How to make a mega server without all the screaming.

[Justfungus]

With all the (often legitimate) complaints about the prospect of a huge server merge,
I have often pondered solutions. I think I may have thought of one.
A portal between worlds.
There should be a portal (like a teleport gate) in the middle of market.
If you want to go to a different dimension (other server) you step in, choose and your there.
----------------------------------------
SOME DISCLAIMERS
Whenever you go to the portal, your home dimension is always highlighted.
When you go to another server, only you go.
You have no access to your bank, your account bank, or a guild ship from your home server.
You also can not join a guild that is not on your home server.
You can not use silver or gold rolls from that server (you can still do your home ones)
You can not earn favor on a non-home server.
Your name has a short 2 letter code attached at the end so you are different from other folks on that server with the same name.
-------------------------------------
What you can do :
You can shop, craft (with materials on your person)
You can adventure, gain exp, gain reaper exp, group and raid with folks on that server. (I assume raid and quest flags are removed when this goes active)
------------------------------------
Your basically a visitor and if you log out there and log back in you will find yourself back on your server in market.
------------------------------------
This does 2 very important things
attaches all the servers (with exception of the HCL server) without all the merger issues
allows players to 'browse' all the servers to find groups and raids to go with.

Your thoughts?

 

[Ying]

Sounds more complicated than making a mega server.

Steps to make a megaserver:
1. Resolve what's causing concurrent player lag so server population is not a factor.
2. Create new server with a ruleset attractive enough for players to pay for their own transfers. Examples: Increase VIP XP, increased group XP, increased chance at named item drops, the list goes on. Eight servers with the same ruleset is lame in 2023.

 

[Justfungus]

cool point, almost all vet players hate with a passion.
for the same reason many hate HCL
.... your killing my server ....
... the place is dead now, I rage quit ...
... all my friends are gone ...
.... I want a refund on everything I spent on my guild ship ....
and so on.
I have long given up on a real server merge being anything other than a total disaster.
(it would not bother me personally)
My suggestion is ... compromise

 

[rabidfox]

You know those times where a player gets a "recovering from failed teleport" message? Imagine all the fun that comes with that but all your character data is now hung somewhere between two different servers and gets lost to the void.

 

[Matuse]

Sounds more complicated than making a mega server.

Steps to make a megaserver:
1. Resolve what's causing concurrent player lag so server population is not a factor.
2. Create new server with a ruleset attractive enough for players to pay for their own transfers. Examples: Increase VIP XP, increased group XP, increased chance at named item drops, the list goes on. Eight servers with the same ruleset is lame in 2023.

There's a lot more steps than that. How do you resolve name conflicts with players and guilds? How do you resolve the sometimes very expensive real money airships that guilds have made? How do you move a player who hasn't logged in in 5 years and has maybe their own solo guild and 800 items in shared storage? How do you resolve a player who has active characters on multiple servers and goes over their character slot allotment?

Megaserver is a huge undertaking with no good solutions to many problems.

 

[somenewnoob]

I like the idea, except somehow I know a codex page will be involved.

 

[Dandonk]

I like the idea, except somehow I know a codex page will be involved.

And Elminster. And his loooooooooong speeches.

 

[somenewnoob]

And Elminster. And his loooooooooong speeches.

Yee be a strang........

NO, just shut the f up, I'm just going to go solo on my server.

 

[CBDunk]

Sure, that'd be great... but I doubt it is even remotely plausible.

If they could just 'transfer' active characters from one server to another like that then there would be no reason for the weekly downtimes. Instead, they'd just transfer all the players currently on a given production server to a temporary server, make the updates, and then transfer everyone back. Then do the same for the next production server.

That would actually be EASIER... because there would be no possibility of conflicts between the production servers and the blank temporary server.

 

[Justfungus]

I will call this suggestion a 'win'
a lot less blowback than most merger suggestions get, cool
thxs for all the feedback!

 

[Xgya]

What happens when you "transfer" a character over.
1. Character gets copied/pasted onto the new server
2. Character on original server gets deleted.

What is necessary for your character to even exist and interact with others on another server REQUIRES a complete copy of your character.

Your suggestion, for your character to start existing and be able to interact with others on another server would require this.
Then, when you want to get back to your original server, it'd have to do it again.
- Or you'd have to accept that whatever changes you're making in the other world will not end up affecting your character; you're there to help out and do quests, but that character won't earn items, favor or experience, because that would require a transfer of the copied character back to the original server afterwards (remember, it's not the same character, it's a copy at this point. None of your actions affect the original UNLESS we transfer it back)

 

[Justfungus]

The particular mechanics would be up to the programmers of course. There would likely be some form of duality
to keep everything straight with an automated update if you log out or if you disconnect, it would still keep your toon there long enough to update. ... keep in mind, I don't program ... so they would have to do whatever it was to make it work
smoothly (whatever that is) ...lol

 

[Onyxia2016]

As I understand it the main reason for server moves is to be able to have more grouping option.
Instead of looking at a server merge and all the technical challenges that brings, it would be far easier to have cross server groups/quests.

Since quests/raids are instance based, when players join a group and enter the instance from there respective servers, they all appear in the same instance. When they lease they are back at the quest entrance on their own server.

No need to worry about how to transfer things like guildships, etc...