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Game Devs, is there any future plans for a possible EU/US/Global Server Merge?

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Bright

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Thursday, May 24th 2018, 12:34am

Game Devs, is there any future plans for a possible EU/US/Global Server Merge?

I've played this game since the lvl 50 cap, and even though I have taken breaks over the years, I write this post having witnessed the game in many different stages.

It seems like every day the past month I've played, there's always someone bringing up this idea, commenting on how the EU servers have so many more players than the US servers. I would love this, and lets be real, the US server population is dwindling. I see players talk of quitting on a daily basis simply due to their often not being enough players online to get together for an instance run, even among active guilds. The only thing many guilds really seem to do anymore is siege. With the inability for players to put runs together easily, combined with the obvious gear shortage on the server, it causes some players to just sit around all day waiting for gear they need to appear on the AH. Sometimes it never happens, so they log off for a day, then maybe 2 days, a week, and eventually they just stop logging in all together. There's hardly even a point in buying diamonds and/or selling them if you're unable to get your necessary gear to use the diamonds on. I could go on and on about reasons for a merge, but I don't want to focus on the negatives.

Checking out the EU Servers was a totally different vibe to the game. It almost feels like going back in time. There's way more players playing, and there are actually mid level players running instances like from NoM, Mystic Altar, HoS. Along with many high level players online at all hours of the day, putting runs together for numerous different instances. People actually seem to be "playing the game" there. High level players helping low level players, just for fun. Sure we could all just make accounts over there, but most players just wouldn't want to put in the work to rebuild their accounts like that. Even a slight 3-4x boost in the already small server population would make a dramatic difference in gameplay quality.

I could write paragraphs on this topic, but point is nobody can deny that the gameplay on the US Server is suffering due to the shortage of players. I imagine a server merge is inevitable given time as to prevent total server death, but myself and a lot of others are wondering, what's the hold up? A global merge of all servers, is long overdue in my opinion. Perhaps consolidation of worldwide servers into 1 could be what the game needs to start thriving again. Or hell, even just the ability for AH listings and chat to be shared across global servers. Something needs to be done.

This post has been edited 4 times, last edit by "Bright" (May 24th 2018, 5:20am)

Cenre

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Thursday, May 24th 2018, 5:36pm

Current rom situation is a joke. Game has tons of potential but both publisher and developer seem to prefer running it to the ground rather then make it a viable business opportunity. Personally im all for one big international server, merge french, Spanish, english and us server together. Even with these, the game is probably only as populated as it was at start 9 years ago. Technically speaking its feasible to merge regions, as gameforge already did it with asutralian server in past, would just be on a much larger amount of data transferred
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Fifio

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Thursday, May 24th 2018, 7:52pm

Lets merge :love:

but with the lack on content or lack of fixing broken stuff and not to mention the horrible IS

its just matter of time when that won't be enough of players to keep the game running

Tuulikki

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Monday, May 28th 2018, 7:09pm

Some valid points in here but Fifio really hit the nail on the head. Any further mergers will only accomplish prolonging the inevitable. The game has changed. It's older and the population much smaller. Despite this, it is still being managed pretty much the same way it has been for years. The few changes made fail to even address the game decline and appear instead to be designed solely to make the game even more expensive and P2W. (seriously - why +30 gems if instances take 6 months after release to open up and then get cleared within the first few weeks if not sooner?)

Once a title gets to the end of it's product life cycle, things either have to change to survive or they stagnate and die out. As players, about all we can do is evaluate the efforts of the devs and publishers to see if they are at least attempting to generate new life into the game. All evidence suggests they are not, or if they are, they seem to only be doing the very minimum needed to prolong the death of this game as long as possible. It really doesn't matter how much potential a game has, once a business decision has been made to let a title die out there's not much the player base can do about it. No amount of board posts, no amount of rational appeals, no amount of complaints or suggestions. Those who want to continue playing this game should consider rerolling on an EU server and playing there until those servers too die out. Better yet, find a different title altogether whose devs and publishers are actively promoting and attempting to grow their title.
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CharlieBananas

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Tuesday, May 29th 2018, 7:15am

I don't think they'd actually merge us with a EU server if it were to happen right now. They would likely first move our server to the EU server list first, so that we could at least siege them (we wouldn't stand a chance). Either way, I would imagine there would be an increase in Ping for all American players because they would need to change the physical location of the servers from the United States to EU, resulting in even less American players because some would inevitably quit because of it.

Cenre

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Tuesday, May 29th 2018, 9:02am

Why wouldn't you stand a chance vs eu siege? Idk what this misconception is about eu. Current EU sw state is trash. Everyone would have same chance as each other. But yep, ping would be a problem.
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Magío

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Tuesday, May 29th 2018, 9:34am

NA wouldn't stand a chance vs EU because PPK/VVV all quit.
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CharlieBananas

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Tuesday, May 29th 2018, 2:22pm

On top of that, one of the top guilds on our server, Prime, doesn't even siege.

This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "CharlieBananas" (May 29th 2018, 2:33pm)

Heron

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Tuesday, May 29th 2018, 10:42pm

Psst, Bright. If you're hoping for a response from the game devs, I hope you speak Mandarin.

Also, the devs don't make decisions about server management (merges). The publisher, gameforge, does.

Beyond that, of the people who are free to talk about it none know if any more merges are planned.

I think your question will remain unanswered.

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Friday, June 1st 2018, 12:15am

How 'bout this-
Instead of DIScouraging strangers who are on the forums because they are considering playing, how about ENcouraging your friends and fellow gamers to come try it out. I started playing when Savage Lands was the cap, and once or twice a year I try out something new. I am still here because it is better IMHO than the stuff that is coming out.
If it is as bad as you keep saying, then why aren't you doing something else with your time and money? :dash:
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Bright

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Friday, June 1st 2018, 6:08am

Many people are saying that a server merge would just delay the inevitable decay of the game... but I disagree. The game was thriving fine until diamond trading was removed from the AH (even though we now work around it). That caused a cascade of people quitting and just sort of put the US server population into a state beyond repair. While it's much easier to stat and gear up than it used to be, and people still trade diamonds, the population won't bounce back.

So imagine this... new people in the US, login to play the game for the first time, and are directed to the US servers and see almost nobody playing low level content... but imagine if they were directed to the EU servers and they got to see that there's actually people of all levels playing the game for what it is.... that sort of thing makes an enormous difference in whether a new player is going to keep playing. Without question.

The game doesn't need to have tens of thousands of players to thrive... it just needs to have enough players playing the content at various levels, so new players feel like they have a reason to stick around. The EU servers have that. US servers haven't had that in a long time.

Quoted from "Heron"

Psst, Bright. If you're hoping for a response from the game devs, I hope you speak Mandarin.

Also, the devs don't make decisions about server management (merges). The publisher, gameforge, does.

Beyond that, of the people who are free to talk about it none know if any more merges are planned.

I think your question will remain unanswered.


I'm sure the answer to my question of whether or not there is a merge planned is a YES, the real question is how long will it take before they finally pull the trigger on it.

It's funny you mention about Mandarin. I actually do have a lot of connections in mainland China from business, but am not sure what good that would do me if it's Gameforge that decides and not the present game owners. I can fair speak a bit of German however, should I go pester on the EU forums lol?

Grumpdaddy

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Saturday, June 2nd 2018, 1:01am

Bright says-

Quoted from "Bright"

Many people are saying that a server merge would just delay the inevitable decay of the game... but I disagree. The game was thriving fine until diamond trading was removed from the AH (even though we now work around it). That caused a cascade of people quitting and just sort of put the US server population into a state beyond repair. While it's much easier to stat and gear up than it used to be, and people still trade diamonds, the population won't bounce back
Actually, when i started (level 53 cap) there was no diamond trading in the AH- Diamonds on Govinda traded between players for around 8-10 k a pop. When prices slowly rose to around 100k, GF tried to control it by ADDING diamond trading in the AH. It only took about a month for the price to go up to 250k. They removed them, and prices settled back to 100.

US population dropped dramatically when $$*#($ $%!~& Online [censored myself- not sure what the rules are here] launched. I tried it, did not see the thrill, and came back. A few other MMO launches also had a minor affect.
I agree that maybe some things can be tried by GF, but if you think it's diamond prices, I would say you have tunnel vision. Only the players can control that, and as long as there are not enough sellers, the price will slowly rise.
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Bright

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Saturday, June 2nd 2018, 7:29am

I must have been away for the time period that they brought it back and then removed it again. I seem to remember a time where diamonds were sold 8-10k a piece on AH, if my memory serves me correctly... I just remember sometime around the 50 cap diamond trading was removed from AH, and everyone freaked out and literally half of the people I knew quit (which lead to me quitting for sometime as well). Everyone was going around with this doom-and-gloom mindset about how F2P players were being punished and RoM just wanted to give even more of an edge to people spending money on diamonds, by barring F2P access to them. If my memory serves me correct, the population around the 52/55 player cap was no where near as large as the 50 cap population..... and the population now is even less. Diamond Trading on AH was a side point to this whole post; that would just be a perk at this point. I don't really see why GF would need to step in just because diamond price rises so high. Isn't that the point of supply and demand?

The overall gameplay population factor is much more relevant. There was a world-conversation on US server a day or two ago about an EU/US server merge, and it seemed most people were overwhelmingly in favor of it... for obvious reasons. Many players gameplay experience is being negative affected by the shortage of players, which would be easily solved by a merge. So far I can't recall many players who aren't in favor of a merge... there's players skeptical that it will solve all the problems, sure, but the overwhelming majority supports a merge.

One of the biggest points of sadness that is apparent to me is how hard it is to get a full party together to run anything beyond simple easy mode instances. Not because of people not being geared up enough.... rather there are certain very brief windows of time during the days and weeks when there is enough people online wanting to do runs, ....and even still it usually doesn't last more than an hour or two max because one or two people end up having to go and there's nobody to take their place. The server state in this regard is pathetic in the sense that on a well populated server, there should be enough people on to run all day long, at least especially on the weekends.

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Saturday, June 2nd 2018, 7:33pm

I would LOVE for US EU merge. I am from EU and I play US server and it is really hard for me to play with already limited people in the server. EU is more crowded. If I cannot transfer my character to EU, I want a merge :D It should also bring more people back since some people quit because of unactive servers.

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Thursday, June 14th 2018, 12:58pm

you rly need to sadly..
when you haven't been on forums for a month or so, and the only new posts are 99% gm related... that shows you the state of the game in a nutshell.
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Sunday, June 17th 2018, 6:25pm

Not sure if a merger is the answer. There have been several posts over the years that have outlined various things to try to increase population, the biggest of which is advertisement of the game. I don't know about anyone else, but if I do an online search for mmorpg games, ROM is often not listed or is low on the list of games (and there are some REALLY horrible mmorpgs that are listed on those sites).

Maybe instead of a server merge an offer can be made for players to move their toons to an EU server for a set number of diamonds per toon. They can also offer the same for EU players to move to the US server but it could cost less diamonds due to the lower population.

Heron

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Monday, June 18th 2018, 6:38am

Quoted from "Bright"

It's funny you mention about Mandarin. I actually do have a lot of connections in mainland China from business, but am not sure what good that would do me (none) if it's Gameforge that decides and not the present game owners developer. I can fair speak a bit of German however, should I go pester on the EU forums lol?


You could, I guess. Though they seem to do all their business interactions in English. You still won't get much insight since none of the people who would know either way are allowed to answer it.

Quoted from "Bright"

Many players gameplay experience is being negative affected by the shortage of players, which would be easily solved by a merge.


We thought that before the first merges, and it helped for a while. And then we thought the same thing before the second merge, but here we are. Maybe we'll learn someday that it's not that simple.

Quoted from "Bright"

So far I can't recall many players who aren't in favor of a merge... there's players skeptical that it will solve all the problems, sure, but the overwhelming majority supports a merge.


It's interesting to me that you say this. My experience is the opposite: most of the people I've heard talk about it say the added ping would make it utterly unplayable, and push them to quit for good. FWIW, I agree with them.

But, we are on Steam now so maybe it will bring in some new players. See if you can't find them and entice them to stay.

MLordM

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Monday, June 18th 2018, 11:49am

First of all i want to mention im from the EU server (also forgive me for my limited english).

A server merge of all servers would bring its own problems. Think about daily quests and worldbosses.
Im not sure how instances would hold up with more parties running them.
Also the rate of diabuyer to diaseller will get worse, so diamonds will most likely rise in price, im not sure how its on the US
but in EU from last servermerge diamonds increased, sitting on 250k each now. While i was fortunate enough to be part of the
"stronger" server in the merge, prices favored us (dias were still more expensive), but from what i've heard it was a huge increase for the other server (can't verify this).

What i can say for my own server, maybe this is the same for yours, is this;
alot of players are not willing to merge guilds. There is a max of 3 guilds in EU that can farm endgame instances. Are all other guilds too weak? Not really, they are just not willing to leave their guild and join up with other guilds.
Instancewise you need a specific mix of players in your guild to farm it really. I see lots of people wanting to be, for lack of a better word, "special". They play horrible classes (their good right ofcourse) and then start complaining they can't get a run going.
Also this is usually the problem with serverwide announced runs, you will get too many people in a party that contribute too little.

So until a servermerge will come i'd advise any server to make strong guilds, play the correct classes (if you are interested in endgame runs) and maybe make some buffer alts if you have time for it. If in an endgame guild every dd also plays 1 bufferalt, this will drastically decrease the MININUM required players to get a run going. Ofcourse it is better to have real players over macro buffers, but if you lose a partymember this wouldn't immediately result in having to end the run.

PS: being from EU server i can't really say there are alot of lower instances being done (NoM, MA), nor that many players can be found in questing maps. Maybe this happens and i just don't see it, but it might not be as optimistic as you might think.

Magío

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Tuesday, June 19th 2018, 6:21am

Quoted from "Heron"

"but am not sure what good that would do me" (none)

You could, I guess. Though they seem to do all their business interactions in English. You still won't get much insight since none of the people who would know either way are allowed to answer it.


Why beat around the bush earlier? Finally a clear answer, but we had to have a guy that speaks German and Mandarin to get it out. In short, there's zero transparency.

Quoted from "Heron"

Many players gameplay experience is being negative affected by the shortage of players, which would be easily solved by a merge.


We thought that before the first merges, and it helped for a while. And then we thought the same thing before the second merge, but here we are. Maybe we'll learn someday that it's not that simple.

That's because by the time the first merger was done, it was too late to have 2 servers. Also, the merge doesn't solve the inherent problems for why this game hemorrhages players. The business model is flawed. It's just a Gameforge staple. It's so easy to look online that Gameforge takes over games, makes them heavily P2W and runs them to the ground (Just search online for Tera En Masse vs Gameforge). They just kill the goose to get the eggs.

Quoted from "Heron"

It's interesting to me that you say this. My experience is the opposite: most of the people I've heard talk about it say the added ping would make it utterly unplayable, and push them to quit for good. FWIW, I agree with them.

But, we are on Steam now so maybe it will bring in some new players. See if you can't find them and entice them to stay.
I wonder what those people you've "heard talk about it" do in-game... probably just mini-games, since last time I checked there's only enough people for one endgame raid. Also, Aristatic, the greatest Druid to play this game on US servers, was from Australia and played with constant 250-300 ping. I've played on the EU servers with an average internet connection and only get around 150 ping. If you can't deal with that in exchange for doubling or tripling the population... I don't know what to say.
P.S. If there is NO CHANGE to how this game works (or DOESN'T work for that matter) in the Steam release, it will just be the same story. Player retention sucks. If there's 100 new players, how many of those do you think will keep playing the game after crashing multiple times in the first 30 minutes? How many of those will stay after they learn how P2W this game has become after the addition of +20's and especially +30's? Or how the class they chose, and have invested a lot of time on, is trash in an endgame setting in PvE and/or PvP?
Finally, if the population does happen to to rise a considerable amount with this Steam release, it will just be another band-aid like the past two mergers have been. A sudden increase in population and activity that will die off in a couple of months as people start getting tired of all the crap from the devs and publishers.
All I see in this Steam release is Gameforge willing to give up revenue to Steam to try to get as much money as possible out of Runes of Magic before closing it down. I'd ask to prove me wrong but nobody worth anything at Gameforge will even see this.
Magío • Mithras

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Magío" (Jun 19th 2018, 6:32am)

Heron

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Wednesday, June 20th 2018, 7:34am

1)

Quoted from "Heron"

of the people who are free to talk about it none know if any more merges are planned.


2)

Quoted from "Heron"

You still won't get much insight since none of the people who would know either way are allowed to answer it.


Quoted from "Magío"

Why beat around the bush earlier?


Ya got me. I totally changed my tune between (1) and (2), huh? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Shame on me.

Quoted from "Magío"

the merge doesn't solve the inherent problems for why this game hemorrhages players. The business model is flawed.


Yup, that's a pretty gud supporting argument for why population fixes via merge are 'not that simple'.

Quoted from "Magío"

I wonder what those people you've "heard talk about it" do in-game...


They run mini-games, farm hardmode instances, craft, quest, run easymode and lower level instances hardmode, level alts and guildmates, farm stats and tier stone materials, and do combinations of all those things. No need to try minimizing the opinion by minimizing the people who hold it.

Quoted from "Magío"

I've played on the EU servers with an average internet connection and only get around 150 ping.


Since that's how it is for you, that's how it'll be for all players in north america, right? Right. :sleeping:

Quoted from "Magío"

If you can't deal with that in exchange for doubling or tripling the population... I don't know what to say.


But that's just it, isn't it? That double or triple won't stick - you even said as much below. First the people driven away by ping will go (which you wouldn't care about anyway since not many of those are part of your personal in-group), and then the aforementioned 'flawed business model' will continue to attrit the rest. In the end you'd have the same small population... and higher ping. Enjoy.

Quoted from "Magío"

P.S. If there is NO CHANGE to how this game works (or DOESN'T work for that matter) in the Steam release, it will just be the same story. Player retention sucks.


No argument here. When I'm in a wishful mood I think it would need both a sizable influx of people which Steam might or might not provide, and a solid dose of client/content/businessmodel fixes that from experience are just not likely to come. Of the two, we as players can only affect the boost of the former by retaining them as much as we can. And when I'm feeling less optimistic, we do indeed think similarly.

Pleasure as always to hear from you.

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