Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Server closings.. Round 2
popinjay
Member Posts: 6,539
Source Server Transfers - Round 2
Jess Folsom | Customer Service | 03/09/2009 @ 05:45:53 EST
On Tuesday, March 10, we will be performing a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of). Please read on for all the details, including a list of affected servers.
Characters on the source servers listed below will all be consolidated onto the corresponding destination server. All source servers will eventually be closed.
Source Servers
Tower of Doom
Heldenhammer
Thorgrim
Sea of Malice
Chaos Wastes
Anlec
Middenheim
Mordheim
Wasteland
Averheim
Be'lakor
Rakarth
Lucan
Lustria
Marius
Drifting Castle
Grimnir
Thorgrim
Bretonnia
Tor Achere
Tower of Doom
Ungrim
Azazel
Drakwald
Avelorn
Skavenblight
Tor Elyr
White Tower
Eerie Downs
Hochland
Wolfenburg
Wurtbad
Bechafen
Kragg
Reikland
Kislev
Marienburg
Red Eye Mountain
Sea of Claws
Heldenhammer
Saphery
Sylvania
Ulthuan
And so it continues...
Comments
I'd say this concludes a pretty successful launch.
Mythic created enough servers to deal with the incoming first free month subscriptions to avoid massive queues and within 6 months time have successfully balanced all of the servers by transferring the populations off of smaller servers. I don't know a better way you can create server balance. Now every server is almost 50/50 Destruction/Order.
Here's to WAR's future! Can't wait for the RvR dungeon :]
Def a good sign for the future, and like the poster above me said, a good launch plan.
It's so critical to play on a well populated server to really get the intended experience in this particular game. They did the right thing. I remember talking about what a big mistake it was to open so many and keep them in such a low pop state for so long just dragging the inevitable out.
Many of us talked about how having your server be balanced and high pop was key to making sure you got the most bang for your buck with their system in this game and how critical it was that they addressed the borked situation they introduced by having all these servers limping along at low capacity. I think my last post on their forums was in November and had something to do with suggesting they focus on this asap as it's just...priority number 1 to have a balanced and high pop server the way they set it all up you know. The game just falls apart if that condition isn't met.
So yeah, glad to see the culmination of what needed to be done finally happening this should be a great thing for those still interested in the life of this game. The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few and whatnot.
I agree that taking on the cost of all those servers was a great plan for launch.
Also EA cutting more jobs as they announced WARs subscriber numbers was a good thing for EA. It will help EA be better in the future.
I totally agree it was a brilliant plan.
Yep, they definitely have to close down these 40+ servers... agreed.
They still will have more remaining than Age of Conan as well.
"TO MICHAEL!"
First WO critics said that they had too many servers and needed to merge some to increase population levels... so they do, and now the critics cry "hah, your merging servers is a sign of your demise!"
There's no pleasing some people.
I guess you're reading a different post from the rest of us. I didn't see that sentiment expressed here, as everyone agreed it was needed.
But grats on you first post!
"TO MICHAEL!"
Did Mythic write somewhere that that is what those servers were for? I mean, maybe they'd put in extra servers for launch...but over 40?! That explanation seems a little deranged...or extremely optimistic. How many servers do they have total? I'd bet that 40 is a pretty good percentage of that.
Anyway, some successfull mmo's ive play ADDED servers after launch..not removed 40+
------------------------------
"Everything is awesome. Fundamentally."
Did Mythic write somewhere that that is what those servers were for? I mean, maybe they'd put in extra servers for launch...but over 40?! That explanation seems a little deranged...or extremely optimistic. How many servers do they have total? I'd bet that 40 is a pretty good percentage of that.
Anyway, some successfull mmo's ive play ADDED servers after launch..not removed 40+
I think they had over 100 servers total. They didn't say this was a strategy really.. what Lead Designer and Mythic VP Jacobs said was this:
October '08 to March '09= Six months. So that's the only thing I know they mentioned. It doesn't really look like a "strategy" or "plan" (maybe backup plan), but if they are to survive, they HAVE to do this. Actually, they should have done it sooner but.. meh.
I agree, as every poster in the thread has said, that they need it, and need it bad.
"TO MICHAEL!"
My apologies popin; after reading a couple of your other posts I came under the impression that were are a staunch WO critic, and I sort of "jumped the gun" and assumed the worst from your initial post.
I am critical of Warhammer as a former player, but that doesn't mean I don't agree with fans when they have reasonable points. The things I had said in the past were never "Don't play WAR, it sucks", it was "Stop apologizing for Mythic for everything, and hold them accountable."
Fans see the need for this now, but before the rabid ones would pretty much call you a troll if you brought up this logic months ago, when it really would have made a difference. I really would like to see WAR do better, but Mythic cannot seem to get out of their own way unless they are forced to do so. It's been the history of the company. But when one MMO does well, it bodes well for the whole community.
I was hoping current subscribers would hold them accountable a little more in the past, but it looks as if only customers who've voted with their wallets have been able to do so, because current players kept saying the problems were all "minor".
But again, this is the best move Mythic could do. If I wanted it dead, I'd say this was a mistake and they should not do it.. exactly what fanbois said for the past several months.
"TO MICHAEL!"
They should consolidate faster! Skull Throne is a little barren right now!
Really amazing that a 84 year old female such as yourself likes MMOs.
Kudos ma'am!
"TO MICHAEL!"
You're clearly more reasonable than I had you pegged, so my apologies once again.
I'm a WAR subsriber and someone who is currently enjoying the game, but I would agree that some of it's problems are not merely "minor annoyances" or some such. The insane amount of servers being one such problem; merges should have happened ages ago, or better yet, there shouldn't have been so many of them at launch.
saw this post on F13 is it relevant? http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16216.0
Decided to put this in a post to track what's happening with the server merges "free character transfers".
US Servers - Alive
Badlands, Dark Crag, Darklands, Gorfang, Iron Rock, Ironclaw, Ironfist, Magnus, Monolith, Ostermark, Phoenix Throne, Praag, Skull Throne, Volkmar, Vortex
US Servers - Dead or Dying (date transfers off announced, included)
Anlec - 11/25/2008
Avelorn - 11/25/2008
Averheim - 11/25/2008
Azazel - 02/19/2009
Bechafen - 11/25/2008
Be'lakor - 10/31/2008
Bretonnia - 11/25/2008
Chaos Wastes - 11/25/2008
Drakwald - 11/05/2008
Drifting Castle - 11/05/2008
Eerie Downs - 11/03/2008
Grimnir - 10/31/2008
Heldenhammer - 10/31/2008
Hochland - 01/05/2009
Kislev - 10/31/2008
Kragg - 10/31/2008
Lucan - 11/01/2008
Lustria - 11/01/2008
Marienburg - 10/31/2008
Marius - 11/01/2008
Middenheim - 10/31/2008
Mordheim - 10/31/2008
Rakarth - 10/31/2008
Red Eye Mountain - 02/19/2009
Reikland - 10/31/2008
Saphery - 10/31/2008
Sea of Claws - 10/31/2008
Sea of Malice - 10/31/2008
Skavenblight - 10/31/2008
Sylvania - 02/19/2009
Thorgrim - 10/31/2008
Tor Achere - 10/31/2008
Tor Elyr - 10/31/2008
Tower of Doom - 10/31/2008
Ulthuan - 11/05/2008
Ungrim - 02/19/2009
Wasteland - 11/05/2008
White Tower - 10/31/2008
Wolfenburg - 11/25/2008
Wurtbad - 11/03/2008
EU Servers English Language - Alive
Burlok, Dragonback Mountains, Eltharion, Karak Eight Peaks, Karak-Azgal, Karak-Hirn, Karak-Izor, Karak-Norn
EU English Language Servers - Dead or Dying (date transfers off announced, included)
Alarielle - 22/12/2008
Axe Bite Pass - 12/16/2008
Clar Karond - 11/24/2008
Ellyrion - 11/24/2008
Finuval Plain - 11/24/2008
Karag Dron - 12/16/2008
Karag Orrud - 12/16/2008
Karak Ungor - 11/24/2008
Karak-Vlag - 11/24/2008
Karaz-a-Karak - 11/24/2008
Makaisson - 11/24/2008
Mount Silverspear - 11/24/2008
Sea of Dreams - 11/24/2008
Tiranoc - 11/24/2008
Tor Anroc - 11/24/2008
Worlds Edge Mountains - 11/24/2008
Yvresse - 11/24/2008
Zhufbar - 11/24/2008
Total servers alive 15 US + 8 EU English Language = 23 alive
Total servers dead or dying 40 US + 18 EU English Language = 58 dead/dying
Note, counting Oceanic servers as part of the US for ease of tracking, not including Russia or non English language EU servers
.....
thats pretty drastic and i thought things were getting better. on the face of it don't look good at all. suppose it helps the littel population left though on those servers. oh well going to wait it out a while.
Karak-Hirn(EU) also dying, I just transfered from it, due to the message about low popuation on server join.
Skull Throne has consistently gotten worse after every patch. Granted that people tend leave MMOS after a patch, but the perception of population imbalances and declining populations has really amplified things.
While they did start offering transfers a while ago I think they lost a lot of people who stayed on their original server. By not forcing the move I thin they made the population issues a lot worse due to the player perception.
I enjoyed WAR, but when the alliance started losing guild leaders and the online population dwindled the rest of us just stopped renewing. I can't help but think that if they had actually combined servers instead of suggesting transfers they would have had a larger and more stable population.
I hope other Devs learn from the mistakes Mythic made.
They released way too many servers ( said this same thing on the first day of release).
Even at release they only needed about 1/3 of those servers (that might even be too many).
When a Game like WAR that actually relies heavily on player population you cannot have that many servers. WAR was an unproven product with a couple great PR guys.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Well, they had to have this many servers. People were filling the servers, all of them. And people, like me, started to hate the queues, just to get in. And if the players wouldn't have quitted later, they woud have then. No one likes to wait 3-6 hours just to get in to play some...
And players also hate it when servers are left to die, due to name collisions, transfers. People, friends quitting, transferring. But I have to say, now that I have transferred. I don't really regret it. There are MANY players all over, even new ones starting. Some cuz of the new careers comming, some cuz of the trials finally arriving. WAR is a great game, and it will develop, like any other, only getting better and better.
I moved from K-Hirn to K-Norn yesterday and I hit a Queue later on in the evening during peak time, haven't had that since launch, only 5 mins but at least it was a good sign ppl had taken up the transfers and that the server had a decent pop now, for how long I have no idea.
I also did that, Hirn to Norn. Destruction. And they had high populated, and order had medium.
The people here claiming it was a good launch strategy totally lost it in their fanboyism I think.
If the last few months have shown anything it's that this game needs a good population server for it to work well. Mythic probably lost countless of it's lost subscribers due to barren servers and re-re-transfer-rerolled people who got tired of doing that.
I can only assume you people started out on decent servers to begin with but anyone keeping up with the game can tell the people on low pop servers were not sharing in the fun in the same way med/high pops were.
It's better to have queues than what Mythic did imo.
The launch was ok. They just opened up way too many servers.
Really hard to argue with any of this.
Mythic really wasn't on the ball for the first six months, although there were quite a few fans who kept insisting they were on the "right track", "looking good" "great job" "it just gets better and better" "WAAAGGHH" and other enabling slogans, and Mythic believed them. And they believed Mythic when they said things were "working as intended". It was really a cruel cycle of inter-dependance and enabling.
The closings are sorely needed now, but be clear, this was never a part of any strategy after launch as someone suggested. They always intended for these closed servers to stay open.. they wrongly assumed that 750K meant the vast majority of those people would stick around. They don't do this now, they don't survive.
"TO MICHAEL!"