"Server merge" is the worst possible PR for a video game. They mean that people have left the game in large numbers. It's acknowledging that the game is not successful. However in an MMO where other people means content to players, not merging servers can be even more problematic. The remaining players who are happy with the game content can leave due to being unable to find groups to play with.
EVE Online is in a special case. At first - unlike the other games - it gives data of users online. The third party site EVE Offline tracks this data and can give good graphs about how many people are playing. There is no need or place for PR here, the raw data speaks loud. The average player load on Tanquility, the western server is around 28K and slowly decreasing. The Chinese server Serenity has around 16K, fairly stable.
What is wrong with these numbers? There are around 7500 star systems in EVE, about 2000 of them are high security where PvP is limited. Reports are saying 80% of the pilots are in highsec. So in an average non-highsec system there is almost exactly 1 pilot on average. It means that finding opponents to fight isn't a trivial task. It also means that there is absolutely no competition for non-highsec resources, which creates the strange thing that mining veldspar, the most "newbie" mineral for an hour barely pays less than mining the highest level minerals for the same time. When I circumnavigated the galaxy in nullsec, I found most systems empty.
In EVE Online you must meet other people to have a game at all. The PvE of EVE is pretty shallow and without competition and conflict there isn't much point for playing. The conflicts over star systems are rather conflicts over personalities than over materials. We hunt -A- because we hate what they praise and not because we care about their systems (most of them are still in -A- hands because we couldn't be bothered to take them).
This isn't good at all. There should be combat in EVE Online, "dock up and wait till he leaves" shouldn't be a way to handle PvP and there shouldn't be star systems ignored by everyone.
The solution is obvious for all other games: server merges. However EVE Online has one western server, Tranquility. Merging with Serenity is probably impossible due to financial reasons (different paying method, prices and the infamous "Chinese goldfarmer" issue). Also merging with Serenity wouldn't solve a thing. Assuming the same 80% being in highsec in China too, the average population per star system would rise to 1.6. Hardly a fix (though would be an improvement).
The solution is realizing that Tranquility isn't really a server, rather a login system. The servers are the star systems. There are way too many star systems for so few players. I would suggest to shut down 80% of the star systems. It should be done equally, so every region and every class of WH would lose 80% of the stars (except highsec, as they are populated). It would be the best to look in the long-term data and remove the least populated 80%. Announce these, give a month for the players to evacuate, then during an extended downtime switch off the stargates/wormholes of these systems, move the players logged out in these systems to the nearest non-deleted. Their assets can stay, so their jump clones, just make it impossible to activate these clones. If the server population would increase, this would make re-opening the stars easy. New stargates can be necessary if some stars become inaccessible due to the way to them is removed.
Such deletion would increase the Tranquility population to 5 players/stars making combat more frequent and resources more competed over. What do you think?
Important note to fellow logistics and capital-only pilots: if you thought that the incoming battlecruiser and destroyer skill changes only affect Drake and Talos riders, you are wrong. Capital ships will no longer need faction battleship 5, don't train that. Faction battleship on the other hand will need frigate, destroyer, cruiser and battlecruiser 4 to train, so if you want to fly the capital ship of a faction, learn their battleship to 1 now, saving faction destroyer and battlecruiser learning. If you are worried that it won't allow you further training with missing faction destroyer and faction battlecruiser, get destroyers and battlecruiser to 4 now.
Tuesday morning report: 169.7B Did some liquidations, hence the lack of increase. Also put 0.6B a wrong container, fixed. (8.6 spent on main accounts, 7.1 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.8 on Ragnarok, 5.3+0.1 on Rorqual, 3.4 on Nyx, 3.4 on Dread, 37.4+20 sent as gift)
EVE Online is in a special case. At first - unlike the other games - it gives data of users online. The third party site EVE Offline tracks this data and can give good graphs about how many people are playing. There is no need or place for PR here, the raw data speaks loud. The average player load on Tanquility, the western server is around 28K and slowly decreasing. The Chinese server Serenity has around 16K, fairly stable.
What is wrong with these numbers? There are around 7500 star systems in EVE, about 2000 of them are high security where PvP is limited. Reports are saying 80% of the pilots are in highsec. So in an average non-highsec system there is almost exactly 1 pilot on average. It means that finding opponents to fight isn't a trivial task. It also means that there is absolutely no competition for non-highsec resources, which creates the strange thing that mining veldspar, the most "newbie" mineral for an hour barely pays less than mining the highest level minerals for the same time. When I circumnavigated the galaxy in nullsec, I found most systems empty.
In EVE Online you must meet other people to have a game at all. The PvE of EVE is pretty shallow and without competition and conflict there isn't much point for playing. The conflicts over star systems are rather conflicts over personalities than over materials. We hunt -A- because we hate what they praise and not because we care about their systems (most of them are still in -A- hands because we couldn't be bothered to take them).
This isn't good at all. There should be combat in EVE Online, "dock up and wait till he leaves" shouldn't be a way to handle PvP and there shouldn't be star systems ignored by everyone.
The solution is obvious for all other games: server merges. However EVE Online has one western server, Tranquility. Merging with Serenity is probably impossible due to financial reasons (different paying method, prices and the infamous "Chinese goldfarmer" issue). Also merging with Serenity wouldn't solve a thing. Assuming the same 80% being in highsec in China too, the average population per star system would rise to 1.6. Hardly a fix (though would be an improvement).
The solution is realizing that Tranquility isn't really a server, rather a login system. The servers are the star systems. There are way too many star systems for so few players. I would suggest to shut down 80% of the star systems. It should be done equally, so every region and every class of WH would lose 80% of the stars (except highsec, as they are populated). It would be the best to look in the long-term data and remove the least populated 80%. Announce these, give a month for the players to evacuate, then during an extended downtime switch off the stargates/wormholes of these systems, move the players logged out in these systems to the nearest non-deleted. Their assets can stay, so their jump clones, just make it impossible to activate these clones. If the server population would increase, this would make re-opening the stars easy. New stargates can be necessary if some stars become inaccessible due to the way to them is removed.
Such deletion would increase the Tranquility population to 5 players/stars making combat more frequent and resources more competed over. What do you think?
Important note to fellow logistics and capital-only pilots: if you thought that the incoming battlecruiser and destroyer skill changes only affect Drake and Talos riders, you are wrong. Capital ships will no longer need faction battleship 5, don't train that. Faction battleship on the other hand will need frigate, destroyer, cruiser and battlecruiser 4 to train, so if you want to fly the capital ship of a faction, learn their battleship to 1 now, saving faction destroyer and battlecruiser learning. If you are worried that it won't allow you further training with missing faction destroyer and faction battlecruiser, get destroyers and battlecruiser to 4 now.
Tuesday morning report: 169.7B Did some liquidations, hence the lack of increase. Also put 0.6B a wrong container, fixed. (8.6 spent on main accounts, 7.1 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.8 on Ragnarok, 5.3+0.1 on Rorqual, 3.4 on Nyx, 3.4 on Dread, 37.4+20 sent as gift)
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