On Server Transfers

I want to send out my apologies for lack of updates this week.  I had been on a pretty religious schedule of posting at least some new content five days a week.  If you followed the last post you know my world has been pretty rocked by the recent events in my neck of the woods.  My time has been spent in the evenings either worrying about incoming Tornados or alternatively mourning their devastation.

Quite honestly, with everything going on, it just didn’t feel right be be blogging about video games.  Joplin as I said earlier has for all intents and purposes been removed from the map.  The series have Tornados that hit Tuesday night left plenty of its own carnage, leaving a 3 year old boy missing, presumably sucked up by the storm.  This morning they mentioned on the news that this storm system has produced around 80 distinct Tornados over the last week.

The “Big News”

All that said, life just has not felt normal.  The concern and worry has left its toll, and frankly I am pretty worn out and just plain “fried” at this point.  However for the rest of the world, namely the rift playing public the “Big News” has been the announcement of free server transfers.  I realize I am well behind the new cycle on this one, and most of the blogging community has weighed in one way or another on it.  However this has been in the back of my mind while we have dealt with all our issues.

For those living under a rock, or dodging Tornados like myself… the original announcement can be found here.

 

Then a few days later they followed up with an FAQ outlining all of the changes (post here).

Wide Variety of Responses

I have seen everything from elation and praise, heralding Trion as the saviors of game kind, to frustration that we will have to wait for this feature at all.  The cynics have seen this as a clever way of skirting the need to merge under populated servers, by allowing players to jump to new servers on their own.  I guess I can see all of the points, but tend to take my own view.

What I see that stands out is the fact that a server transfer system is being put in place, to allow players to move more freely between server communities.  In fact based on the information, they will be able to do this once per week, which can let you hop servers to play with friends and then return to the main server at will.  The most impressive thing about all of this is the fact that Trion will not be charging for this feature.

Syncaine over at Hardcore Casual however thinks we should re-evaluate our expectations.

I understand the cynical view of the actions but honestly…  to me Trion has been giving us far better support than I have received playing any other game.  If you are thinking, I have not played many games then…  let me point you over to my gameography page.  While this may be the level of customer support we as gamers should expect, and I agree with this point, it is nothing we have ever received in the past.

One thing Trion has done, that no company to this point has done for me at least is make me feel like I am being heard.  After getting to know a handful of people in the company either through twitter, or the community outreach programs, I feel that they honest to god drink their own Kool-Aid.  I feel like they actually care about us, and care about our happiness.

Here is an example of an interaction between Assistant Community Manager Erick “Zann” Adams, and Rilgon a gaming blogger.  Shows the level of care these individuals take.

I guess I just have a hard time being cynical when I see this and other things on a regular basis.  There seems to be an Esprit de corps in this group that I have not seen in a video game company in a long time.  Blizzard definitely used to be that kind of “by gamers, for gamers” shop but since the activision merger they have changed in many ways. 

I regularly bought the pay per view Blizzcast feed, and I have to say the way they treated players this previous year shows the level of disdain (pretty much anytime Alex Afrasiabi spoke) they seem to have for us the gamers these days.  So while we as the gamers, should be expecting more from game companies, I am definitely going to support the ones out there that are doing it.

Brilliant Marketing Move

What makes this a massively brilliant marketing move, and extremely unique is not the fact that they are giving us server transfers, it is the fact they are doing so without a fee attached.  Basically Blizzard got us used to the concept of paying a premium convenience tax for getting things like this in the past.  Each new feature that gets added seems to get an increased fee, and players have been willing to pay up.  I’ve transferred characters, and race and faction changed them as well.

If you are playing World of Warcraft you are well aware of the number of premium fees associated with their monthly subscription based game.

• Remote Access – $2.99/month
• Name Change – $10.00
• Cosmetic Pet – $10.00
• Appearance Change – $15.00
• Character Transfer – $25.00
• Race Change – $25.00
• Cosmetic Mount – $25.00
• Faction Change – $30.00
• Guild Move – ??
• RealID Grouping – ??

Every company that has implemented a similar on demand service structure has followed suit.  So Trion could have easily put server transfers in place and dinged us with a money grab to do so.  However the most important thing as a take away is the fact that they didn’t.  While we don’t know for certain how the “selected shards” portion will work out, this definitely seems far more wide reaching than when a company in the past has offered free transfers off higher population realms to lower ones.

Most obviously the big difference is the fact that they have stated this would be an event that was throttled on a once per week basis.  This will let players test out a community and be able to move again if it just is not a solid fit.  Being the community minded player I am, normally I would be afraid of such a free form server move system.  At the end of the day this places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the players on a given server to make something that players do not want to leave.  I feel sure that Shadefallen is an amazing server, and the community we have is such that it itself will glue players to our shard.

The Real Logic Behind It All

It was stated by Willhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob that this may be a way for Trion to allow players to handle server mergers on their own.

If this really is the reasoning behind the addition I still applaud it as a great idea.  Personally I have tried to avoid the Rift forums, other than the patch notes and Shadefallen server forums.  However from what I hear, there is much gnashing of teeth going on about under populated servers.  Personally I have not encountered this, Shadefallen has remained a vibrant server since release, and if Rift Status is to be believed our numbers seem to have remained extremely flat.  We have not experienced queues since the first weeks of launch, but there have always been more than enough people online at any given time to get something done.

I think players are going to complain no matter what, and the forums always give you a snapshot of the people who are most angry in any game.  However I imagine the same people who complained about, and refused to play on a server with any queue time are now the ones complaining about there not being enough people around.  At launch queue times are the sign of a healthy server, and purposefully going off on a low population server will mean in the long run not being able to do certain things in an MMO. 

Low population servers are always slow to grow, because the majority of the experienced playerbase generally avoid those servers for that reason.  I played on a high population server in WoW, and quite frankly it spoils you.  During wrath you could trip in Dalaran and manage to fall into a PUG raid that could clear half of Icecrown.  If you thought of an item, you could search the auction house and find plenty for sale.  So to go from that, to trying to roll on servers where friends ended up with dismal economies and no pug culture to speak of, was a shock to the system.

So if Trion is giving players a way to abandon sinking ships, then Bravo.  Forced server mergers always end up disrupting a community far more than voluntary moves.  Players have a fresh start without abandoning the work they have already done.  Knowing that your decision isn’t set in stone, will allow players to try different server communities until they find a niche that really fits their play style. 

On Argent Dawn, there were many times we were offered free transfers to cull the herd.  If I knew I could have transferred back without charge, I might have considered taking them up on the offer during those 3000 player queues.  Problem is, these were a one way ticket off, trading a known evil for completely unknown ones.  In most cases, for the players that jumped ship, they ended up transferring right back, as the grass was not in fact greener on the other side of the fence.

My Overall Take

This is getting to be a really really long post, so I will try and wrap things up.  Basically I see this as a good move for the community.  Trion is once again giving some excellent support to the players, and in doing so giving us the freedom to spread out and find the server that works best for us.  The ground breaking news is the fact they are giving this to us for free.  While this will diminish some servers, it will cause others like Shadefallen to band together and build something worth staying for.  I think overall, this will be a major positive for all players.