EU: Merge

[Kaze]

logged in today to get this lovely msg about Eu servers:

Dear players,

as you well know after the consolidation of the North American shards we have decided to keep all our shards alive as the situation was not forcing us to take the same action here in Europe. We've spent the past few weeks evaluating how things were evolving on the two sides of the ocean and we put together some considerations.

With the player base that stabilized itself on the current numbers without any significative loss, but also without any significative growth, the number of concurrent users for Earth, Wind and Ice doesn't justify the number of open shards and furthermore the worlds are not highly populated during peak times thus obviously reducing the fun of you all (as the main features of this game are built around the community concept).

We believe that the solution to concentrate all the players on one shard only would be the best option for both you and us as concentrating all the efforts on one single world will help making Horizons a better place for everyone.

While we plan all the work that this decision would require and while we think about all the possible consequences (and related reactions) involved we have set up a feedback poll for you all on the support website.

We can already tell you that soon as the player base will grow back to a level that would require a new shard we will immediately open a brand new one.

Spread the word to your friends as we would like to have everyone involved in this decision.

In the case we should go for a real consolidation here in Europe we apologize in advance for any inconvenience that will be caused by going through this process again.

Yours sincerely,
Horizons Europe Team

Here are my comments:

1) What have we done to deserve this new level of ****
2) Why bother with a poll just get on with the merge you will do it whether or not we say yes or no
3) What about the plots, we have waited weeks and weeks and weeks for plots and now its likely we have to wait another 1-1.5months for them. (2-3weeks for merge to happen and then 2-3 more weeks of new auctions)
4) If the merge does go ahead what will you call the new server, hopefully a new name or there will be so much resentment, suggest to use the name of the possible 4th server if there was ever enough players to fill it ie Fire Server.

[Becky Sterling]

No No No

After a completely awful week at work I was looking forward to chilling infront of my favorite MMO this weekend. But no, these dreadful news hit me and now I'm depressed.

I placed my vote 'NO' on the support survey but I doubt it will do much good. GN and AE will without a doubt go ahead with a european consolidation and even though I have some understanding as to why they must do so,I still do not believe it to be a good idea.

I'm not worried about camped mobs or resources, overcrowding is not one of the issues that troubles me.

Not being able to keep my plot, losing my character's name is. Take away my name and my plot and I will bid you all farewell

Consolidate all you want... But you will do so without me.

[Anubus-Earth]

I have to agree with the sentiment guys, this feels like it was decided some time ago and all we are going through now is the rationalisation of it all.

COMON, when you guys didnt fix the bid timer problem do you not think we thought that somthing was up?

Im frustated over this because we prepared for the old option 1 update only to end up with option 2 (better option IMHO) but we did spend weeks working on plots only to have them become uselss, ok we will 'possibly' get them back, but changing your minds about how to impliment that was annoying.
Now we are all in the same possition, running about bidding on plots and organising guild bids, only to find out its all going to change again.

How long are we going to be plotless? My abuility to level crafts is massivly reduced without my plot as are that of the many people who used to use it.

A vote is a great idea but.... not much faith in a vote and I know for sure you are going to loose players over this, personaly I will be here till they turn the game off, but dont think for a second that a large percent of players will up and leave, especialy those who have decided to stick with there old plot.
Plus you already ignored one vote, so people already dont think there opinions will count for anything.

I am totaly and utterly against a merger, I dont want to see guild feeling forced to consolodate for guild plot bidding, and I dont want to see friends leave the game either. I also dont like to feel as if I have has somthing put over me, and that is how I feel now, with the total lack of news coming out of GN for weeks and the blackout with tazoon coming down, it seems like a put on.

We are fans, customers and players. We invest time into this game and money, GN you need to start to talk to us, if not on boards then through shard news, log ins, evangelist characters etc. this is sloppy and underhanded.

I'll stop now because I'm going to rant any second now!

[Smeglor]

I just want to point out that auctions would be able to begin shortly after the merge, as the system is fully developed, tested, and proven now. Bidding would begin the moment the new shard is live, and auctions could start completing a week thereafter (allowing time for bidding).

[Vlisson]

quote Luca:
- Auctions. Unfortunately auctions ended up giving endless problems because of the different situation that we had on the US and EU shards and their current situation didn't give to anyone the chance to work correctly on the European issue. We deeply apologize about what happened in the last 10 days, but it was totally unexpected.

quote Vlisson:
i dont understand why we have another situation than in the NA???
We got a merge too!! Earth on Earth... Wind on Wind... so it should be the same like the NA got! [:@]

OK we never will get the same patches like the NA (maybe 2 days-1 week later) thats OK for me!

But a merge? now? GN thought they will increase playersbase? Why? What has been done to attract new players? only this 10 day trial for the already quitted player 3 weeks before the big august patch. If they asked me i would have said that they will loose more players the next month than gaining

and if they merge i think 1/3 is gone again

what are the experiences from NA? how many players have they lost due to the merge? additional lost!

[Luca Mazzasogni]

A few comments on what has been posted here so far.

If we go for the merger of the European shards we will act very fast, this means that in our plans you will have a fully operational shard in the first week of November.

With "fully operational" I refer to a situation where:

- All auctions are ended successfully
- All the structures have been rebuilt by us
- All the double-names cases have been resolved
- All the client and server files are up-to-date with the US shards

Obviously the shard would become available and playable again as soon as the consolidation process is finished.

The shard would have a new name and we have already 2-3 possible names to choose froum.

About the poll it is simply not true that voting is pointless. What forced us to change the decision between option 1 and option 2 at the time of the first poll was made public and it was not a decision change, but just a one-way solution that we had to take as it became the only one possible at that time.
Furthermore, this is a feedback poll where the majority doesn't necessarily "win" and it's something that more simply will help us understand the current situation better while trying to take this delicate decision.

You've done nothing to "deserve" a real consolidation of the European shards, but as for the other side of the ocean this is something that could happen for several reasons. It's a situation where we have some costs and some benefits that would change as the decision changes and we are aware of that as we are aware of the fact that some unhappy players might discontinue playing Horizons because of this.

Take care,
Luca

[Vlisson]

OK Luca i understand your economical reason! because of this i wondered myself why we not merged when NA merged...

I played yesterday (after maintance) and i got real terrible DB lag! But not me, a lot of people!

Fight was OK
then the loot part
click on body... wait

... wait...

10-20 seconds later wooha loot window opens

what will you do against our 3 maintances per week and the lag we experience now?

You will have to invest more money in better servers!!! Or shall we have to wait to loot 40-60 seconds because not 200 players are playing but 600?

its not fun to hunt at moment and have to wait longer to be allowed to loot than to fight the monster :(

[Luca Mazzasogni]

The NA and EU shards always shared the same hardware configuration therefore the current servers would be more than enough to cope with lthe oad of a merged shard (as witnessed by the current shards of Chaos and Order).

[Vlisson]

the same hardware? hmm, then it should work, but it dont [:(]

loot lag problem? question to other shard players: do you have loot lag too?

[Vlisson]

ok im too silly to edit [6]

edit: i remember myself that i read at tazoon that the NA got a merge AND new servers (new hardware) but we at EU got only the 1:1 merge
or missed i something?

[Dvergar]

loot lag problem? question to other shard players: do you have loot lag too?

definetly. loot lag (and lag for spells (buffs in my case) is really bad.

And Luca: we had a strange visitor last night on ICE, claiming to be a GM from GN. As we're still missing an official posting of these infos, we're not yet fully believing him. BUT: every day untila mergeryou'll loose more and more players. Ppl are waiting for other MMROPGS to go live (EQ2, WOW, ...), or they just don't have any patience anymore.

You know what keeps an old game like d4o still alive? RPG, events and PvP. There is no PvP possible, we had ONE single (GM)event months ago, and rarely no one is doing RP on the shards. So its nothing but a level grinding by now. Make the game more interesting for us. We're still waiting for an RP shard. We are still waiting for ingame GMs. We are still waiting for EVENTS. This can not be done by AE, this can only be done by you, by GN.

Give us our plots, and do it fast. No more 6-8 weeks until the auctions will begin. You should have been online yesterday when the news were spreading in the market channel, and ppl have already decided to leave if the merger will happen.

I'm a housebuilder, I am since beta, I'm with you for 1 year now. Not everyone needs a plot, but without plots, no one needs a housebuilder. So what shall I do all this time? Stupid level grinding? multiclassing until I drop dead? Levling a dragon when my quests are broken and there is neither ancient status nor lair to be gained? I'd rather quit.

[Xiao_Mei]

If we go for the merger of the European shards we will act very fast, this means that in our plans you will have a fully operational shard in the first week of November.

With "fully operational" I refer to a situation where:

- All auctions are ended successfully
- All the structures have been rebuilt by us
- All the double-names cases have been resolved
- All the client and server files are up-to-date with the US shards

I hope this quote doesn't come back to haunt you Luca. You can rely on the fact that I will have all my fingers/toes/appendages crossed hoping it goes well. But the experience we have had so far with game updates/patches does not lead me to believe that you can guarantee this. It is still a mystery tothe playerswhy AE patches couldn't fix the (current) EU auction despite multiple attempts given that the only real difference was the plot re-ordering.

The fact is that the merge will happen on databases that have been changed/patchedsince the last time the merger code was run. As a professional software developer I wouldn't give any guarantees that the re-merge will work first time. Will you be doing test merges with the EU servers before going live? Will we be able to help check if the test merger has really worked?

If you succeed in the first week in November deadline you will all have my respect, but it looks like a plan with no contingency to me.

[Xiao_Mei]

I just want to point out that auctions would be able to begin shortly after the merge, as the system is fully developed, tested, and proven now. Bidding would begin the moment the new shard is live, and auctions could start completing a week thereafter (allowing time for bidding).

If this is the case, how come the EU auctions never got patched into a workable state (despite multiple attempts) ?

[Narrabeurt]

I love Horizons.. the game, the community and especially all the good freinds I've made while playing.

Okay.. the game isn't perfect (but then what is?). I've put up with all the little niggles, the bugs and the database lag. But then to log in after the loss of Tazoon to find that just as we think we are getting the plots sorted and that everything is about to settle down into that nice normal routine of playing.. we are about to be subjected to yet ANOTHER major upheaval - one that we'd been led to believe wasn't needed..

I'm afraid to say, it's the straw that's broken this camels back.

Knowing the problems that currently exist with lag (looting, spell casting and inventory) and the thought that it's about to be increased by threefold, with all the resource/ spawn camping that will come from shoehorning all those players into one place.. the fights over plots, more bugs, problems and issues that we have already seen happend post merge in the US..

I don't have the patience to sit through it all. The day the merge happens will be my last day i suspect.. I don't want to go, but if all this is coming (and somehow I suspect it is).. I can't face staying and suffering.

This isn't intended to be a 'Do this and I'll quit.. and take 111!!1! members of my guild with me' post..

I'm grateful for all the hard work that the dev's and staff at AE and GN have put in. It's just that, for me, I need a more settled and stable game that I can just play and enjoy without constant upheavals.

[seke]

So GN needs to make more profit ?
My vote :
- Autobilling canceled
- Stop to play now

I will log to dispatch all my goods at friends who stay in game , if any, as soon merge is done.

Account will expire 6/11.


Wind : Seke
Elar 100/Scout 100/Healer 100/Armorer 100 ...

[Kita]

So GN needs to make more profit ?
My vote :
- Autobilling canceled
- Stop to play now

I will log to dispatch all my goods at friends who stay in game , if any, as soon merge is done.

Account will expire 6/11.

Lets say the EU servers stays as it is now, unmerged, a few months later you get a mail: We are sorry to inform you but we don't have the finances to run the servers anymore. Server shutdown will happen XX.XX.XXXX. Sorry for the inconvinience.

This is just hypotethical but seems like the 'quitters' arent giving the game a chance, I know many of you feel like you already gave it many chances! But when this is pissing you of so much as it is, this can't mean anything else that you love this game or else you wouldnt care. I can put up with much more than I've experienced so far(played since 31 Dec), but thats me. It's simple , I can't throw it away since I've spent so much time on it.


But then again.. this is my opinion.

[Anubus-Earth]

If GN is in trouble with Horizons financialy, maybe they should have talked to the playerbase about it before now.
The total news blackout from GN for weeks on end even before we lost tazoon.com and lets be honest taz wasnt even the offical site is somthing I think is a horrendus situation. Now we have a scramble to set the wheels in motion for a merger. Instead of letting us know what was happening and what sort of things were being considdered all this time.

Its an utter failure of communication.


Now we are told that a new merged server will be up in 2-3 weeks, all the problems resovled..... Sorry I dont believe you.

How long did it take you to fix the structures?
How long to get the healer trainer back?


With this sort of behaviour in the past my faith in GN has hit rock bottom.

If your going to be shortsighted enough to set up a time for the merger to be complete I would have hoped you would have had the forsight and the experience from the past server to server merge to add some elbowroom into that timeline.

Now I dont want to see the game go under, but I do want the communications to improve and not just 'during this current crisis' as it usualy does. But I am still absolutly against a merger, and I do not appreciate the auctions being put on hold while it is deliberated.

I've yet to see a WM in game, and I know the other euro shards are the same, so I dont thinkwe can expect the prompt service to improve much.

[Kita]

@ Anubus

1st. In case you havent noticed(I believe you have!!), the communication between devs and players have increased tremendously the last 1-2 months which was promised. And that alone keeps me in high spirits.

2nd. The lastest patches have usually been applied on time, as promised. Ok, lets face it, not very sucsessfully every time. [:D] But I think they are working on the game as a whole to prevent patches to fail as it did on the NA shards. But then again we need to give them abit more time. And at least I have no problem with that.

[Divine]

All I can say is this 3 to 1 merge of EU Serversis pure madness at this stage of play...

I recall voting NO to the NA patch...

The EU players wanted our own version to stop all this type ofrubbish from happening...

But guess what...

Still no plots, buildings & craft machines...

Our guild/communityhas been without our beloved Parsinia for weeks now on Wind server...

Then out of the blueyouhit your EU player base withthis BOMB shell...

EU SERVER MERGE

May I ask...

Why wasn`t this done prier to the NA patch being applied to the EU shards...

That was GN's best time to do this...

At this late stage all this will achieve for GN is your EU player base getting smaller in size, Instead of growing like you want...

I would serviously reconsider your line of action here GN...

Everyone I have spoken too are very unhappy about this EU server merge...

Now if you came clean with your EU player base about any money problems @ GN then that would help your case here...

Also I feel that yourcommunity poll is very one way...

Aka GN's way


Very unhappy

[LAWLESS]

Well for those who thinks that there was not much players left on EU shards, just take a look after this merge (if there is one) and you'll be surprised by the large number of accounts cancelled......


We're doomed [:(] where's my 6 pack?