Vanguard: Vanguardian Philosophy: Merging Together

Alright, so I didn't originally plan on writing about this topic, nor did I particularly want to considering that it has been discussed quite a bit already. However, at the same time, this is also probably the biggest news to hit Vanguard since the acquisition by SOE. Thus, I feel obligated to write something on this, as I do feel it is important. My original idea will have to wait until next week.

This big news, of course, is the server merger. As many of you probably know, playing on the Vanguard servers right now is similar to living in large metropolis with the population of a small rural town. The game world is huge, but the player-base isn't quite so huge. That isn't to say that Vanguard isn't a good game, nor that it is failing and will be dead anytime soon – I personally don't believe either of those is true – but the situation is still the same. The population of the game is to small for the number of servers.

SOE is planning on resolving this issue by merging the servers together to increase the population per server. This is a pretty quick solution that will bring the population of the worlds up to their expected values, making grouping easier, and ensuring you'll be seeing plenty more players during your journeys.

Quite a few players are happy and excited about this news. Others are not. There are both pluses and minuses to a server merge and both of them should be considered.

The Benefits of Merging
There are certainly plenty of good points to merging the servers together. The greatest of them is increasing the player-to-server ratio so that more people will be able to group together and take on content in the game. Vanguard was designed as a group-based game. It has a huge amount of content – and a lot of that content was designed for groups and not for solo players (while there's still a ton of content for solo players as well). By bringing in more people, it'll be easier to be able to experience that content. Not to mention, quite simply, that many people find grouping to be a very enjoyable activity – one that isn't entirely common now.

There's also the benefit of retention rates for players. A lot of people may enter into Vanguard, see very few people around, not be able to get into a group, and ultimately grow tired of the game in rather short order. I wouldn't be surprised if we lost a number of people already simply due to that reason. It is a Massively Multiplayer Game, and one with a fairly strong focus on community and the number of people playing in that same world as you has a big impact.

Along with the retention rates being higher, the appeal of the game to a larger audience becomes higher as well. With healthy game servers with ample players on each of them present, more people will be willing to hop into the game and give it a try. When a game is running a large number of servers with few players on each of them, it is seen as less healthy than a game with fewer servers, but more players on each of them – even if the total subscription numbers are the same.

Along with that, a higher server-to-player ratio is less money for SOE, which results in less money for the further development for Vanguard.

Those really are the main points. Retention rates, draw for new players, the ability to group easier and experience more content, and interact with other players more. One shouldn't underestimate any of those. Each of those benefits is extremely powerful. Increasing the players per server could potentially change the feel of the game drastically, even more so for people who do not have regular groups through guilds.

The Detriments of Merging
There are also several issues that arise when servers are merged together. While there are a variety of problems, I will begin with the most major of them all; one that is not an affect on gameplay itself, one that actually has nothing to do with the game. Rather, merging servers together can be a major issue in public relations and marketing.

Any time a game merges servers, its usually because it isn't doing well. This usually speaks volumes for the quality of the game. This also usually turns people off from ever trying it. I can imagine that implementing a server merge is a PR's nightmare as they have to try to present it in the best light possible. The benefits of retention rates and a higher draw of people by having healthier servers could potentially be offset by the merger. It could be a gamble.

There are other issues as well – ones that do affect the players in the game. As each server has its own community, it could bring fiction between players when the servers are merged. I don't believe this would be to big of a deal for most servers... But servers with different rulesets are a whole problem of their own.

PvP servers wouldn't play well being merged with a PvE server. One of them would lose their ruleset, and that simply wouldn't make people happy at all on either side. Of course, there's other PvP servers, and they could be merged together. This can still cause issues, as different PvP rulesets may be merged into one, or European servers would have to be merged with North American ones – which could cause issues as well. Also, the roleplaying server stands alone with its ruleset. It either cannot be merged, resulting in a continued small population, or it would be merged with a normal PvE server. If that happened, it would have to lose the RP Preferred tag (unhappy for roleplayers) or retain it (unhappy for the PvE players).

Housing is a problem, as there are both limited plots, and specific locations for plots. How SOE will handle this is up in the air and a point of great speculation.

The game economy is also something to consider. Each server has its own economy set up, with different things costing different prices for different reasons. When the servers merge together, these 'systems' could be completely thrown out the window and prices could differ radically than what they had been before.

There are a number of other problems as well, such as the individuals who enjoy smaller population servers and what not. However, most of the problems that arise due to merging are small problems that can largely be smoothed over with time – but there are a number of them, and small problems are still problems that can affect people and put them off.

My Thoughts
Well, this is, of course, an opinion piece, so I probably should provide my opinion on this matter. When it comes down to it, there are a number of problems when merging servers. These problems, however, are overridden by the benefits – provided that the merger is handled well. There are work arounds for a lot of the problems, and some of them will simply be smoothed out as time goes on, such as the issue with the economy.

I personally play on Florendyl and I own a house on the server. If we are moved in with a PvE server, it won't kill me. As much as having a server filled with roleplayers is appealing to me as a player, I can see the benefits of bringing in more people as well. I also feel that the population of roleplayers on the server is insignificant anyway – much as I'd hate to just give in.

There will be difficulties in merging the servers together, but in the end, the benefits are far greater than the problems that will arise due to it, in my opinion.

My biggest worry? The PR issue.