[NEW MILLETIANS] Please note that all new forum users have to be approved before posting. This process can take up to 24 hours, and we appreciate your patience.
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the
Nexon Forums Code of Conduct. You have to register before you can post, so you can log in or create a forum name above to proceed. Thank you for your visit!
Comments
I've mostly been staying on channel 1, which is at least our main market channel. When going for SM/MA, I'll see many people find groups on said channel, though some will go to a random channel for the actual mission. Channels 2, 3, or 5 I've seen people move to personally.
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.
Except that's false information. The only thing that got destroyed/lost in the server mergers in other regions was anything in the mailbox. After all we're talking about server mergers here not server transfers. So lets not get the information regarding them mixed up with each other.
Oh wait, so that's a transfer and not a merge that the whole dressing room thing happened? Yeah, I think information is getting confused here
So the only thing that got lost in the other merges was the mailbox stuff. That sounds reasonable; I don't know of many people who store lots of priceless stuff in a mailbox. And actually, since you can't really send mail to yourself, it would only ever be stuff that you've sent to other people or received from other people.
A merge still seems like it would be a hard thing to do, and there might be problems regardless. Also, realistically, I do think it's very likely that a name wipe would be in order and people would lose their names, as I cannot think they would do the extra work to make sure people keep their names if I'm being honest.
Whenever I want to run a mission, I am tired of waiting for people to come or even abort the mission because there are not enough people. 95% of people on my friend list never logs on. Belvast and Dunbarton may look somewhat crowded, but most of people are afk there.
So yes I support server merge. I looked up what happened with Korea's server merge, and many people are wrong with what happened with server merge, because they got confused with server transfer service. Here is announcement from 2013, March 25th, when server merge happened in Korea (Morrighan + Rundal server became Mandolin server, and when Golem server got merged with Harp server), just so we can have idea of what will happen if server merge happens.
*Please note that 'Server transfer service' and 'Server merge' are two different thing.
[Notifications]
-There will be no application procedure since everyone in same server will be moved together (example: everyone in Rundal server will be moved to Mandolin server.)
- Golem, Rundal, Morrighan server character/animal character/partner character and homestead names will be Name+Server name after server merge. (Example: Username becomes Username+Rundal after server merge)
(Only if there are duplicated names in the server, for example, if username exist on Morrighan but does not exist on Rundal, there will be no name tag added)
- Golem, Rundal, Morrighan server's guild information will be sustained, but guild stones will be eliminated. You will have to install new one after server merge.
- Golem, Rundal, Morrighan server's Royal alchemist information will not be transferred.
[Data that can be transferred]
-Character/Animal character/Partner character's inventory, item,gold inside bank
-Bag and items inside bags
-Items in fashion tab,premium inventory
-Guild, family, marriage information
(I'm unsure, previous announcement says marriage information isn't transferable, but newer version says it is )
-Items in shop inventory
-Collection diary and homestead information
-Seal breaker title, and any title that can be obtained 1 person per server
-Pet whistles
[Data that can not be transferred]
- Marriage items, such as invitation letter, wedding rings, rental wedding clothes
- Invitations, Housing bidding receipt, items in mailbox, fomor command scroll
- Any personal shop licenses, Premium personal shop licenses
- Personal shop brownie contracts, Housing brownies, Housing setting card, flyers, check with names on it (I don't know what this one is, not ordinary check)
- Family custom numbers (how many times you were against it)
Only things I see significant are loss of original character names(names becoming name+server name), wedding rings and guild stone location. People can organize their mailbox and convert shop license to gold before server merge.
In Korea's case, there were free name change service period after server merge. (Only for those who had server tag on them)
I can't find information about dressing room, maybe because they didn't exist back in 2013. Nonetheless, if its server merge that is happening, I think it should be transferable because it is tied to account not character (that's probably why server 'transfer' can't bring dressing room, server transfer only brings character).
+
'Free server transfer service' which happened few weeks after Rundal+ Morrighan, Harp+Golem server merge, had more restrictions since it lets you choose which server to move into(thus more complicated). As OP mentioned, it does not transfer Bank or dressing rooms + some extra stuffs.
Does the shop inventory refer to the temporary inventory when you buy something on the in-game cash shop, or does it refer to the in-game item bags that are used for setting up in-game player shops?
For the names, is it implied that you could keep your name+server or was it the case that you absolutely HAD to change your name if you had a server tag, and that the original name is lost forever? (in other words, if your name was Larry and it was changed to Larry of Mari, you HAVE to change your name because you can't keep it as Larry of Mari. And you can't change it to Larry anymore. You'd have to choose Larry97 or something).
It refer to in game cash shop inventory. In game item bags used for the shop is included in in game item bags.
For the names, you can keep server tag. It's not obligated to change. Free name change coupons were given to people who got server tags, but they were not obligated to change their names.
is if Ruairi gets Alexina or Mari.
sorry Tarlach....but on the plus side you'll get whichever we don't. so you benefit as well.
There are Megaservers with channels within them, usually with a tiny button near a map, clock, or compass. (Depends on the UI)
Just not individual servers like Tarlach, Mari, Ruari, or Alexina.
The only Megaservers with different servers are for PvP or PvE focused open worlds.
Hey thank you so much for bringing us this information! I really do appreciate it! I think it helps to have an idea of how they might do it based on how they did it before.
Unfortunately, Nexon tradition is sending all suggestions to Korea, waiting infinitely for no reply back or dialogue, resulting in a 3+ month gap between KR's releases and NA's localization.
Korea had some pretty cool looking events involving Baskin Robins, which likely would never equate to GameStop walk in events like Nintendo does.
(Or whatever EU's equivalent is.) Mabinogi hardly has any advertising, despite being as niche a community as Minecraft.
The only way a server merge would happen was if a Devcat dev magically decoded the entirety of Mabinogi to convert it to modern technology that allows cool, sleek, and quick additions or changes. In other words, we'd have to be living in Korea for anything to reach developer's ears.
Or, we could just ask for Korea to merge East and West into a global Megaserver with fancy buttons allowing changes in language text with multiple forums in different languages. It might be a pain, but updates can be faster and more convenient for everyone, even if translations end up slightly choppy.
I guess people could sell in other towns, which would be nice, but then it's just a race to get the best spots in the best marketing towns. I dunno. Wouldn't mind seeing people from other servers.
a very good topic that would be a serious issue for Belvast. not sure how it would effect Dunbarton but I assume finding shop space there would become more difficult as well. for players that want to make about the same amount as in Dunbarton I would suggest making a Vales market as the merchant license there has the same fees as Dunbarton and the only difference is you would make maybe around 150k less in Vales cause you can't quite sell 2mil 250k in items there.
if we would get that VIP update before or around the same time as a merge you could sell up to 20mil anywhere if you are a paying member making Filia good location for VIP Belvast players to go mostly cause the merchant license there is cheap and the Brownie Merchant helper contracts are cheaper there then in any other town in the game. Filia would also make sense since around half the players are elves anyway. continent warping is sometimes faster then moving through a laggy crowd on the shopping channel and getting to a moon gate which is why I suggest a Iria market of some kind if we get a merge.
I've said this before in a comment above, but there are Megaservers out there with multiple channels.
It all depends on how much time, effort, and money Nexon NA is willing to put into researching a stable and capable Server Merge.
Naturally, the only other option would be to assess if Mabinogi NA's profit margin is low enough to warrant a server merge by itself or with the remaining global servers.
Again, this is something only Nexon can come out and speak openly about, much like SEGA and their infinite silence about why PSO2 never made it to NA.
It's about pride as a company, maintaining an image and profit. If Nexon NA knows Mabinogi NA can't handle a Megaserver, then they'd test out a server merge.
Or, we could just let Mabinogi slowly phase out due to lack of proper communication between the KR devs and the questions and concerns of the NA community.
It's really our choice as players to tell Nexon what we want and ask for it then wait patiently for three months, or we can just move on with our lives to the next game, blissfully unaware of Mabinogi.