Crossx2

This threads purpose is to point out how badly designed the event is, not to blame anyone.

My problem isn't that the item is rare, I'm fine with that. My problem is that the event is designed so that only everyone who spins the first day or two can get a chance at all the prizes. As much as you might say "that's how it is", its still an unfair way to implement event rewards, no matter which way you look at it.

I know alt use is a big thing in Mabi to obtain event rewards, and its never been a huge problem, until they do an event like this and make rewards limited. Then it makes it so only the people who have the time, means, and moral disposition to flip alts are able to have a good chance at the limited event items. Its not fair to the people who can't, or don't do that, and it makes the entirety of the rest of the week of the event boring as people sit around waiting for Thursday.

Its not a well designed event.

Its only Friday, the day after the event resets the number of items we are allowed to win, and already almost all of the Wolf Tails are claimed. Its disappointing that this is an event feature. Its already a really rare reward, and on top of that, if you don't manage to claim one within the first day or two after the reset you're out of luck for a whole week?
It seems really unfair..

As someone who has switched to Alexina because of the lack of people in Ruairi (and please don't say I'm part of the problem, I held out on Ruairi a long, long time, and contributed to population by running a guild and keeping people together best I could for several years), I am in favor of merging servers. No matter which way we do it, nothing but good can come from giving people on near dead servers a higher population to play alongside.

I'll admit I'm not an expert at how the game's coding works, nor the limitations the system has. And I'm not familiar with how running servers works. However, specifics aside, I'd say that the idea of a megaserver sounds like the best course of action to me. This opinion comes from my experience playing Mabinogi almost since its launch, seeing my home server live and breathe and then start to fade, switching to the most populated server in a last ditch effort to have people to play the game with, leaving behind all of my levels, skills and items. I've seen 2 servers for myself, and heard much talk of the others, and have played many other games (mmos) where I've seen the good (and the bad) that comes from having a single, large server.

Lets be honest, whoever it was, Devcat's instruction, or the staff at Nexon, the "New" tag on the Alexina server was left on for far too long. It created an imbalance that no simple solution will fix. Right now, Alexina is practically the megaserver. You could merge the other server(s) in an attempt to balance the population, but the idea has already taken root in the community that Alexina is the place to be. I'm unaware of the specific statistics, but from general understanding, seeing for myself, and hearing people talk, the populations on the other servers (Ruairi and Tarlach the most, but also Mari as well) have suffered greatly. The only long term fix to this, and also the issue of gradual decline in population over time, is to switch to a megaserver now.

Combining all of the servers into one megaserver would cause a rise in the population. People like myself, and many others, would return to the game, to ensure we have our characters, our gear, see what the new server is like, meet new people. A lot of those people are going to stick around, because the reason they had left the game is gone. I believe a merge would bring life back to the community, the bigger the merge, the larger the effect. This effect is going to last for some time, and it would be a great opening to introduce additional content, to keep people interested, and several fixes, to show the community that the game is still being cared for.
Changes can be made to deal with a large population on one server, more channels can be added, spawn rates can be boosted, ect. I don't know how much I'll go into detail about my opinions on these things, as I'm sure its something the developers and staff have much more knowledge about.
There wouldn't be a problem of one server being more laggy or having a worse community than another, because there will only be one server, one community, Mabinogi. All money and effort that is being spent to keep the 4 servers running right now could be combined and focused onto the new server. As the main post in this thread has said, technology is moving forward, and if we want the game to stay relevant and stick around, Mabinogi should move forward as well.
For an older game like Mabinogi, keeping the community together is something that is very important, because without being in this together, we have less reason to care as a player base, to stick around, to voice our concerns to help both developers and players stay on the same page, to spend money on the game. It is my belief that a megaserver will be a great step towards encouraging all of these things, by making us one community.

From a player standpoint, I see no reason why a merge of all the servers, or any server, should cause us to lose anything. Characters, pets, names, items, gold.. all of it is just data, and information, right? I understand its more involved than that, but there should be ways to copy the data from different servers, and combine it into one (or more) server(s), without losing anything. It just seems like it would be something that might take time, and a lot of effort. However, I feel the situation requires this time and effort be spent, to ensure the merge is successful, and that people have a reason to stay and play the game after it is complete. People do not want to lose their hard earned progress, which they have spent much of their own time and money on.
For names, I understand that they are already sort of on the same system. It is possible to add and message people from different servers, two people with the same name could speak to each other in private messages or notes. It just puts a (Server) tag at the end of each name. Why not keep this? Representing our home servers before the merge doesn't sound like a problem to me. And if a few people do have double names, you could give them the option of changing names, or if they choose, to stay the same. The issue of a few people having the same name feels like a very small problem, in comparison to the mass loss of population the game has seen, and will continue to see, until something is done to fix the server imbalance issue. Besides, many new games and platforms, such as steam, already allow people to play games with the same name, just a code or something else to identify them otherwise, and I've never seen nor heard of any large issue arising from this method. If unique names must be had, then at the very least, allow whoever logs on first to have the name, and offer name changes to those who end up with duplicate names. (This is the method I have seen in other mmos when server merges have happened.)
Guilds are unique, independent of server, there can only be one guild of a name. So if a guild with a name exists on Ruairi, that same guild cannot exist on Alexina, or any of the other servers. Why not keep this as it is, as well? Just transfer all of the guild information to the new server. If transferring them is an issue, remove all players from the guild and bind it to the guild leader, so they can recruit people back after the merge.
Pets could keep their names just like characters, I don't see why it matters much if a couple of pets are running around with the same name. Or they could be wiped, to allow people to rename their pets, in my opinion pet names are not as important as character names, and are worth sacrificing for a merge. An additional suggestion would be to make pet naming a separate system from character naming, as its always been odd that pet names take up many of the names that would have otherwise been available to players.
I see no reason for character progress or items to be lost. Bind the characters skills, inventories, dressing room, banks, and pet inventories to the players account, and transfer a copy of that data to the new server. Or, if the dressing room really is an issue, give players ample warning to remove items from it, and at very least, keep a copy of what each account had in the dressing room, and give the items back to them on the new server if they were not able to pull them out in time.

A server merge, especially one on such a grand scale as merging to a megaserver, is a big event. Many warnings should be given, care should be taken to make sure that nothing is lost or overlooked. If sacrifices do need to be made, they should be laid out for players well in advance. Support should be available to resolve individual issues that arise.
I can see why it is not something that the devs, nexon, and many players want to deal with. But I, and many other people, do believe that something like this is necessary for the game's survival.
Personally, I would be willing to give up everything for a server merge. In fact I already have, when I switched to Alexina. Although I did so with the hope that I could return to my account on Ruairi one day if such a merge did happen, and there were people to play with again.
I think that every possible solution for keeping players characters and items intact should be explored before a decision like that is made, however.

An MMO is just that, a massively multiplayer online game. Without the multiplayer aspect of that, the game cannot be what it is. If the game is not what it is, then it will be something far less, or worse, nothing at all. This is what I truly believe, why I changed servers, why I post this now. To be able to play this game and enjoy it as it was meant to be, and as it has been all of these years, we need to merge the servers so that the population can be joined, and balanced.

I wait for the day when I can invest in an account again, and be sure that I will have people to play alongside, because I do love this game.

This really does show that it is a reliable alternative to the mainstream ways of getting into the game. I wish they'd consider leaving it be, so that we can continue to use it for occasions like this.