Updated Server Merger information

[Cairenn]

Server Merge post by Hasium
07/11/2007

Hey Everyone,
It’s long past time for an updated server merge post. We are still feverishly working on getting the backend work done. We have done several internal tests merging empty servers and are satisfied with the results now. Next up are the internal tests merging servers with characters on them. I realize this is taking longer than I had thought originally and the community was expecting. Do I dare give an ETA? I can say we have at least two weeks of work and testing to be done still. We are doing our best to get it done as soon as possible, but we only have one shot at so it needs to be right.
So on to the updated details. Obviously not everyone is going to be happy with the final rules. I will do my best to give the reasons behind the decisions, but ultimately they are driven on what we will is best for the long term health of the game.

Servers

• There will be 2 US PVE, 1 EU PVE, and 1 US PVP server.
  • Xeth PVE US
    1. Thunderaxe
    2. Woefeather
    3. Gulgrethor
    4. Hilsbury
  • Seradon PVE US
    1. Targonor
    2. Florendyl
    3. Flamehammer
    4. Shidreth
  • Halgar PVE EU
    1. Gelenia
    2. Infineum
  • Sartok PVP US FFA
    1. Tharridon
    2. Varking
    3. Frengrot

• All existing servers will go away and everyone will be moved to new servers.
• Each character will get one free server move after the merge.
• PVP players will be able to move to PVP OR PVE servers.
• PVE players will only be able to move to PVE servers.
• PVP rule set will be FFA.

Xeth, Seradon, Halgar and Sartok were the server names with the most votes.
Florendyl RP server.
The poll showed 76% in favor of keeping Florendyl versus 24% not to. So why in the Sam Hill (what does that really mean?) did we decide to merge it when the community clearly doesn’t want it? In-between the time that poll was run and today, the population of Florendyl has dropped about 30% with the rest of the servers dropping 10% to 30%. So at this point, it needs to be merged with the other servers in order for everyone to have a decent chance for grouping across the board and enjoy the game as intended. I did spend some time on the Florendyl talking to people and the general feeling was that while they voted to keep it, they felt it needed to be merged now. Hopefully we can get the population moving up and we can start up a RP server in the future, but unfortunately for now it needs to be merged.
Team PVP
Combined peak players for both PVP Team servers is about 400 – 450. That’s just not enough population for real team PvP in a world the size of Vanguard. So for now, all the PvP servers will be merged into one with FFA as the rule set. Sometime in the future when the population is up, we will consider turning on a server for Team PvP.

Character Naming

• Characters name priority is based on
  • First created, if also played within the last 30 days
  • Last Played
• Those characters that have name collisions will be marked, and upon next login will have to choose a new name before that character can log in.
• Please, if you have a mule character, please create a new one so another player can have a chance at getting keeping the character name they play with.

Housing

• The price for the player’s plot is refunded to the player in coin.
• The resources used to generate the house are refunded to the player via the housing resource escrow.
• The current upkeep balance will be refunded to the character
• Fixtures and items in the house will be placed in the escrow.

We looked into ways to transfer ownership of existing house to the new server to avoid the land rush in addition to guilds keeping their groups of houses. After looking into the details and basing it off the naming rules, it would be a mess. A really big mess. So the land rush is on.
Many people have expressed worry about not having enough plots available. There are approximately 3000 housing plots available on each server. On any given server only about 20 - 25% of the plots are owned. In addition there are many players that have houses on multiple servers. After the merge, the number of houses that player has will decrease due to having less servers. So there should be enough plots for everyone.

Boats

• Boats will be marked as needing to be named.

VGPlayers issues

• We are still working out the specifics on this.

Corpses left in the world

• All corpses will go away.
• Any items left on corpses will go to your escrow account.
• Exp on the corpse will be returned to you.

Mail

• Any pending mail will be returned to sender.

Friends list

• We are still working out the specifics on this. We are trying to find a way to have the friends list stay, but you may have to re-create it.

Guild names

• We are still working out the specifics on this.

Market items

• Items in the market will be returned via mail.