Thanks for this. Some entertaining bathroom reading.
According to the polls they have in the forums, 50% polled said they will leave game after merge. Welp, there goes Archeage.
What people say and what ppl do is not necessarily the same thing. Especially on forums. I'm sure a good chunk will leave, but I would take a forum poll with a grain of salt.
Are people forgetting that only low pop servers are getting merged. If all of the players left on those low pop servers the game would still keep going. If 50% of players leave from low pop servers - woopty do.
Damn. Cold-hearted. You show zero empathy for your fellow player. For some reason I expected more from you.
Really? He is the biggest Trion fangirl on this site. I'm honestly surprised you would think he would act any different. Trion can do no wrong with him. This is just yet another perfect example of his bias. He might have some good posts from time to time. But, anything to do with Trion or AA you can expect him to be there defending it.
I know he's a super fan and would guess that he's getting some compensation from trion, but the voice in the post themselves doesn't sound like him. I expect him to be pro trion but still be profession about it.
Well, he is still defending them. It might lack some tac. But, it's still the same poster. Don't let the apathy fool you.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait... The company that completely fucked up a launch (we all agree here) is going to perform a server merge where the land that you are merging is one of the most valuable commodities with a new process that no one has done before called 'evolutions'
Is this not hilarious to anyone else??
Ok so - how would you merge servers that have non-instanced housing?
Hmm?
What realistically feasable alternative is there?
There is none. But it would be less insulting if they would just be upfront about it. I mean, "evolution?" ... really?? hahaha
Wait wait wait wait wait wait... The company that completely fucked up a launch (we all agree here) is going to perform a server merge where the land that you are merging is one of the most valuable commodities with a new process that no one has done before called 'evolutions'
Is this not hilarious to anyone else??
Ok so - how would you merge servers that have non-instanced housing?
Hmm?
What realistically feasable alternative is there?
There is none. But it would be less insulting if they would just be upfront about it. I mean, "evolution?" ... really?? hahaha
Ok so people are getting hung on on the stupid name???
The server merges are like 5+ months away - isn't that upfront?
But no - lets focus on what they are calling it?
Really?
I'd rather someone give me 5 month notice on server merges and call it whatever they want, then call it "merges" and do it next week.
Maybe I'm crazy like that heh
I don't know DM. I'm guessing people aren't caring so much about when its done, as they are about the fact that its getting done in the first place. Giving them five months advance notice is not really much of a consolation prize, is it?
Can't say as you could really expect anything else once they announced server merges. The second they announced that you knew it was going to be a train wreck. But it's ok, trion will just lose even more of it's playerbase (whales), further shooting it's self in the foot.
Someone said something similar to this way earlier but I just got around to reading this...boy this is like the 25th thing that has made me seriously glad I stayed far away from this train wreck Trion seems to think is an MMO.
I love how many of the forum posters are caterwauling about the "thousands" they spent on AA. Sorry guys, you did that to yourselves. This thing was an absolute mess from Day One. Remember that initial LAND RUSH? (Still laughing about that Trion idiot's referral to the land fiasco.) All those people who were disconnected, entire guilds who were screwed because of horrid servers? I mean honestly, after something like that, why on God's green Earth would anyone continue to pump money into such a game?
This is a riot. I do feel bad for the folks who are attempting to hang on but again, the signs have been in place for a long time with this game, and I do believe that Trion has shown themselves to be completely incapable of handling the problems.
"Why would I want to loose a religion upon my people? Religions wreck from within - Empires and individuals alike! It's all the same." - God Emperor of Dune
We're reviewing EU servers as well. Hang tight and I'll update asap.
Land rush, for many, is a good thing, particularly those who came to the game later. This is one of those considerations that will be viewed very differently by different players.
Thanks for this. Some entertaining bathroom reading.
According to the polls they have in the forums, 50% polled said they will leave game after merge. Welp, there goes Archeage.
What people say and what ppl do is not necessarily the same thing. Especially on forums. I'm sure a good chunk will leave, but I would take a forum poll with a grain of salt.
Are people forgetting that only low pop servers are getting merged. If all of the players left on those low pop servers the game would still keep going. If 50% of players leave from low pop servers - woopty do.
Damn. Cold-hearted. You show zero empathy for your fellow player. For some reason I expected more from you.
Really? He is the biggest Trion fangirl on this site. I'm honestly surprised you would think he would act any different. Trion can do no wrong with him. This is just yet another perfect example of his bias. He might have some good posts from time to time. But, anything to do with Trion or AA you can expect him to be there defending it.
I know he's a super fan and would guess that he's getting some compensation from trion, but the voice in the post themselves doesn't sound like him. I expect him to be pro trion but still be profession about it.
Give the guy a break fellas. I am guessing he is not himself right now. After white-knighting this game for so long this news has to sting a little. On the other hand, gotta give the man some credit. He is going down in flames with the ship.
I play on Ollo
Ollo is not getting merged.
So umm.. yeah, like I said - this has zero effect on me or my guild
"Not currently considered candidates for Evolution:
All the major guilds play on those servers - this is where 80% of the playerbase is
Will it suck for the rest of the folks on the remaining servers - sure if you have a lot of land it will suck.
BUT
All your gear + gold will come too - so well geared guilds have nothing to worry about, they will rule the new servers just the same after the dust settles down.
Much ado about nothing as usual
I don't know why you're suddenly so callous but I've lost a lot of respect for you. I guess as long as everything is good in your little world everyone else can go to hell. Nice empathy for your community. It affirms that you are here to pimp Trion and aren't really here to contribute to the community. Like you said, "truth is harsh."
Originally posted by damond5031 Maybe they should use the time between now and the "evolutions" to figure out why they have empty servers in the first place. Perhaps if they would put the player first for once instead of trying to squeeze every last penny they can get out of them, things would turn around. If you take care of your player community, the players will take care of you. I have been playing Archeage recently and I truly believe it could be a great game. The people that run this game need a culture change from the top down.
Originally posted by damond5031 Maybe they should use the time between now and the "evolutions" to figure out why they have empty servers in the first place. Perhaps if they would put the player first for once instead of trying to squeeze every last penny they can get out of them, things would turn around. If you take care of your player community, the players will take care of you. I have been playing Archeage recently and I truly believe it could be a great game. The people that run this game need a culture change from the top down.
Yep.
Problem is a cultural one as much as anything.
In Korea, a lot of young people play MMOs to make money, in lieu of a part time job. In Korea, virtual item and currency sales are regulated by law and taxed by the government (there is a separate place on your income tax form for it). So, Korean games in particular are run with the intent of getting as much money as possible out of people who are using it to make money themselves. It also is a common thread running through most/all game design choices.
That whole philosophy runs contrary to how/why Western players play MMOs: primarily for entertainment and recreation.
So when you have a Korean company running a Korean designed game on servers aimed at Western players, it is VERY easy for them to screw it up and alienate their customers. In fact, if all they do is run it like they run the Korean version, they HAVE screwed it up. (Which is more or less what Trion/XL did.)
Western players are not going to tolerate such a high level of monetization, see what the company doing it as greedy, and quit in large numbers. Which is exactly what here.
(Side note: AoW was also the exact same situation, although it was Chinese in origin and not Korean.)
Wait wait wait wait wait wait... The company that completely fucked up a launch (we all agree here) is going to perform a server merge where the land that you are merging is one of the most valuable commodities with a new process that no one has done before called 'evolutions'
Is this not hilarious to anyone else??
Ok so - how would you merge servers that have non-instanced housing?
Hmm?
What realistically feasable alternative is there?
There is none. But it would be less insulting if they would just be upfront about it. I mean, "evolution?" ... really?? hahaha
Ok so people are getting hung on on the stupid name???
The server merges are like 5+ months away - isn't that upfront?
But no - lets focus on what they are calling it?
Really?
I'd rather someone give me 5 month notice on server merges and call it whatever they want, then call it "merges" and do it next week.
Maybe I'm crazy like that heh
I don't know DM. I'm guessing people aren't caring so much about when its done, as they are about the fact that its getting done in the first place. Giving them five months advance notice is not really much of a consolation prize, is it?
Not doing mergers would be a worse option for those low pop servers, the economy simply breaks and it sucks for everyone on those servers longterm.
So again they are executing the only viable option
Sometimes all options are less than ideal - but you still pick the best one and move on
Here's something to ponder
They can't merge servers right - due to overlapping non-instanced housing
So if they called it server merges - it would actually be wrong, as that's not what they are doing.
So they CAN'T call it "merges" because they can't merge servers period.
Which is why they had to call it something else - evolutions or whatever is irrelevant, but the fact is they can't call it merges as they are not doing merges.
So guess what Trion got it right - they figured well if we call it merges - people will call us liars as AA servers can't get merged!
Go trion lol
Being deceptive does not mean they got it right. Do you really think that just because they decided to call it an "evolution" instead of a "merger" that this suddenly relieves them of the fact that they are liars? Do they consider their player base to be that stupid? Just because they decided to try and be slick about it and call it something other than a merger, does not make what they are doing not a merger, and it certainly does not make them not liars. Because it certainly is, and they certainly are.
And yes I understand its a move that needed to be made. AA is bleeding players and business is business. But their player base was assured there would not be mergers. To say that was a dumb business decision on their part. That assurance emboldened players to invest heavily in their product, and now they are being burned for their loyalty.
Hey, it is what it is. They are doing what they have to but the manner in which Trion has managed this venture has been horrendous since day one. I just hope they will learn something from it, are able to recover, and become a better gaming entity going forward.
So they say now. However, Scapes has stated previously:
"We have no plans to merge servers."
and
"None of our servers are being merged. While we want to offer the ability to transfer servers, the service has been requested of XLGAMES but is not yet available."
Even though my server isn't affected, the way Trion is handling this (with an iron fist) truly makes me concerned that my server will end up in the same position. I have read all 200+ pages of feedback and in my opinion there are two things that should happen.
1. TRANSFERS FIRST! See how the dust settles and then merge if need be.
2. If merges have to happen, lock land placement to PACKAGED PROPERTY ONLY! This is the only fair way to do a merge which will give some priority to those loosing land. After a couple weeks, open it up to normal land claims again.
Unfortunately by all indications, Trion won't give preference to those loosing land and those whom have the time and resources will just use the merge to expand their empires beyond what they already had and those with less time or resources won't be able to reclaim and will end up with far, far less than they started.
Thanks for this. Some entertaining bathroom reading.
According to the polls they have in the forums, 50% polled said they will leave game after merge. Welp, there goes Archeage.
What people say and what ppl do is not necessarily the same thing. Especially on forums. I'm sure a good chunk will leave, but I would take a forum poll with a grain of salt.
Are people forgetting that only low pop servers are getting merged. If all of the players left on those low pop servers the game would still keep going. If 50% of players leave from low pop servers - woopty do.
Damn. Cold-hearted. You show zero empathy for your fellow player. For some reason I expected more from you.
Really? He is the biggest Trion fangirl on this site. I'm honestly surprised you would think he would act any different. Trion can do no wrong with him. This is just yet another perfect example of his bias. He might have some good posts from time to time. But, anything to do with Trion or AA you can expect him to be there defending it.
I know he's a super fan and would guess that he's getting some compensation from trion, but the voice in the post themselves doesn't sound like him. I expect him to be pro trion but still be profession about it.
Give the guy a break fellas. I am guessing he is not himself right now. After white-knighting this game for so long this news has to sting a little. On the other hand, gotta give the man some credit. He is going down in flames with the ship.
I play on Ollo
Ollo is not getting merged.
So umm.. yeah, like I said - this has zero effect on me or my guild
"Not currently considered candidates for Evolution:
All the major guilds play on those servers - this is where 80% of the playerbase is
Will it suck for the rest of the folks on the remaining servers - sure if you have a lot of land it will suck.
BUT
All your gear + gold will come too - so well geared guilds have nothing to worry about, they will rule the new servers just the same after the dust settles down.
Much ado about nothing as usual
I don't know why you're suddenly so callous but I've lost a lot of respect for you. I guess as long as everything is good in your little world everyone else can go to hell. Nice empathy for your community. It affirms that you are here to pimp Trion and aren't really here to contribute to the community. Like you said, "truth is harsh."
Myself and many others have already known this for a long time. I'm glad you at least finally see the truth. I can understand why you might of not seen it in the past. After all, a lot of people try to see the best in people.
As pointed out on the AA forum: why not just let people transfer?
If you want a populated server, transfer to it. It you want a less populated server, transfer to it. That would even out the population without the upheaval of negating half the people's work and money.
It's a bit more complicated than that. A large percentage of the players base has actually been complaining that certain servers are dead. You are not hearing from those players as much right now because they are getting what they want. A second, and perhaps, even more important concern is money. They are wanting to downsize because it costs money and management resources to keep empty servers open. Empty servers also drive away future players and give the game a bad name. There are also a host of other related management problems that arise over keeping empty scarcely utilized servers running. Rest assured they did not arrive at this conclusion lightly. The bottom line has been shrinking and Trion is trying to keep this venture profitable. There is very good reason for the madness.
If I were them, emtpy servers would be at the bottom of the list for concerns, for giving this game a "bad name"
Not that it matters (because Trion/XL will merge the low pop servers no matter what) - but this is what many posters don't realize about that thread:
Facts:
3107 replies currently
download and "dedupe" the names to get unique posters - less than 697
Out of those 697 over 300 are actually positive about mergers.
Now look through that post - you'll notice about 20-30 posters that have over 50 (some close to 100) replies - all negative.
Suddently you realize that 3107 reply thread is actually less than 50 people posting over and over and over again.
No wonder Trion is proceeding as planned - at first it's like "Ehrm Ma Gewd - it's 313 pages of replies - what an outrage" - and they you realize - yeah it's like 30 people pissed off taking up more than half the replies, and then it hits you - this is really just a small number of folks crying loudly.
The more you know
I found their little petition. They have about 100 sigs already. So maybe that's a bit more than 30 people. Doubt anyone without an active interest would sign. But you never know.
Naturally Trion will try to spin this as positively as possible. No other company would do it any differently. Sugar-coat that bitter pill as much as possible. It's all rainbows and unicorns and avoid all "negative" words and expressions.
Some players will lose all the "benefits and convenience" that they spent real money on. But the money is spent and they won't be getting any refunds. If they leave the game in protest, there's a good chance they'll be replaced by fresh wallets. Given that they form part of the marginal population on the servers targeted for shutdown, it's probably a minor and acceptable loss of revenue.
As for all the "bad press" this merge will generate, I can't think of any game operating in the western market that has gotten more "bad press" than Archeage over the last year or so. Yet it's still running and generating a profit, so this latest round of scandal will most likely make no difference to the majority of its player base. As DMKano says: "This doesn't affect the high-pop servers, so who gives a sh1t ?"
Eventually all the servers will shut down (years from now), and those that have spent thousands of dollars maintaining their digital landholdings will receive no refunds. It's just the price of playing the game, if you don't like it find another game...
Comments
Well, he is still defending them. It might lack some tac. But, it's still the same poster. Don't let the apathy fool you.
There is none. But it would be less insulting if they would just be upfront about it. I mean, "evolution?" ... really?? hahaha
I don't know DM. I'm guessing people aren't caring so much about when its done, as they are about the fact that its getting done in the first place. Giving them five months advance notice is not really much of a consolation prize, is it?
Archeage was gone well before this.
Agreed.
Is anyone really surprised at a poor game management decision in this game, when the whole thing has been mismanaged since the beta?
This is hardly the first bad idea that will cost them a lot of money.
Can't say as you could really expect anything else once they announced server merges. The second they announced that you knew it was going to be a train wreck. But it's ok, trion will just lose even more of it's playerbase (whales), further shooting it's self in the foot.
I did expect drama will happen when merge servers , but it happen sooner than i though.
Only way for happy server merge is create instance housing zone for each account with 4 16x16 plot.
And i sure they can do it in few months.Someone said something similar to this way earlier but I just got around to reading this...boy this is like the 25th thing that has made me seriously glad I stayed far away from this train wreck Trion seems to think is an MMO.
I love how many of the forum posters are caterwauling about the "thousands" they spent on AA. Sorry guys, you did that to yourselves. This thing was an absolute mess from Day One. Remember that initial LAND RUSH? (Still laughing about that Trion idiot's referral to the land fiasco.) All those people who were disconnected, entire guilds who were screwed because of horrid servers? I mean honestly, after something like that, why on God's green Earth would anyone continue to pump money into such a game?
This is a riot. I do feel bad for the folks who are attempting to hang on but again, the signs have been in place for a long time with this game, and I do believe that Trion has shown themselves to be completely incapable of handling the problems.
"Why would I want to loose a religion upon my people? Religions wreck from within - Empires and individuals alike! It's all the same." - God Emperor of Dune
Land rush, for many, is a good thing, particularly those who came to the game later. This is one of those considerations that will be viewed very differently by different players.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
I don't know why you're suddenly so callous but I've lost a lot of respect for you. I guess as long as everything is good in your little world everyone else can go to hell. Nice empathy for your community. It affirms that you are here to pimp Trion and aren't really here to contribute to the community. Like you said, "truth is harsh."Yep.
Problem is a cultural one as much as anything.
In Korea, a lot of young people play MMOs to make money, in lieu of a part time job. In Korea, virtual item and currency sales are regulated by law and taxed by the government (there is a separate place on your income tax form for it). So, Korean games in particular are run with the intent of getting as much money as possible out of people who are using it to make money themselves. It also is a common thread running through most/all game design choices.
That whole philosophy runs contrary to how/why Western players play MMOs: primarily for entertainment and recreation.
So when you have a Korean company running a Korean designed game on servers aimed at Western players, it is VERY easy for them to screw it up and alienate their customers. In fact, if all they do is run it like they run the Korean version, they HAVE screwed it up. (Which is more or less what Trion/XL did.)
Western players are not going to tolerate such a high level of monetization, see what the company doing it as greedy, and quit in large numbers. Which is exactly what here.
(Side note: AoW was also the exact same situation, although it was Chinese in origin and not Korean.)
Lady Prissypantsamalia wants to let you know how unhappy s... he is about this terrible business decision.
Being deceptive does not mean they got it right. Do you really think that just because they decided to call it an "evolution" instead of a "merger" that this suddenly relieves them of the fact that they are liars? Do they consider their player base to be that stupid? Just because they decided to try and be slick about it and call it something other than a merger, does not make what they are doing not a merger, and it certainly does not make them not liars. Because it certainly is, and they certainly are.
And yes I understand its a move that needed to be made. AA is bleeding players and business is business. But their player base was assured there would not be mergers. To say that was a dumb business decision on their part. That assurance emboldened players to invest heavily in their product, and now they are being burned for their loyalty.
Hey, it is what it is. They are doing what they have to but the manner in which Trion has managed this venture has been horrendous since day one. I just hope they will learn something from it, are able to recover, and become a better gaming entity going forward.
So they say now. However, Scapes has stated previously:
"We have no plans to merge servers."
and
"None of our servers are being merged. While we want to offer the ability to transfer servers, the service has been requested of XLGAMES but is not yet available."
Even though my server isn't affected, the way Trion is handling this (with an iron fist) truly makes me concerned that my server will end up in the same position. I have read all 200+ pages of feedback and in my opinion there are two things that should happen.
1. TRANSFERS FIRST! See how the dust settles and then merge if need be.
2. If merges have to happen, lock land placement to PACKAGED PROPERTY ONLY! This is the only fair way to do a merge which will give some priority to those loosing land. After a couple weeks, open it up to normal land claims again.
Unfortunately by all indications, Trion won't give preference to those loosing land and those whom have the time and resources will just use the merge to expand their empires beyond what they already had and those with less time or resources won't be able to reclaim and will end up with far, far less than they started.
Myself and many others have already known this for a long time. I'm glad you at least finally see the truth. I can understand why you might of not seen it in the past. After all, a lot of people try to see the best in people.
If I were them, emtpy servers would be at the bottom of the list for concerns, for giving this game a "bad name"
I found their little petition. They have about 100 sigs already. So maybe that's a bit more than 30 people. Doubt anyone without an active interest would sign. But you never know.
Naturally Trion will try to spin this as positively as possible. No other company would do it any differently. Sugar-coat that bitter pill as much as possible. It's all rainbows and unicorns and avoid all "negative" words and expressions.
Some players will lose all the "benefits and convenience" that they spent real money on. But the money is spent and they won't be getting any refunds. If they leave the game in protest, there's a good chance they'll be replaced by fresh wallets. Given that they form part of the marginal population on the servers targeted for shutdown, it's probably a minor and acceptable loss of revenue.
As for all the "bad press" this merge will generate, I can't think of any game operating in the western market that has gotten more "bad press" than Archeage over the last year or so. Yet it's still running and generating a profit, so this latest round of scandal will most likely make no difference to the majority of its player base. As DMKano says: "This doesn't affect the high-pop servers, so who gives a sh1t ?"
Eventually all the servers will shut down (years from now), and those that have spent thousands of dollars maintaining their digital landholdings will receive no refunds. It's just the price of playing the game, if you don't like it find another game...