Server transfer yes/no, payed/free, restrictions?

Recently got a new job, I'm going to be working 3pm-11pm NA Est or something like that so I'm going to be on a odd schedule compared to my time zone. If the game released right now I would have to find a server that fit my playable time zone or miss out on a large portion of the game. So I'm hoping I will be able to find a good English server that fits my needs. Now its possible my shift could be changed at any point, I'd prefer first shift "normal hours". Do you think we will be able to transfer servers at any point. Should we have to restart. Should it be a Payed service/Free if in the game at all. This could have bad consequences on server population and economies. IMO entire guilds shouldn't be allowed to switch servers whenever they want. It should be a charged service and on a player to player bases. Meaning you would request a server transfer, explain your reasons and AoC would approve or deny you. Certain servers would be restricted like recently fresh ones. Certain items wouldn't be transferable like the one of a kind legendary sword couldn't be brought to a diff server. If you owned a house at a node you would have to sell it since it might not even exist on a diff server. Crafting mats shouldn't be transferable, so ethior make gear or put the mats back into your current server before you transfer. This might be to much effort on the developers and they might just do a hard no. I've been considering/wanting to invest in the game for cosmetics and to support it. But not sure if I should. Do you think there will be a server that fits my needs? Also what are your thoughts on "Server transfer yes/no, payed/free, restrictions"?

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TheDarkSorcerer

Azherae wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

6 months is a little much in my opinion. Make it 30 days then. But not six months. Ex, if i find out a friend of mine is playing but on a different server, do i need to wait six months to be able to play with him/her?

No. One of you just has to reroll on a common server.

So, for my data, what exactly is the thing we're trying to avoid here?

We acknowledge that a player can 'just reroll', and I would generally assume this means any reputation or whatever they have 'lost', is lost. Is it just 'no, you have to spend all the time you spent originally, again'. I agree with and understand all the 'you can't take it with you', but I'm wondering if, for example, you could give a character some ease in terms of how quickly they can level, or access to certain specific things like their Affiliations. Not necessarily as 'you get to take this with you', but moreso 'you can choose to ReRoll character A' (as like, an explicit function) and get Tokens or something that will increase your rate of leveling your profession, Archetype, reputation with X organization on the new server if you use the same name or some assigned name based on it.

Disallowed for newer servers obviously.

I'm thinking that there is a middle ground between 'protect us from people who will reroll to get out of social jail' and 'nope it doesn't matter what your previous invested time was', so I'm wondering where that middle ground is for others, if any.

For me, I don't really care if people can server change, other than the obvious negative effect it has on economies and similar, so accelerating their growth back to 'where they were', even if it allows some people to 'jump ship' off a server that they gave up on for some reason, more easily, doesn't strike me as bad.

As long as they have to participate still, to re-level, to do the work again, just more quickly (i.e. costing less resources outright), is it still bad, and if so, why?

Hm, we can agree to disagree. But what if i choose a server that can currently handle my PC that has a low to medium amount of players in it. 2-3 years in with lots of hours invested into my character, i see how the population is decreasing by day in that specific already low/medium populated server. I decide to upgrade my PC so i can play on a server with more people in it. Should i then be punished to redo everything again? I don't agree with that. That is a bad player experience and will drive casuals away.

Azherae

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

6 months is a little much in my opinion. Make it 30 days then. But not six months. Ex, if i find out a friend of mine is playing but on a different server, do i need to wait six months to be able to play with him/her?

No. One of you just has to reroll on a common server.

So, for my data, what exactly is the thing we're trying to avoid here?

We acknowledge that a player can 'just reroll', and I would generally assume this means any reputation or whatever they have 'lost', is lost. Is it just 'no, you have to spend all the time you spent originally, again'. I agree with and understand all the 'you can't take it with you', but I'm wondering if, for example, you could give a character some ease in terms of how quickly they can level, or access to certain specific things like their Affiliations. Not necessarily as 'you get to take this with you', but moreso 'you can choose to ReRoll character A' (as like, an explicit function) and get Tokens or something that will increase your rate of leveling your profession, Archetype, reputation with X organization on the new server if you use the same name or some assigned name based on it.

Disallowed for newer servers obviously.

I'm thinking that there is a middle ground between 'protect us from people who will reroll to get out of social jail' and 'nope it doesn't matter what your previous invested time was', so I'm wondering where that middle ground is for others, if any.

For me, I don't really care if people can server change, other than the obvious negative effect it has on economies and similar, so accelerating their growth back to 'where they were', even if it allows some people to 'jump ship' off a server that they gave up on for some reason, more easily, doesn't strike me as bad.

As long as they have to participate still, to re-level, to do the work again, just more quickly (i.e. costing less resources outright), is it still bad, and if so, why?

Hm, we can agree to disagree. But what if i choose a server that can currently handle my PC that has a low to medium amount of players in it. 2-3 years in with lots of hours invested into my character, i see how the population is decreasing by day in that specific already low/medium populated server. I decide to upgrade my PC so i can play on a server with more people in it. Should i then be punished to redo everything again? I don't agree with that. That is a bad player experience and will drive casuals away.

I'm pretty sure I'm not disagreeing with you.

There are lots of good reasons not to let you take your gained levels, gear, etc, in that situation.

If it were up to me I'd give you "Fighter Devotion Token", "Shipwright Devotion Token", "Knights of Drythorne Token", and each would have your current level on them. You could activate those on your new character and get 2x or 3x leveling speed on your Fighter Archetype, Shipwright Profession, and Knights of Drythorne Affiliation points.

You still have to play the game from scratch and integrate into the new server, but the Identity that you spent all that time building up is preserved.

I'm still personally thinking about if I'm okay with 'Cool Epic Weapon' Token that guarantees success if you gather the materials to re-craft it.

CROW3

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

But what if i choose a server that can currently handle my PC that has a low to medium amount of players in it. 2-3 years in with lots of hours invested into my character, i see how the population is decreasing by day in that specific already low/medium populated server. I decide to upgrade my PC so i can play on a server with more people in it. Should i then be punished to redo everything again? I don't agree with that. That is a bad player experience and will drive casuals away.

So, I imagine that IS will have some population guidelines to manage servers, and will have new servers / server moves on some methodical basis.

Official server moves aside, if you're taking action to move servers for whatever reason, I'm very much of the school that that's your decision and IS is under no obligation to provide you anything to support that decision.

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Hm, we can agree to disagree.

Totally agree.

Dygz

Oh! Let's multiply those perks by how many alts we have!
Pretty please with sugar on top??!!

Anarchy1

With all the Differences in servers, what are server merges going to look like. A lot of the same points people are making about player transfers are going to have to exact same problem when 2 servers have to merge because low population. Gear, achievements, augments one server has one doesn't, different nodes, node levels. That one of a kind legendary sword, ( now there are 2 or the players lose them or what).

SirChancelot

Random thought

Biggest argument for allowing server transfers is to play with friends
Where as most people against it are saying they don't want someone who has built a bad reputation to be able to clear that away ( but essentially could also just reroll and no one would know)

What if on top of time gated restrictions, and not being able to move materials you needed to have sponsors to the server you wanted to go to?

IRL I get to a new job, some of them play as a group and I want to join them since my group of friends on my current server have stopped playing for whatever reason.

In game I need 3 people (other accounts than my own) to sign off on the 'summoning ritual' to bring me to that server?

Dygz

Anarchy23 wrote: »

With all the Differences in servers, what are server merges going to look like. A lot of the same points people are making about player transfers are going to have to exact same problem when 2 servers have to merge because low population. Gear, achievements, augments one server has one doesn't, different nodes, node levels. That one of a kind legendary sword, ( now there are 2 or the players lose them or what).

Destroy both of the low pop servers during an Event and then have those characters appear on a new server - rising from the ashes of the old ones like a Phoenix.

Geronimo

SirChancelot wrote: »

What if on top of time gated restrictions, and not being able to move materials you needed to have sponsors to the server you wanted to go to?

That's not a bad idea at all, the sponsors should be server natives for some legit amount of time. Not ex-pats that recently transferred from another server themselves.

That would be difficult and mostly pointless to abuse.

Something would still have to be done about the discrepant server states however (unlocked achievements on one vs another, etc)

RazThemun

Not opposed to transfers. I think it should come with a hefty cost though. As it forces more stability for a server. When you have free transfers, racial changes, etc it can flip over night of what group reins supreme. Who wants to pay money to enter a high pop server for it then to be a low pop server?.... If a person is on a low pop server it makes more sense to transfer and they are willing to pay. Also who wants to invest months into a node to hear most transferred who helped establish the node and now no one is around to defend it.

Noaani

@Azherae

Azherae wrote: »

So, for my data, what exactly is the thing we're trying to avoid here?

I see three things, based on Intrepids stated reason for not wanting to implement them.

The first is making choice matter - even your choice of server. If you can transfer to another server, this choice ceases to matter. This reason I why even if they add it down the road (they have said they may), it needs to have a long cooldown. Even 30 days is not long enough for this.

The second is maintaining server economic independence. The way the game is now, each servers economy will be vastly different. Server transfers will harmoginize this, which is not desirable.

The third is reputation. Intrepid do not want people gaining a reputation as a dick, and then transferring to another server and taking their progression along with them.

Now, a player can reroll a new character on a new server, but this isn't affecting any of the above three things.

Having an economically limited transferable solve the second issue, but it will do so with a large amount of player dissatisfaction - more than not having a transfer at all will have.

So, with all of the above taken together, Intrepid have decided to not offer transfers, at least to start.

BlackBrony

Well if you don't have time to play then maybe Ashes is not the game for you.
The same principle applies to moving countries, changing jobs and shifts.
Start from zero.

TheDarkSorcerer

BlackBrony wrote: »

Well if you don't have time to play then maybe Ashes is not the game for you.
The same principle applies to moving countries, changing jobs and shifts.
Start from zero.

It is a game, not real life. Can't compare the two.

Anarchy1

BlackBrony wrote: »

Well if you don't have time to play then maybe Ashes is not the game for you.
The same principle applies to moving countries, changing jobs and shifts.
Start from zero.

who said anything about not having time to play anyway?

Anarchy1

Dygz wrote: »

Anarchy23 wrote: »

With all the Differences in servers, what are server merges going to look like. A lot of the same points people are making about player transfers are going to have to exact same problem when 2 servers have to merge because low population. Gear, achievements, augments one server has one doesn't, different nodes, node levels. That one of a kind legendary sword, ( now there are 2 or the players lose them or what).

Destroy both of the low pop servers during an Event and then have those characters appear on a new server - rising from the ashes of the old ones like a Phoenix.

Doesn't sound appealing to me personally. You would basically be sticking a bunch of 50s on a brand new non progressed world with top tier gear. Nodes would be reset, all buildings in nodes gone. I couldn't see ethior side being happy. That still doesn't fix gear, achievements, augments one server has one doesn't. Imo if they figure out a way to do server merge that the community is cool with the same thing could be done about server transfers. Although I still think transfers would need to be limited with a long cooldown like 6months+.

Percimes

Anarchy23 wrote: »

With all the Differences in servers, what are server merges going to look like. A lot of the same points people are making about player transfers are going to have to exact same problem when 2 servers have to merge because low population. Gear, achievements, augments one server has one doesn't, different nodes, node levels. That one of a kind legendary sword, ( now there are 2 or the players lose them or what).

Yeah, most issues are overblown. One player here and there changing server doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of a server. A large guild moving all at the same time could be problematic. Being able to swap server on a daily basis could be problematic. But one player moving from a server to another isn't much different than if they had simply moved to another part of the map, at least if we get the big server population we're supposed to see. High level characters migrating to a new server could be problematic, for the players... not much would be leveled enough for content of their level, getting the materials to maintain their equipment could even be problematic.

There should be a few restrictions on how often it can be performed, and which servers are open to transfer. Treating any server move as if your node had been destroyed (lose some stuff, house repacked in its box, lose social standing and citizenship). Relocating wouldn't be as simple has login off in Verra_125 and log back in on Verra_743, you'd have to reestablish yourself on the new server.

Mergers are an interesting question though.

Dygz

Either side of what?
It's the rebirth of the world for both servers, so...gear and achievements wouldn't be an issue. Augments wouldn't be an issue, either.

Anarchy1

Dygz wrote: »

Either side of what?
It's the rebirth of the world for both servers, so...gear and achievements wouldn't be an issue. Augments wouldn't be an issue, either.

Maybe I just don't understand your idea. How would those not be issues? You can't just say those aren't a issue without giving a reason. You also ignored the idea of people not being happy about losing everything they progressed about their own server. Its basically a reroll but you start at lvl 50 with full gear.
You have 2 completely different worlds coming together. half the population would have gear, augments, achievements, recipes unlocked from specific node events that the other side doesn't have because they had different nodes unlocked on their realm. Unique items and one of a kind legendries that there are only suppose to be a few or 1 of would now be doubled if each server had one before the merge.

BaSkA_9x2

I can only think of one solution: a couple of specific servers on each region with a tag "server transfers enabled". So that if you want to play on a server where players might transfer from and to, you already know before creating your character. No server transfers on regular servers.

Noaani

Percimes wrote: »

Yeah, most issues are overblown. One player here and there changing server doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of a server. A large guild moving all at the same time could be problematic. .

And how do you allow for one player to transfer servers, without also opening it up to full guilds? The only way to do that will just piss players off.

Additionally, how do you stop players transferring to a new server with an inventory full of rare crafting components that have not been unlocked on the destination server? Again, the only way to accomplish this will just piss players off.

Dygz

Anarchy23 wrote: »

Maybe I just don't understand your idea. How would those not be issues? You can't just say those aren't a issue without giving a reason. You also ignored the idea of people not being happy about losing everything they progressed about their own server. Its basically a reroll but you start at lvl 50 with full gear.
You have 2 completely different worlds coming together. half the population would have gear, augments, achievements, recipes unlocked from specific node events that the other side doesn't have because they had different nodes unlocked on their realm. Unique items and one of a kind legendries that there are only suppose to be a few or 1 of would now be doubled if each server had one before the merge.

We're playing a game where we commonly lose stuff - especially various forms of Node progression.
Server merge razing all Nodes to Stage 0 would be due to a World Event rather than due to a Siege.
Just because you have recipes unlocked does not mean that you have unlocked the resources to use those recipes.
So, yes, everyone will be progressing the reborn world from whatever Levels they were at before the merge.
Which means it should go faster than everyone starting over from Level 1.
Legendary items from the previous worlds should not be an issue because that's baked into the lore of the new world rising from the ashes of the old world.

2 completely different worlds coming together is merely your hyperbole, so that is easily ignored.
Highly unlikely that everyone will be starting on the reborn server at Level 50.
Same as your assertion that unique items will now be doubled. There is no way for you to know whether people on those particular servers have the same unique items, but...even if they were doubled, that's fine because it is a reborn world for all, so the lore is inherently different.
It's like traveling the multiverse to a parallel world - yes, there might be two instances of Excalibur on the new world. That becomes part of the new lore on the reborn world.
We'd have to see what kind of rewards the "survivors"/reborn characters receive from participating in the
server merge World Event.

People will be disgruntled about server merges in any case.

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