one of the highest pop servers (US) and I am about ready to take an undetermined hiatus. For a large scale MMO it is relatively dead most of the day, and just ok during peak hours. If I was a new player and tried the game today I doubt I would remain more than a few days. I spend most my time looking for a good fight and rarely find one.

If it wasn't for some epic battles that took place in the first few weeks and the nostalgia of PS1 I would be long gone by now.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Neutral Calypso

Wicked swine has a point.

He does - but sadly that will take to long.