Merging the servers?

[Anonfx]

For a while now I have heard that FC is thinking of merging the servers 1 and 2 due to the drop of players online...anyone else heard of this?

I feel this would be beneficial since I my self have noticed a major drop of active players, plus as we all know that AO is getting old and there is so much competition out there which is taking away from the game of AO...granted IF FC were to do this, trying to merge all the org cities from RK 1 and 2 onto one server could be complicated, if not impossible, since the land of RK is really not that big.

On the flip side, we all know the new graphics engine is comging out soon, which should bring old players back to the game of AO.

[Chrisax]

"Thinking" as in "considering the possibility", yes. "Thinking" as in "working to make it possible", no to my knowledge.

It's for AoC that they started to work on servers merging: the infrastructure was really ambitious... as always with Gaute Godager. (Ever counted all the backyards - the original arrival zones - in AO?!)

What is in the making is that Means would like to get a new and better infrastructure for AO. Probably try and get a part of the servers AoC won't need after they merged... (In other words, get rid of Savvis, the legacy provider for AO). Not sure what Means will be able to achieve there... when he feels better again (he is very sick ATM, due to a combination of flu and some intoxication).

If they could change the infrastructure, would they seize this opportunity for merging the servers? It could be a good idea. As I pointed out once, EVE Online has always worked with ONE server, so merging servers is not the "beginning of the end" for a game, but, on the contrary, can be a smart move.

Still, AO encounters three problems with servers merging:
- org Cities (I wouldn't be against a complete change with the way cities work)
- towers sites
- names of characters (same names on two dimensions)


As for the competition, so far, except EVE Online which is a very different game (with no physical interaction between players, with devs obviously on the side of the bad guys, and where new players can't catch up with old ones regardless of what they do as it's the way the game works), all SF MMORPG have been a failure or a less than average success.

Tabula Rasa that was supposed to eat everyone alive is closing down.

SW Galaxies is barely alive after huge changes (back and forth).

StarGate Online and Star Trek Online are in the making. So far, it's impossible to say how good they will be. The first details on SGO gameplay were really disappointing so we'll see. As for Star Trek, the gameplay is not known yet and the ST hardcore fans population is considered a main issue: not sure how they can co-exist with regular players and not spoil the fun. (Do you want to be overlooked because you don't speak Kilingon?! )

[Sookie]

I doubt it will happen............ but if it did then do we get 14 toons? or we lose the ones on the other server? If we get both sets of toons on one server I'm game.. if not then no way...

[Rulzern]

I don't personally think that the population is low enough for a server merge to be painless or neccecairy, but then again, allowing the population per server to drop too low before merging would be a bad idea as well. I don't have any numbers for this stuff, but it doesn't seem (to me) that AO has a very low population (compared to a lot of other MMORPGs that have higher maintenance/development costs). FC will do what they can/must to keep AO alive, since it's been a pretty nice profit project for them for quite a few years, like some of their other, older games.

[noobas]

I kinda wonder what the costs vs revenue is for AO.

I think theres something like 200 000 characters, if you say that each paid account has 6 (?) paid, and froobs have 4 chars on average (so 1 paying account per ten chars) then thats 20,000 paying member each month, so about 2 million in revenue each year, american dollars (approximately)

I think thats probably ball park, which should go a fair ways to employing the team they have.

I'd say if they have a team of 12 guys, 3 management, operating costs and overhead it probably works out. usually 50-60% of revenue is used for personelle, 10-12% profit, 20-30% overhead+other costs, so that would be like

1000000 /15 = 70k /year average salaries.. thats probably a decent ball park figure, but probably a bit on the low side.

[Hundfu]

I have no idea what you just said, Noobas ..

But Yeah ! Totally agree! You rock!