Usually, when you hear the words “server merge” in an MMORPG, it’s immediately followed by phrases like “circling the drain” and “First Sign of Doom©™” (and yes, I’m claiming that phrase, darn it…it’ll come in handy around here). However, what we have with Pirates of the Burning Sea is, in my opinion, the best handling of this type of thing I’ve seen.

When Pirates of the Burning Sea launched on January 22nd, we introduced our customers to 11 new game servers. Through feedback from our players and evaluation of our server populations, it has become clear that key game features require populations of higher density in order to function at optimum levels. When you take into account both the disparity in player time zones and the delayed launch of our title in some countries, we were spreading our overall population too thin. Also, in more recent builds, we were able to improve our server technology to allow for an even larger population than we were originally equipped to handle.

That’s nice, but usually a server merge means unbridled chaos, with gnashing of teeth and rending of garments included at no extra charge, since a server merge means you’re going to lose things you’ve worked to attain. Here’s where we start to get to the “best handling” part of this thing from Flying Labs:

When you initiate a transfer, most of your character’s data will be transferred to the new server. Information that will be transferred includes approved User Content, purchased User Content, character level, inventory (including economic items, mission rewards, and server victory rewards), money, ships, mission progress, skills and outfitting. They will keep the same structures in the same port. Any items a transferred character has listed in the Auction House will appear in the same port as an expired listing and will need to be re-listed.

Holy H.R. Puffinstuff and the Banana Bunch. You keep everything?!? Including items, money and even freakin’ auction house listings? Yes, you do. The only things you’ll lose are your ignore and friends lists, and let’s face it…once the servers are merged, you’ll have an entire new set of idiots to put on ignore anyway.

But this is the cherry on top of the Customer Service Sundae:

In order to assist Society Leaders with the task of keeping track of Society members, we have created the /dumpsocietyinfo command. Society Leaders using this command will create a file containing a list of your Society members titled societyinfo.csv,which can be found in the Pirates of the Burning Sea directory in your My Documents folder.

That’s right, Society Leaders (what you might think of as a guild leader if you play any more non-”AAARRRR” MMORPGs) are being given a fairly simple tool to eliminate the need to write the guild list out longhand before the migration. (No similarities to the server transfer service in World of Warcraft are intende…..aw, who am I kidding? You don’t get this kind of thing in WoW, kiddies.)

I’ve seen server merges, I’ve been a part of server merges and server transfers, and let me tell you…anyone that gripes about the way it’s being handled in PotBS doesn’t know how good they’re getting it.

The reasons that this server merge will be good for the game itself, I leave as an exercise for the student…and the rest of the gaming blogs.

• Socialize this!
  
  • Subscribe
  • Bloglines
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Rate this:

2.5

If you liked this, then you should seek medical attention - right after you subscribe to my RSS feed!!

Tags: games, gaming, mmo, mmorpg, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PotBS, server merge