Quotes On Rift Server Transfers

Last week, I posted about how server walls keep people from playing with their friends and create population distribution issues - I suggested in a clarifying comment that the solution might be some form of free, unlimited server transfers to allow players to move to visit their friends. 

Today, Trion announced what they're referring to as "free server transfers", and Massively quotes Scott Hartsman in the press release as saying:

"MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they're on, and that's why we're offering this as a free service to our subscribers."

No matter which server they're on, huh, guess that makes sense since MMO's are all about playing with your friends.  But what is this fine print about transferring to "select shards"?  The FAQ has the answer:

"We want the shard you select to provide the best experience possible. It is important that there remains a balance between Guardian and Defiant players and to that available shards do not become too over populated or unbalanced. For this reason you will only be able to move to specific shards we’ve selected to accept new transfers, please note the shards available for transfer may change over time.

So, I can play with my friends so long as we all mutually agree to transfer to another server with no guarantee that we will be allowed to return to our original server.  That would be the opposite of being able to play with your friends no matter what server you are on, because transferring would cut you off from the other friends who convinced you to roll on that server in the first place. 

So what's really going on here?  Let's ask Wilhelm:

"Announcing server mergers is always viewed as bad news.

But announcing free server transfers, that is a huge win.  Not only will your population take care of your server mergers for you, how and when they want to (some people love to play on nearly deserted servers), but the good publicity makes Rift look like a game you really want to play."

My guess is that doubling your server count in the first week is actually a very bad plan in the traditional server model.  The only people who are able to change servers just because they don't like their queue times are the tourists who are arriving with no social ties, who are the most likely to leave their new servers deserted at the 30 day mark.  This approach was bound to leave them with some servers that are empty, while others remain too crowded to actually allow the kinds of unrestricted transfers Scott is talking about. 

Leave it to the clever folks at Trion's marketing department to find a way to spin population redistribution as a revolutionary new feature.  That said, I wonder if they may have gone too far this time - the reality is so far from the market-speak that some players may end up feeling burned, especially if they only learn the true nature of the restrictions after unwittingly taking a one-way ticket off their home server.

The Draw of Bonus Weekends

Two weekends back, a bonus weekend got me back into Runes of Magic for the first time in a while - I've since gained ten levels in both of my two classes.  This week, SOE's winback double exp week has gotten me back into EQ2, where I've gained 12 AA's and counting, with an evening left to go.  (There hasn't been any announcement, but SOE often opens up bonus exp on holiday weekends as well, so next weekend is a possibility.) 

As an MMO tourist, I'm probably amongst those players most likely to wander back to a game for this type of event - for most of the regular residents, these things provide an occasion to perhaps put in a little extra time, but probably not any significant purchasing decisions.  Still, I suppose it's a good thing overall.  Perhaps a bit of extra money for the developers, and otherwise just a little something for everyone else to remember. 

I'd write more, but there are dungeons to farm for AA.  :) 

Breaking Down Server Walls

I'd suggest that Blizzard's decision to charge an extra fee for their new cross-server friend-list queueing feature is drawing ire because it calls out precisely how absurd it is that picking the wrong server at launch means that you can never group with anyone who went elsewhere.  Between phasing, cross server queues, cross-server chat, and now cross-server grouping, Blizzard has already blended together its servers to such an extent that this feels like this should be a core game feature. 

Beyond that, you have to wonder whether any future MMO will ever go with the fixed server model again going forward.  Get the number of servers wrong and you either have unhappy customers stuck on deserted servers or unhappy customers stuck in queues, either of which will get you bad launch press.  Get it right and you have unhappy customers constantly pestering you to make it easier for them to actually play with their friends in a nominally social genre - let's be clear here, this new feature will take Blizzard some amount of time and therefore money to implement, and none of this would be necessary with a more flexible server model. 

Community is a big part of what keeps players involved in MMO's.  As MMO's make more use of soloing and instances, there's less and less community on any individual server - the old EQ server community model is already dead.  This story is just another chapter in the tale of why fixed servers are now more trouble than they're worth. 

Win Back At Sony

As Ardwulf notes, SOE's winback campaign is underway now that the services are back up.  Change your Station Account password and then check your subscription statuses - you likely have 45 day pending subscriptions for all SOE games that you have ever paid for.  This deal must be claimed by August, but extending it to former customers seems like a smart move - it costs them nothing if the player does not take them up on it, and the amount of time involved is long enough that they could potentially win back some former players during that time.  (Besides, they coughed up former player data alongside current player info.) 

EQ2 players are also getting a variety of goodies, including 30 days worth of rent deposited to their houses, 35 days worth of spell upgrade research time, and about two weeks of double exp.   (EQ2X non-subscribers get 30 days of Gold time, so load up your broker slots early and often.) 

On the PS3 side of the house, they're offering up two free downloads from a list of five games (US list here).  Again, the cost isn't that impressive - we have two greatest hits games with recent full-priced sequels and several PSN-only games that Sony is probably hoping will convince people to consider buying more in the future.  Longtime players have probably played the ones they wanted, but relatively recent PS3 owners who spend most of their gaming time doing other things (like MMO's) are likely to find something nice in the care package. 

(Infamous was on my want list anyway, and I'm sure I'll get at least some mileage out of whatever I pick from the others - probably Wipeout, I liked F-Zero back in the day, and this looks vaguely like F-Zero with missiles.) 

On top of this stuff, they're reportedly working on identity theft protection for everyone affected, which is the most obvious direct remedy to the actual harm that people potentially suffered.  I can think of any number of times when some third party has disclosed my personal info in ways I would have preferred they not do and I've walked away from the deal with a lot less to show for it. 

Will it be enough to convince players to put this all behind them?  Not counting folks who were looking for an excuse to cut their ties with the company anyway, I think they've done what they can.  Even if their reputations are mostly back, the cost is substantial, and time will tell what the impact of that is.  Still, I think it could have been worse - hopefully we won't have to find out.