Tag: server merger

Age of Wushu Merging Servers 8/28


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Snail Games USA has announced that Age of Wushu will be merging two servers in order to increase player interaction and reduce low population areas. On August 28th, Black Tortoise will be merged into White Tiger during the game’s normally scheduled maintenance. According to the FAQ, character data including progression, guilds, and Jianghu Rankings will cross over. Characters with the same name will be able to keep their name with server distinctions added on, however school positions will be reset.

As this will be a fresh reset server, all school positions will be reset. Players can apply with School NPCs for positions in the school structure on day 1. The weekly school tournament will be conducted as normal on the first Sunday following the merger (September 1, 2013).

You can read the entire FAQ at the link below. While the new server is titled “White Tiger,” the server is not the same as the existing White Tiger.

(Source: Age of Wushu)

Age of Conan Server Mergers Coming August 7th


Early next year, Funcom plans on integrating the single server technology from The Secret World into Age of Conan. In the announcement, Funcom revealed that while it may be possible to merge the different rule sets into one server, the game’s antiquated technology prevents North American and European players from interacting with one another. With the long road ahead until the single mega-server technology is fully integrated and ready to roll out, Funcom has begun announcing server mergers to get the community ready.

On August 7th, the US servers Set and Wicana will be merged into one server: Set. The next day, the EU will see its servers Mitra and Asgard merged into one: Mitra. Characters will keep their names on the basis of activity, level (if both active), registration (if same level), and last login (if registered same month). After the server merge has taken place, characters will be given a free transfer that can be used cross-ruleset (but not cross-region) good for one month. You can read more at the server FAQ below.

(Source: Age of Conan)

(Also: Age of Conan EU)

The Old Republic Server Mergers Later This Summer


Bioware is committed to keeping server populations strong. Coinciding with their May announcement of massively increasing server capacity, Bioware has been very active in herding their population on to a select number of destination servers. In fact, Bioware wants you to transfer so much that they are handing out perks just for moving over your eligible characters. On the Old Republic Blog, Bioware has detailed plans to increase server transfers.

Later this summer, we’re taking steps to further strengthen destination server population. Ultimately, we are working to transition all players to designated destination servers in the Free Character Transfer Service.

Later on, servers will be merged anyway.

Later this summer, any remaining characters on selected origin servers will be automatically moved to designated destination servers. We will provide additional details regarding the automatic character transfer process at that time.

Just how many servers are being merged is yet to be seen, however Bioware has listed more than 100 North American and 80 European servers as “origin” servers, available for players to transfer off of with only twelve servers per region qualifying for the free transfer rewards program.

(Source: The Old Republic)

Warhammer Loses Another Server: Drakenwald Closing


As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain an active, competitive, and engaging experience in WAR we have decided to open free transfers for players to specific servers. WAR, more than many games, only gets better with more people. These transfers will enable players to experience more action during all hours whether fighting in scenarios or Open RvR.

Absolutely true, and if there is one thing that Warhammer Online could use, it is more people. By now, Warhammer players should be well tuned with the process. Starting tomorrow, Drakenwald will be marked as a “legacy server,” disabling the creation of new characters. Existing characters are free to transfer to Badlands or Karak Norn for three weeks until the server is deactivated and you will be forced to transfer anyway.

On the other hand, Warhammer has almost run out of servers to close down.

(Source: Warhammer Herald)

Square Enix Redacts Server Merger Announcement


Remember last week when Square Enix announced the details of their server merger? Well who says that Square doesn’t listen to their community? After an enormous amount of discussion on the forums, Square is taking the server merger back to the drawing board.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the wealth of feedback you have provided us with following the announcement made on February 9, 2012 (Thursday), regarding the World merge and character transfers. In order to ensure that the most desirable and effective outcome is achieved, we will be reassessing the method of the merger process.

Initially, the server merger was set to take the game’s eighteen servers and merge them down to ten. Square has promised to release more information as the company decides upon what to do next.

(Source: Lodestone)

Waiting Official Announcement: Rift Server Mergers


The moment many dedicated trolls have been waiting for since Rift launched last year has finally arrived. According to Rift Junkies, players are being greeted in-game with a new Message of the Day detailing upcoming server mergers. According to the MotD, the last day to move yourself to a new server will be January 18th, when those servers will be marked “trial servers” and character creation will be locked. Otherwise, the Rift server transfer is still in effect, and players can choose to move to whatever server they please.

Last year I pointed out that Rift was performing a soft shut down of servers by calling them trial servers and suggesting that players move off of them. There has been no announcement by Trion on the forums or website, outside of the in-game MotD. The servers will be merged as follows, according to information gathered by Rift Junkies:

Transferring Shard: –> Receiving Shard:
PVE
Belmont –> Millrush
Galena –> Millrush
Atrophinius –> Greenscale
Crucia –> Greenscale
Alsbeth –> Shatterbone
PVE – RP
Estrael –> Faeblight
Shadefallen –> Faeblight
PVP
Sunrest(PVP-RP) –> Deepstrike
Freeholme –> Deepstrike
Dayblind –> Deepstrike
Faemist –> Briarcliff

Warhammer Online: Too Far Gone For Free To Play?


Back in October, VP of Bioware Mythic Eugene Evans told us that Warhammer Online is alive and kicking and, much like the Christmas cookies in the closet in July, remains an undiscovered treat. In fact, Evans was confident enough in Warhammer’s future to announce that subscription numbers had risen since the announcement of WAR’s free to play half-brother Wrath of Heroes, and that Mythic has absolutely no plans to take the game free.

In a move to increase server population, Mythic announced that players on the Gorfang and Karak Azgal servers will need to transfer to Badlands and Karak Norn respectively. Starting December 14th, the transition will be optional for three weeks before the aforementioned servers (Gorfant/Azgal) are marked as legacy servers and shut down.

The game play experience of our customers is something we highly value.  We don’t make changes like this lightly.  A lot of metrics and analysis accompanies this type of decision. We feel that these changes will help to ensure that server options continue to facilitate that best RvR experience out there.  Thanks for playing and see you on the battlefield!

This move leaves North America and UK players with one server to choose from each, and at least this writer wondering: Is Warhammer too far gone to go free to play? Playing devil’s advocate, an easy comparison can be made to Lineage II, of which I personally anticipated the game to shut down around the time NCWest had shuttered all but a single remaining server in North America.

We know from past interviews with Derek Smart and Stephen Calender that the process of moving an MMO to a free to play model is immensely time consuming and expensive for the developer, and occasionally a better business option to just shut down rather than invest the money without a clear indication of what revenue can be brought in.

One thing I can say for certain is that Electronic Arts is going to drag Warhammer Online until the product is no longer financially viable, and then probably continue running the game after that. The early bankruptcy of Realtime Worlds and the performance of Warhammer Online has dealt a great deal of damage to Electronic Arts’ relations with their investors, so much so that Gamasutra ran an article that investors were turning down The Old Republic out of fears of similar performance and support.

As for shutting down, Warhammer Online will not be shut down until The Old Republic is in the clear and bringing in so much money that the investors don’t even notice WAR die in the corner as its once loving parents now spend their time fawning over their new baby that looks a bit like the old one, but with cuter dimples.

TERA: Not Meeting Financial Expectations, Major Server Merger


The Exiled Realm of Arborea, also known as TERA, has been a long time coming for North American and European markets, although Korean players have been enjoying the game since January. Well, some of them are anyway. I’ve mentioned in the past that MMOSite has done their best to trash this game’s release in Korea, and for all intent and purpose…they weren’t completely wrong. According to MMO Culture, TERA is set to undergo its second server merge since release, and boy is it a big one. The first merger dropped the list of 37 servers to 35, but tomorrow that number is set to plummet to about 15.

TERA’s major pull has been not only the graphics, but that the game is an action-based, non-targeting MMO, and the game looks beautiful. Merging servers isn’t an issue in and of itself, however in NHN’s recent revenue filings, the company stated that TERA did not meet expected sales figures.

More on TERA and its impending launch in the west as it appears.

Crimecraft Server Mergers/Euro Server


It’s been a while since I lasted talked Crimecraft, and the game has been going relatively active. Vogster completed the first season of Bleedout (the episodic quest series), and the hardcover edition of the Bleedout comic is coming soon, although Amazon emailed me to inform me that release was pushed back to July.

Well today’s occasion is some good news and some bad news mixed together. Foremost, the two North American servers are merging into one. Exeter will close down on May 23rd, and merge into Jericho. All characters above level 20 will be transferred immediately, however inactive characters under 20 (inactive being defined as not logged in in the past month) will be put on a separate database to be transferred over at request, and according to Vogster, “limited” and on a case by case basis.

Gang hideouts and clubs will not be transferred, but the gang name will be. Cash and gold bars (real world cash) spent on clubs and hideouts will be refunded. Not much information has been offered on the European server, other than:

This is also our first step toward opening a future European realm, but the immediate payoff for our users will be more available matches for characters of all levels and improved game performance.

More on Crimecraft as it appears. If you’d like to get into Crimecraft, submit a comment with your email address here. I’ll fire you off a “recruit-a-friend” email, that will allow you to sign up and get some benefits:

Complete the Tutorial: Upon completion of the tutorial, your friend will receive a Starter Pack that includes a 3-slot weapon, 20 GBs, a free 2-hour XP boost and a 5 pack of skill points. You will receive a free 2-hour XP boost and an Extra Character Slot allowing you to start a new character to play with your friend.

Purchase a GB Pack or Subscription: When your friend purchases a Gold Bar pack or a subscription, he will receive a free 24-hour XP boost and a 10 pack of Skill Points. You will receive 50GBs.

Complete the BleedOut Campaign: When your friend completes the BleedOut campaign, he receives 50GBs and one each of the 24-hour XP, Loot and Cash boosts and a free week of Deluxe membership (or an extra week of Deluxe or Premium membership if they are already members). You will receive 50 GBs and a free week of Deluxe membership (or an extra week of Deluxe or Premium if they are already a member).

Super Servers Sounds Better Than Server Merger


I have a new goal: Find the guy who writes Sony’s press releases, and hire him to the MMO Fallout team. In an announcement today on Sony’s website came the revelation of four “super servers,” to reduce queue times, delivered in a much more positive fashion than “we’re merging servers.”

We have heard your concerns about queue times on the servers. This game is about people playing and fighting together so we feel your pain. Sometime in the next month, we are going to test new technology to meld all of our US and European PC and PS3 servers into four Super-Servers, one for each platform in each region.

This news couldn’t have come at a worse time, what with Sony not only going through layoffs, but also the continued downtime of the PS3 DC Universe since the 20th.

This announcement takes me back to what I said in January:

Will this be one of the few MMOs whose population doesn’t crash one month after launch? I’m not holding my breath, but let’s hope for the best.

DC Universe is a fun game, but since launch I’ve had to question its long term viability. The leveling to end game is fast, and Sony really went off track in terms of the game’s social features.