A personal problem with server merges

Bangarang said:
I hate to sound like a cynical bastard buuuuuuuuut, I really really wish people on Midgard(or people on Quetz if there are any) would stop Q_Qing over the merge.
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Obviously neither you, or anyone you know, was really negatively affected by this, because it's quite apparent that you simply don't "get it". The way SE handled things was atrocious.

I have a friend that has been playing this game since its NA release, as I have. Her name is Venus. Well, it was Venus. Everyone knows her as that. That's the name she's seen sitting above her head for the past 7 years. Upon being forced to move to this server, she lost that name. Now, if there was someone else on this server that had the name for years as well, or even just as their main character, then so be it. Who's to say which Venus has the right to the name. But that's not the case. There's no history of a Venus on the FFXIAH site for Quetz, meaning that either it's someone's starter-city mule, or a long-deleted account. To lose a name you've had for the entire life of your character to someone that doesn't even use it for anything is just salt in the wound. That's something that could have so easily been prevented by SE but wasn't. She's so depressed about it that she has little to no desire to keep playing this game. She has said to me, "It feels like I'm playing someone else's account. It's not me anymore."

But back to the original topic, I still have "Midgardsormr" listed as my server on these boards, and it will remain that way for now (unless the board admins forcibly remove the no-longer-existing servers). It's not to try to "segregate" myself from native Quetz people, it's simply in remembrance of what used to be. I think that ridiculing us for simply wanting to hold on to a name that reflects our origin is not very polite. Don't fault us for not wanting to just forget that Midgard existed.

Though on the other hand, people that are actually trying to segregate themselves, by having linkshells that only allow former Midgard people for example, are being completely unreasonable. That to me is no better than a Quetz shell refusing to take anyone but native Quetz people. Both of those scenarios are equally ridiculous.

P.S. Referring to my initial rant, if anyone here has, or knows who has, the mule/account with the name "Venus", and would be willing to give up the name, I'd be willing to make you an offer for it. I am desperate to try to help my friend.
 
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And this is why I need to hire Div as my public speaker. Because he said what I wanted to say without using terrible and depressing analogies.

I said before I merged that losing either Achika or Paks might have been the final nail in the coffin for me. It's who I was, and who I've been, and who people knew me as. I lost Selan. That was a hit to me only because that's the name the girl I have a crush on still calls me. I hope she'll understand that I can't be Selan anymore. =( But everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, refers to me as Achika. My email makes reference, my board logins are always Achika, and all those other things that I use every day. It's easy enough to point someone at something and they say "Oh hey, that IS Achika!" Would be hard to NOT be Achika.
 
Divinius said:
But back to the original topic, I still have "Midgardsormr" listed as my server on these boards, and it will remain that way for now (unless the board admins forcibly remove the no-longer-existing servers). It's not to try to "segregate" myself from native Quetz people, it's simply in remembrance of what used to be. I think that ridiculing us for simply wanting to hold on to a name that reflects our origin is not very polite. Don't fault us for not wanting to just forget that Midgard existed.
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(and in response to other posts that are similar in the remembrance vein)
I really don't have a problem with honoring your home server or anything. But the bazaar note thing struck me as bad when I attempted to get a party on my White Mage, only to be kicked when I got there because I apparently "wasn't from Pandemonium". Struck me as a bit odd, too, because there was no one from Pande with my name, so it's not like they misidentified me or anything.

Divinius said:
Though on the other hand, people that are actually trying to segregate themselves, by having linkshells that only allow former Midgard people for example, are being completely unreasonable. That to me is no better than a Quetz shell refusing to take anyone but native Quetz people. Both of those scenarios are equally ridiculous.
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And that's what I was aiming at with this post: self-segregation. People who just refuse to acknowledge that the server merge happened, it's like a whole different server segregation on top of the English/JP split that's been going on for years.
 
Xalioniaf said:
I attempted to get a party on my White Mage, only to be kicked when I got there because I apparently "wasn't from Pandemonium"
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Yeah, I agree with you entirely on this. That type of mentality is incredibly counter-productive to the desired integration of the servers, and is also, quite frankly, just plain stupid.
 
Other possible reason for the Midgard-only LSes... we know (well knew... some names have changed but we generally recognize them) our village idiots and know who to avoid. It's going to take us a while to learn who are your resident muppets (although I'm compiling a growing mental list lol) and maybe people want to find their feet before widening who they have in shells etc?

It's being bad enough rounding up all our Midgard people into LSes without trying to sort out new people at the moment to be honest - my social's currently running at about 1/3 what it normally does until we catch people online, work out what they're called now and hit 'em round the head with a blunt linkpearl.
 
Ces said it. Right now we're trying to round up our folks (at least I've had to; I've been chasing strays for one shell for 2 days: I got elected since my name didn't change); I think after we catch our strays we might be more open (Mind, that's as a rule. Some shells might not want to recruit). This might go on a while (since some shells were even shellholderless and no one is having a easy time getting a new ls at the moment) but hopefully it'll settle.

Also name changes suck. Half of howitzer had to change their names, I'm still getting used to it (and I'm terrible awful with names!)

I do hope once I finally get around to seeking on whm that I won't see "us and them" mentality; Northy/Kimina said it best I think. "This wasn't our idea." We didn't choose this. Hopefully we can just all get along ^^.
 
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i think it is similar to when people immigrated to the us and established neighborhoods and gangs to protect their former way of life in a new place. its not that they are tring to segragate themselves but instead show pride in where they come from in the new world
 
For the moment, I'm homeless. I haven't joined any new LS, Midgard-only or Quetz-based. I was one of two de-facto leaders of a shell on Midgard, and we had planned to reform the shell on Quetz to keep the name (Neither of us really plays anymore, so I suppose it didn't matter.), but alas, someone already has a WindShire.

Now I have no idea what to do, nor does he. I mean, I got the whole URL and everything. And I'm personally above making "WindShireMidgard" because that's just stupid. I briefly debated calling it GoldShireInn, but then I decided that would attract the wrong type of people (Bonus points to those that get the reference. =P).

I've had one LS offer from a Midgard-based shell already, not sure what I'll do. I'm kinda anal about being in the upper echelon anymore, and you can blame that on every linkshell except for one that I've been in making me a leader in some form. Ah well, what can I do?
 
Original Midgard-based linkshells trying to get their old members back before recruiting new members is fine. That's not segregation, that's just trying to reconstruct an existing community.

But openly recruiting people that you don't know, and then judging their eligibility to be in the linkshell based on what server they were originally from is different. I know a lot of people from Midgard, but I sure don't know all of them. Not wanting to invite Quetz people because you have no character reference for them yet is fine, but by that logic, you also can't invite anyone from Midgard that you can't reference.

To use a previous example, if I am willing to take pick-ups in Whitegate for my exp party, and I'm inviting people that neither I nor anyone else in my party knows, which server they were originally from shouldn't make one bit of difference. They are equally unknown either way. If it does make a difference, you are segregating.
 
i was pretty much welcomed with open arms to asura. no problems here. alot of spamming in the common areas. but no big deal. gives me somethign to read. luckily found a shell with roughly 200 members. 40 in the shell at any given point. so far, i like asura more than pandy.
but, i did stick with the pandy dynamis shell i was already in since the group was getting back together once the move was done
 
I spent some time with a few people from Midgard doing Ballista, and gotta say they're a fun bunch. Hadn't had that much fun in ages ^^ I for one am glad y'all were sent our way, albeit it was a shitty way to go about it =/
 
I think it is pretty silly to criticize SE for how they handled it. At the end of the day SE is a company, dealing with a dwindling game. They obviously are not going to close servers if the benefits of doing so do not outweigh the costs, there was a reason - their bottom line and it is doubtful that this action would hurt it nor is it unethical to do so. Moreover, I do not think it was done in a way that was a big "f you" to everyone. I mean, how else do you go about merging servers in a reasonable way?

As far as pride and nostalgia goes. That is fine, as long as you recognize it simply as that and do not take it further. To put it simply, such feelings are generally only clung to when there is a feeling that something must be protected or reclaimed against something else, whatever that something else is, I do not believe it is in this community. Identity is malleable, as it is outside, so it is in the game - just do not get wrapped up in it and focus on having fun. No reasonable person is going to tell Midgard people to become Quetzy people, because frankly that is a fairly meaningless expression.
 
^ 'nuff said. If I wasn't posting from my mobile right now, I would have said something similar.
 
You two who think SE are blameless for this entire thing are, for lack of a better and far more harsh term, complete and total moronic douchebags. Yes, the customer base is shrinking. Yes, it is more economically feasible to merge servers. No, they did NOT handle this right.

We had very little notice. Even after we did get notice, it was like a week before they locked the servers from transfers and new character creations? There were plenty of people who made characters with malicious intentions to screw people out of names that they were identified with.

One server was given priority over the other in regards to naming. "Well gee Achika, of course they did, how else could they have done it?" They have access to data that says how old a character is. Don't even try to tell me they don't. They keep the most useless data including number of times talked to an NPC and number of deaths, if they didn't keep info on character age, someone needs to be fired. My point in saying this is that, much like other games that have gone through server merges, there are better ways to handle who deserves a name.

The easiest way they could use character age to determine who should get a name is who had the name the longest. For example, I was the original Selan on Quetz. I know this for a fact. Immediately after I deleted Quetz Selan, I made Midgard Selan. Now? Held by either a mule, a retired character, or both. I'm not attached to the name near as much as I am to Achika and Paksenarrion, though I think I would be if I still played her. I've stated before that if I lost Achika, Paksenarrion, or both, it might have been the final nail in the coffin for my playing FFXI. I have friends that have played the game as long as I have, they have their identity and it's stayed their identity. How would you like it if you went in to work one day, and they said to you "Hey Frank, this company bought us up and we're moving into their office in two weeks. No one's going to get fired, but their office already had a Frank and he's retired and all he really did ever was sit in the closet making odd grunting noises, but you need to choose a new name because it makes the paperwork easier." Sure, an extremely odd metaphor, but I believe it's valid.

As a side note, I know a number of people made characters on that server with the intention of changing their own name for whatever reason. What I think SE should've done for those people is to have locked the server to new characters and transfers when they announced the merger, and then gave an option for players to change their name voluntarily for free in the POL viewer. Make it so that the name change doesn't happen until the server merge. Then, those people will have their names auto-flagged for change when the server merge is done.

The other thing that SE should've done is to flag inactive characters or characters with no job over, say, level 5 for name change before someone with multiple 75s gets screwed by a mule that no one's ever going to see.

SE is not without blame in this situation. No amount of sugar coating will hide that. They did what they had to do to keep a profit. That's what any business should strive for. Any business should also look towards their customer base and see how it will affect them as well, and take suggestions from those people. Quit trying to cover for them, because they don't deserve it. Yes, they would've received complaints either way about this situation. I feel it would've been significantly smaller amount of complaints if they had done something similar to what I suggested.
 
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Mattaru said:
I think it is pretty silly to criticize SE for how they handled it. At the end of the day SE is a company, dealing with a dwindling game. They obviously are not going to close servers if the benefits of doing so do not outweigh the costs, there was a reason - their bottom line and it is doubtful that this action would hurt it nor is it unethical to do so. Moreover, I do not think it was done in a way that was a big "f you" to everyone. I mean, how else do you go about merging servers in a reasonable way?
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I'm not criticizing SE for merging servers. I don't have a problem with it at all, actually. I understand exactly why they did it.

If you don't think it was done unfairly, then you are obviously just another person that wasn't affected negatively and hence, has no concept of why it was unfair. Typical "It didn't affect me, so I don't understand why you are complaining" type of attitude.

How else do you go about it in a reasonable way? You do what Achika said. You give name priority to the players that deserve it, not arbitrarily based on which server is going where.

I'm going to have a nice laugh when all the people that are taking the "oh, quit your whining" attitude get royally screwed over the next time there's a server merge, and they find themselves on the crappy end of the deal. Then maybe they'll understand.

By the way, I sent a comment to SE's "Suggestions and Feedback" department. Not that it will get read, or taken into consideration, but it made me feel better anyway. For anyone interested, here's what I sent:

My suggestion is regarding players that were forced to change their character's names during the recent forced world merge. I realize that having two characters with the same name on the same world is impossible, and that the world merge itself was a necessary thing to do. But the way the character name priority was determined was incredibly unfair, and short-sighted. Many players with main characters that they have had since the game began years ago, were forced to lose their name, their very identity, as a result of this merge. To lose a name because another player's main character that they have also had for years has that name is one thing. But many people lost their names due to them being taken by long-abandoned and deactivated characters, alternate level 1 mule characters, or in the worst case, someone recently creating a new character solely to prevent someone from being able to keep their name. This should NOT have happened.

To correct this, two things need to occur. First, any main, long-standing, highly leveled character that lost their name to an un-leveled mule character, a recently created one, or an inactive account, should have priority rights to that name over that other character, and hence, should be allowed to change their name back to the original name from the former world. The unused character can then be the one forced to change their name. Secondly, for any future world merges, this priority should be automatic.

SE's decision to simply use a priority based only on which characters were on the source and destination worlds is ridiculous. It's incredibly unfair, and frankly, demonstrates extreme apathy and laziness on the part of SE. This needs to be fixed, and then also prevented for next time.
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I think that more than a few people in this thread need to simmer down considerably.

1) It's tacky to not accept a person into a party, Linkshell, or event simply because they weren't a "native" server resident of any server. That's as stupid as JP ONRY.
2) It's equally tacky not to respect people wanting to remember "the good old days" before they were forced to a different server in the Trail of Tears 2010.
3) Alternatively, half of the old servers are gone. Deal with it like mature individuals. You don't need a laundry list of "server muppets" to decide for yourself who is and who isn't worth a shit.
 
Sorry, I tend to be one of those "Attack first, peace treaty later" people. Seriously, best friend in high school became my friend after I knee'd him in the groin. As I said earlier, I really should hire Divinius to be my spokesperson. =P

I do disagree with this though:

You don't need a laundry list of "server muppets" to decide for yourself who is and who isn't worth a shit.
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It's very useful to know who's changed their name on purpose to avoid their former reputation. Part of why I stated which of my characters changed names, so that people could continue to hate me for being me. =D

I can agree if you moreso mean "Let the people of the new world decide if they don't like someone or not." Hence why I didn't take the opportunity to comment on some of the people that I saw post in the Meet and Greet board.

I will try to conduct myself a little more professionally here. Even if I do want to strangle some people to death with their own jugular vein. =)
 
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I always try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, regardless. I don't treat people like crap based on something someone else said about them. Everyone on Quetz that I don't know has a clean slate in my book, just as anyone on Midgard that I'd never met would.

If someone turns out to be pants-on-head retarded, then so be it. But I'll make that call on my own, thank you, and which server they were originally from won't factor into the equation at all.

Honestly, aside from the few minor inconveniences like having to remake linkshells, and the one MAJOR issue regarding forced name changes, I've actually be looking forward to this merge. Sure, I will miss my old server, and part of me is sad to see it go, but to me, the merge also kinda sounded like fun. And so far, aside from those issues, it has been fine. I've not come across any instances of people being "server-ist" (yes I just made up that word) in-game, and I feel like I have been welcomed with open arms.

Yes, I'm obviously upset about the one thing I think SE did truly badly, but I agree that I don't really understand some of the people that are truly violently spewing bile everywhere over this whole thing.
 
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This server merge is just another classic case as to why SE should have (from the get-go) allowed spaces in names. Not only would it have prevented abominatioNAMEs like "Xxsephirothxx" , "Clouddstriife", et al., it would have likely reduced the impact of issues that people had with their names.

That, or from the very beginning, had the names database require unique names across *all* servers (a little more extreme but, meh).
 
whats your name boy?
my name is fillupurcup.
YOUR NAME IS Uohfaihbvgav. THWACK!

whats your name boy?
my name is fillupurcup.
YOUR NAME IS Uohfaihbvgav. THWACK!
 
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