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On the topic of a possible Alexina Server Merge
Alexina was singled out during the 2019 merge due to it having a large population, and left as it's own. However this had an effect of people during the 10x AP event proceeding to leave to the Nao server, after all it now had many more players. This caused a slide downwards in player population on Alexina, where even when at our busiest we have only a single busy server, whereas Nao has 5-8 busy and a full at it's most abundant. It's known that the merge did cause a couple of problems, but in the end it was for Mabinogi's life that they did it, and it caused a large amount of players to play on Nao. However that leaves us on Alexina with few to no players at times, unable to find groups for anything not endgame or money based, player count only being padded by AFK players who get on, list items on market, and then get off, or set up stalls and sit down.
Comments
1) Alexina obtains the state that Mari/Ruairi/Tarlach were at, compelling Nexon to merge them. There is an additional problem with this now though as a result of paid name change. Had their been no paid name change then Nexon could have performed the merge either as it had the one of 2019, or had one where, say, all Nao names are preserved and Alexina names are altered. Both being unfair to someone but Nexon could spout some "you don't own your name" nonsense, and tell us all to shut up. Now, since, folks have paid for names on Nao AND Alexina they DO own their names and so Nexon can't really do that so easily. They will have to consider each of the millions of characters names one-at-a-time. If our character records include a hidden field indicating that the name is paid for then this can be done fairly easily, but I suspect it does not. Even then if two different people have paid for the same name on the two servers then what? So, this is ripe for more a bugs and a lot more toes will get stepped on, than what happened in 2019, and this situation is entirely Nexon's fault. They messed up TWICE by leaving Alexina out and having paid name change. Mind you if they worded the name change babel to include phrasing saying you don't own your name, even though you paid for it, well then that's one less hurdle at the cost of more toes stepped on; check the wording.
2) They change the character, pet, and homestead records primary key from name with server of residence to, say, record number. This would allow, safely, not only for duplicate names but unlimited duplicate names. Then a merge is a nothing-burger. Additionally, with paid name change, everyone can have precisely the name they wanted. Likely this would mean more folks paying for name change, as some folks now probably don't bother since the name they always really wanted is likely taken. I'm hoping Nexon is smart enough to realize this and is working on it. If they ever announce unlimited name duplication, in the future, then we know a full merge is a-comin'!