The bad part of this is that they had the vote in the first place.  They keep stringing people along and then pull the rug out from under them.

When they first announced the server merges they said up front they didnt think there was enough population to sustain the rp server but they'd let the community have a voice.  So what happens they get overwhelming votes to keep the rp server even if it meant low population.  Now they have to come back and say ha, oops we're getting rid of it anyways no matter what you all voted.

This is yet another sign that the game is still poorly managed.  They should have been up front and said that due to low population they were merging the servers.  They hope that in the future if population increases we can once again have a rp server but for now it's not an option.  They new the poplulation would be too low when they announced the merges, this is just another blunder on SOE's part that makes them look like they are not listening to their customers.

Elsabolts "The game is getting better everyday"

Who you trying to convince?  Is this why they were forced to merge servers? Because as you said its getting better? 

**NEWSFLASH**

They don't merge servers if the game is "doing better" they merge servers because no one wants to play it meaning it's NOT doing "better everyday" as you stated.  Players for the most part took off for many different reasons and trust me there are MANY, too many to list now.

Although gaming companies won't ever admit it when they're forced to merge servers they know its because they've fail and are trying to gather up the few remaining to keep them together so they too won't leave. 

Reality check!!!

When even the role-players are leaving in droves, it's not a good look.

lets hope the server merging helps the game a bit.. because at the moment I am jsut wandering around a big empty worls with a few mobs in LOL..

and its bloody boring...

Originally posted by sololoco

Elsabolts "The game is getting better everyday"

Who you trying to convince?  Is this why they were forced to merge servers? Because as you said its getting better? 

**NEWSFLASH**

They don't merge servers if the game is "doing better" they merge servers because no one wants to play it meaning it's NOT doing "better everyday" as you stated.  Players for the most part took off for many different reasons and trust me there are MANY, too many to list now.

Although gaming companies won't ever admit it when they're forced to merge servers they know its because they've fail and are trying to gather up the few remaining to keep them together so they too won't leave. 

Reality check!!!

 

Solo, I think what he meant is the game continues to get better at each patch (and it does). I will admit though there are a many needed things in the game such as the last two classes, helmets,fixed quests, scaled xp and a host of other things ingame promised by "Sigil" but the game is 100% better than what it was at beta 3 and launch (unplayeable for me).

Server merges is a needed thing and for a person to say that  a straining of 300 votes was "overwhelming" is just pure utter bull $%^&, there are 1000s of non active players on "Florendyl" (just look around when you log in).

Bumping this thread because Hasium has posted on the recent fallout from the merger plan, and he talks about the population a bit:

---

At the risk of stoking the flames , I wanted to clarify some things.

1. If we had never really intended to consider the option of leaving the RP server, we would have never posted the poll. That last thing we want to do is rile up the player base for no reason. There would be no point.

2. The population has been in decline for several months. There was no noticeable drop in population before or after the merge was announced.

3. The Vanguard team is well aware of the reasons for the decline. Poor performance, hitching, no raid raid content, etc. That's why our milestones reflect fixing those very same things.

4. The population is low enough in general that had we not merged the RP server, the other 3 merged servers and the RP server would both have population too low to sustain gameplay as it was intended. Everyone would have suffered.

5. Cost of servers had nothing to do with the decision. Not once while talking to my superiors was money ever brought up. The only concern expressed was that the servers needed to have a certain amount of population in order to thrive and Vanguard didn't have it.

6. Talking to a few people on the RP server had nothing to do with the final decision. It's strictly a matter of a minimum amount of players needed per server in order for the game to work and be fun.

I know it's painful but there is good news as many of you have pointed out. The servers will have a higher population now. You will meet new friends and have new adventures. You may even convert some players over to role playing. Finding a group will be much easier which is awesome. Group combat in VG is a lot of fun.

I'm off to sleep now. I will be out of town until Wednesday please don't panic if I don't respond until then.

---

Originally posted by sololoco

Elsabolts "The game is getting better everyday"

Who you trying to convince?  Is this why they were forced to merge servers? Because as you said its getting better? 

**NEWSFLASH**

They don't merge servers if the game is "doing better" they merge servers because no one wants to play it meaning it's NOT doing "better everyday" as you stated.  Players for the most part took off for many different reasons and trust me there are MANY, too many to list now.

Although gaming companies won't ever admit it when they're forced to merge servers they know its because they've fail and are trying to gather up the few remaining to keep them together so they too won't leave. 

Reality check!!!

 

Getting better, not doing better.... there have been pronounced fixes in this game over the last month and a half in an attempt to rebuild the game to facilitatea chance for it to begin 'doing better' the first step of this process is getting some servers with strong populations through server merges so that the first thing people bitch about is 'no one's playing on my server'

I play on the RP server, plus the Team PvP servers....both of which are gonna get folded into other severs. Lets be realistic, there simply isn't enough people on each server. Take that against how large the game world is, and something has to be done. We're lucky this game is still running, after everything that has happened. Be grateful for that, if you really like it.

The POINT of the matter is that in MMORPG's the people who join Role Playings servers do so because they want a 'mature' community to play with.

Thats not to say goof balls don't also join RP servers but overall thats what it's all about - the community is by and large more mature (older) and range from light to heavy role players.

Whats happining now is that they are going to dump the very players onto the RP server that players who join them in the first place are trying to avoid. You know: silly (humurous) names and WoW-speak type players.

Go play EQ2 and join the RP server - you will find a very mature community that holds regular RP events. Have a goofy name there and you're sure to get reported by the RP-nazis. Harsh? Maybe, but it made for an enjoyable experience for all.

Perhaps most of you are a bit too young to have played PnP RPG's back in the 70's or (like myself) AD&D in the 80's.

You play these games for very different reasons than RPG players.

This was the deciding factor for me. I choose to not return due to this turn of events.

Best of luck to everyone.