[Shadowsniper]

Hey there,

I primarily address this to the development team of VG, SOE.
Though would like to bring it to the attention of the software test engineers for further input / constructive critism.

A message relaying that servers would be merged had been announced. From my understanding of feedback from friends playing on several servers, this has caused a lot of upheaval;

Communities coming together always go through a teething period as they integrate with one another, but from a whole perspective are greatly welcomed by all at the end of the day. The more the merrier as the saying goes.

The two points of concern though with convergence (Merging servers) are those which will need to be handled with due diligence as they may affect a players will to continue to be a paying subscriber are ...

A) Peeps who have purchased plots and started/completed hosuing on these plots.

B) Peeps whom have the same first name.

What I propose as an initial idea and hopefully wont entail too much coding vs SOE's project management plan for goals to be achieved & TCO targets are the follwing (Please add to this thread, suggestions, constructive critism).

1. I will tackle the easier one first to implement, yet more sensitive to the paying client. Player Name.

- Firstly I would like as was done with eq2 when server merges occured then, offer players the chance to free transfer their toons from one server to another.

- Secondly for the server being merged with another server which will exist after the convergence, implement a a UI piece welcoming them ot the new community, of which if the player's name from the to be retired server exists on the new server; give them the option to rename their character name via that same UI piece, they will have upto 7 days from their first login after the convergence has occured to select a name within the naming policy guidelines. (ie. Gives them a chance to mourn their selected name on the now retired server, chuck a tanty, etc etc. Life goes on select a new one and move on)

- 7 day timer on user/player selected name change. Once the 7 days has expired, the player who has had their name renamed to a temporary one assigned from the merge will need to petition to have it renamed after that point. (Assuming SOE will place in place an autogenerated system to generate sensible names for renamed characters where needed)

2. Now to target the housing area for the merge.

- Firstly, SOE has implemented such a system where you can now move house without having to manually pack everything into your inventory to do the move in Everquest 2, YaY! only took them 2 years to implement lol (Such a yesteryear idea, ** hides worn and torn pom poms and battered rally sign). I propose a similar system though with some alerations, if a merged player from the now retired server has a house / plot in the same place as a current server that they are being merged with, they will have it notified to them in the welcome to the new server UI window (point number 1) with instructions that they may select a new UNUSED plot on any continent with the same value ie. 2.5g / 10g / 30g yadda. With this when they click on a unused plot of the same value on any continent, the popup purchase this plot will include a MOVE HERE option.

- With this, even if you had a completed or partially completed house from the old server you were on from a different continent ... ie ... Kojan to a Thestran Plot ... Your house would be automatically converted to the new style of housing to suit and upto the point of completion that it was on their old server.

- If completed, all contents that was in their old house including placements of items, chests and their contents will be placed exactly as it was as on their old server.

- If incomplete, the new house (and possibly the new style of continental house) will reflect what is needed to complete that house (in the new style of housing if a different continent was selected) as it was on their old server.

3. All good things come in threes. Thirdly and finally I would propose a way for friends from the old server to lookup any changes of people they new from their old server on the new.

- This could be in the form of a UI such as enter retired server playername.
And it would show all their details on the new server.

- Also another option could be a /inquiremergedetails retiredservername.playername

- Hence for the heck of it lets say Florendyl was canned and merged with another server (Hopefully this will never happen as you will kill off a large portion of the 20% of the RP preferred community) but for arguement sakes Florendyl was merged with another server ...

When players from florendyl arrive at the new server they can do (as can any player on that server) a /inquiremergedetails Florendyl.Playername and this would present them with the following info ...

* Players current name or newly select name on the current (new server)
* players current housing or newly moved to location for housing (Also detailing if they have not selected a move yet, ie. Still to relocated arguement returned)
* Player does not exist on new server due to server move ... if SOE wishes to devulge the info to which server they opted to transfer to is upto them, though I personally do not see the need for that to be revealed due to each players privacy to do so; If they were a friend i am sure they would get in contact with them to let them know via other means.

Anyway from a paying customers perspective this would be the ultimate convergence option ... Please add to his if you wish to. Constructive critism to the ends of getting a concept perfected is welcomed. Whining is not, go elsewhere, your not on the right website, that is what fansites are for.

Something to consider to reduce the possible loss of paying subscribers from an adhoc whack one server with another path.

~ Shadowsniper

PS. Please mind any bad spelling or use use of incorrect gramma, yes I am bad with both of those.