About the World Merge and Character Transfers (02/09/2012) In order to improve the player experience, we will be merging Worlds on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. After the merge is completed, there will be a total of ten Worlds, down from the current eighteen.
To ensure that the World merge is fair for all players, character transfers will be required for all existing characters. Players must select a new post-merge World for their characters, and will be reassigned automatically should they not do so by the established deadline. We urge you all to review the World Merge Summary and the Notes Regarding the World Merge.
This World merge is intended to improve the player experience during the period up to the launch of FFXIV Version 2.0. New Worlds may be added in the future, for example after the relaunch or when player numbers increase. [World Merge Summary]
Key Dates March 1 (Thursday) to March 19 (Monday), 2012: Character transfer selection period. * March 27 (Tuesday), 2012: World merge maintenance to be carried out.
Information regarding the time required for the merge maintenance process and other details will be released at a later date. * The character transfer selection period will consist of two stages. For details, see Selecting a Transfer Destination below.
Details of the Merge The current eighteen Worlds will be reorganized into ten, and existing characters will be transferred into the ten new Worlds.
After New World 01 New World 02 New World 03 New World 04 New World 05 New World 06 New World 07 New World 08 New World 09 New World 10 * *Recommended for players in EU regions.
New World 10 is recommended for players in EU regions, particularly French and German players. Players in these regions form a minority within the total player population, and this should improve their playing experience and make it easier for them to get together and form parties. However, it is a recommendation only. The World will not be restricted to players in these regions.
* The new Worlds shall inherit the names of the ten most popular current Worlds. Name assignments will be announced after the transfer selection period has ended.
Selecting a Transfer Destination During the transfer selection period indicated below, players will be able to select a destination World on the World Transfer Application Page. Players who do not select a destination World during this period will be automatically distributed across the Worlds. * The World Transfer Application Page is scheduled to be available from March 1.
Transfer destination selection period: From 0:00 a.m. PST, March 1 (Thursday) to 0:59 a.m. PDT, March 19 (Monday), 2012. * Transfer selection period will consist of a first and second stage.
First Stage: From 0:00 a.m. PST, March 1 (Thursday) to 0:59 a.m. PDT, March 12 (Monday), 2012. - Players will still be able to change their destinations, even after making a selection. * Players will not be able to select Worlds that have already been filled. Players can, however, move from Worlds that have been filled to other Worlds.
Second Stage: From 1:00 a.m. PDT, March 12 (Monday) to 0:59 PDT, March 19 (Monday), 2012. - Worlds that have been filled will be locked, and players in these Worlds will not be able to transfer to other Worlds.
Restrictions on selecting a destination To select a destination, an existing playable character must be associated with a player’s service account. As long as a player has at least one usable character, a destination World may be chosen for all characters in the service account, including characters that have not yet been paid for. * To view and change your subscription details, visit the Square Enix Account Management System and click Select Service on the left-hand menu, and then select FINAL FANTASY XIV.
Notes Regarding the World Merge All character details will be transferred, with the exceptions described below.
Character Names After the merge, if two or more characters with the same first and last name exist in the same World, only one character can keep the name, based on the order of priority below.
1. Characters that are playable on both March 26 (Monday) and March 27 (Tuesday), 2012. 2. Characters that were created first.
If your character name must be changed because another character's name takes priority, please do so by following the on-screen instructions when you first log in after the World merge. * After you enter a new name for the character, the change will also be reflected on the Lodestone.
With this World merge, all character names that were kept after participation in the previous Open Beta test will be deleted.
Retainer Names If retainers with the same name exist in the same World, only one of the retainers can continue using the name, based on the same conditions described above for player characers.
If you are required to change the name, please do so by following the on-screen instructions when you first log in after the World merge.
About Linkshells Linkshells will not be carried over to the new World. They will be deleted automatically during the merge * Linkshell community pages on the Lodestone will no longer be accessible after the merge.
Because linkshells will be deleted, you may lose contact with linkshell members. However, your Lodestone follow list will survive the World merge unchanged, so we recommend that players who want to stay in touch follow each other before the merge takes place. * The "follow" will persist even if the character's name is changed. * You can follow characters through the linkshell list or via each character's own page. Players will be able to follow characters through the linkshell list starting today, February 9.
Friend List/Blacklist All friend list and blacklist data will be deleted during the merge.
Character Info on the Lodestone The World name displayed in character pages, diaries, and histories (including finished histories) will change to the new World name after the merge. If the character name changes, that will also be updated.
New Subscriptions during the World Merge Players are free to create new FINAL FANTASY XIV Service Accounts and new characters during the merge period. However, depending on the timing of the new subscription/new character creation, players may not be able to select a destination World.
1. Until 0:59 a.m. PDT, March 19 (Tuesday), 2012 After subscribing and creating a new character, follow the steps above to apply for a transfer to a World. If you do not apply for a transfer, the character will be automatically allocated to a World.
2. From 1:00 a.m. PDT, March 19 (Tuesday), 2012, until the World merge maintenance is completed Because the World transfer application period is over, you will not be able to select a destination World. Characters created during this period will be automatically allocated to one of the new Worlds. If you wish to avoid being automatially assigned to a new World, we suggest that you create your character after the World merge maintenance is completed.
Update 1:
Quote Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida View Post Hello! This is Producer/Director Yoshida.
Thank you for the large amount of feedback in regards to the world merge.
I’ve been reading through each of your posts (as well as Twitter) and I’m sorry my post is really late. A world merge at this current point in time, as well as being something of great magnitude for all of you players, it is at the same time something of great magnitude on the development and operations side. I would like to follow up on the released specifications for the world merge.
Intent of the World Merge
I believe that MMORPGs are made up of large connections between the entire game community and the communities within each world. For MMORPGs, there are a lot of instances where you form parties and play, so because of this the community requires the proper number of players to be able to accomplish this. As we head toward 2.0, we began billing and we had a pretty good grasp on the number of people that would play the game. We predicted that conditions would arise on worlds where it would be difficult to establish a community, which is why we proceeded with the preparations for a world merge.
Of all of the comments that were against this world merge, the one comment seen most often was “don’t destroy the community!” However, just the same as all of you, the development and operations team and I consider “community” to be the highest priority. This is how we engaged in a discussion about the world merge specifications. With that said, first let me say that our underlying feelings are in the same place. Especially with this merge, we felt very strongly to make it so everyone from the EU region can play together in the same time zone. (By the way, there seems to have been some conjectures about financial aspects and what not; however, we had already been operating with 18 worlds, meaning that the game server hardware and database servers we already purchased. By stopping 8 worlds, there is a near zero affect and there is not a single motive having to do with cost, so please don’t think this is the case.)
Reasoning for the Announcement of the Specifications
A large reason why we announced the specifications early was to be able to see your feedback once we released the development and operation team’s specifications. World merges are an extremely delicate topic and we need to flesh out the specific details of the specifications, so we decided it wasn’t suitable for a survey and put a stop to the idea. (It would be near impossible to gather the appropriate responses by offering a survey with methods like: A, A1, A2, B, B1, B2)
Due to this, we released the specifications early to give ourselves time to make adjustments based on feedback. I am very sorry that I was so late to follow up on this as I crashed from a high fever until this evening.
There have been comments from Foxclon, but even internally there have been heated debates about the world merge between the development, operations, and QA teams. I will be honest in saying that up until the last minute there was no plan that everyone agreed on. (The reason for this being that every plan had its own set of pros and cons)
The 4 plans that stayed prominent throughout the discussions are the 4 listed below. (A=World with high population of players, B=World with low population of players, C=New World, X=Different World)
①A + B⇒A World to merge with B World ②A + B - X ⇒A World to merge with B World, except people that would like to move are able to choose a different World ③A + B - C ⇒A World to merge with B World, except people that would like to move are able to choose to go to C World ④Prepare 10 Worlds, set a limit, and give everyone the power to move their characters to a World of their choice.
There were many others as well but I eliminated them. Of these, after thinking very carefully, we decided to prepare an announcement for ④.
The Intentions of Going with Option ④
After weighing the pros and cons of each option day and night, I finally decided to go with option ④. The biggest deciding factor for this decision was me believing in the strong bond within the community.
We thought that by giving the community plenty of time before the application period, each community would come together and discuss their destinations. Of course, we considered the players who do not login as often as others. Discuss Period + Selection Period A (Decision Can be Changed) + Selection Period B (Decision Can Not be Changed) With the long time frame that was provided, I believed it was enough time for a majority of the communities to agree on a World. Another reason we decided to not reveal the World names is because we wanted everyone to decide on a World purely based on what the community wants instead of having the World name getting in the way of making that decision.
We knew that the World names will be a huge factor in deciding what World you will be going to. By hiding the World names, we thought that we would be able to avoid flooding specific Worlds and provide each community a chance to spread out without losing anyone. (I assume this is one of the reasons why the community complains that the devs always makes the wrong decision…)
We also provided a World recommended for players in EU regions in order to make it easy for this community to gather together.
Furthermore, no matter what option we decide to go with, we knew we weren’t able to satisfy every customer. If that was the case, we thought it would be the best way to go if we gave the players the freedom to choose. Because there were no World Merges like this in the past, we had a really difficult time finalizing the specifications of the merge. On a side note, we also have plans to implement a system within The Lodestone wherein players will be able to track what players transferred to what Worlds (as Foxclon mentioned before).
The Cons of Option ④
The reason why I had a hard time choosing Option ④ was because of the following factors.
A: Players who belong to multiple communities might end up being torn apart by having to decide which community they will follow. B: The option will cause stress on all players instead of causing stress on a number of players. C: Players who decide to come back to the game after the merger will end up on a brand new World and no longer be able to player with friends.
Both the QA team and I though factor A was the biggest problem of them all. Factor B may not be as bad because we provided everyone the freedom to choose a destination. Factor C also may not be as bad because we have no idea when these players will return to the game and if they do, it would be most likely with 2.0. With 2.0, we had plans to implement a World Transfer Service so we believed that should be able to address this problem.
Why We Didn't Go With Option ①～③
Option ① would be the most straight forward option and also it’s also the option that we can execute with the least cost. However, this option was most likely not a viable option for the players in Europe. Also, we believed it was too forceful to merge the Worlds based on population as it might also cause a lot of stress for the destination World. Overall, this would be the safest way to go.
With option ②, players will be given the option to transfer to another World. However, if there ends up being too many players who would want to transfer over to that World, it might end up going over the set capacity and overflow the World. Since we wouldn't know how the results would look until we see them, we would end up taking a huge risk. In addition, if a player belongs to multiple communities, they might end up being torn apart by having to decide which community they will follow (probably not be as bad as ④).
Option ③ is a twist on option ②. We put a lot of focus on the players in Europe. However, even this option might end up with not enough players wanting to transfer to the new World or too many non-European players that might want to transfer to the new World and prevent some European players from moving with their community.
I personally was deciding between option ② and option ④ until the last minute and finally decided to go with option ④.
Until the World Merge Occurs
As I mentioned originally, the World Merge will be a huge event for the whole community. I’m trying my best to be open with you by provide you specifications via topic posts and forum posts, yet it still seems to be not enough. I apologize for not being able to provide a clear explanation for everyone.
We will continue to perform internal discussions based on the feedback we have received. As I mentioned before, we want to perform the World Merge to “Move Forward in FFXIV.” In no way did I have any intentions of breaking the “bond” between you and your friends, nor break the “bond” between you and the development team.
Once again, I would like to apologize for not being able to provide a clear explanation for everyone. The only thing I would like to ask of you is to keep your feedback constructive.
Update 2:
Quote Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida View Post Hello everyone, Producer/Director Yoshida here.
I’d first like to thank you for all of your posts. I’ve been looking at the threads across all regions and I’m sorry that this has caused a huge disturbance amongst each of the regions.
Currently, we're seeing a lot of feedback that favors plan ②, and we're considering revisions that use plan ② as a base while retaining the merits of plan ④. The operations and development teams will continue to gather everyone’s feedback while we investigate further. This is also a technical matter and we also need to confirm schedule timing, so I’m sorry to say that we’ll need some additional time and that this will continue through the weekend and into the start of next week.
For the Topics announcement, we considered temporarily taking it down, but we decided against that as we feared that if players were unable to see the information, you wouldn’t be able to discuss it with the same background knowledge. Therefore, we’ll be keeping the current announcement up as we go into next week.
Just to reiterate, there are a lot of players that are voicing their concerns, and we will strive to find an acceptable balance as much as possible before moving forward. Therefore please keep this in mind and try to understand our reasoning.
This is everything as of now. I will continue to update this thread as needed.
Bulwarkz Downcazt Admin replied
715 weeks ago