bRO server merging

[Lutz]

I know this might not be of concern to most of the international RO players here, but as more and more servers around the world go through server merging I thought it would be interesting to give a "sneak peek" of what might be in store for iRO and other servers in the future.

This next wednesday, bRO's three servers - Loki, Chaos and Iris - will be merged into a single server, dubbed Odin. LevelUp! Games announced last week details of the merge, which is being supervised by a team of developers from Gravity. The process itself is going to very similar to kRO's server merge from a few months back, with a few differences (some bad, some great ^^):

1 - As it happened in kRO, characters and guilds on different servers sharing the same name will be renamed with the addition of a suffix stating server of origin (i.e. Lutz_CH00, Lutz_LK00, Lutz_IR00). Unfortunately, it seems we'll not be getting the same name-changing system kRO got... Players were advised a few days earlier to create "dummy" characters/guilds in each server to prevent name theft, and as of this morning both character and guild creation are disabled until next maintenance; now we have until then to erase any dummies we had, this to prevent having our characters/guild names changed. They've also announced today that they might add a name-changing system after the merge, though they've only stated so far that it will be a "complex process" and have not given any detail as of yet.

2 - Players will be given 12 slots (as opposed to 9 slots from past server merges) to accommodate all characters from all three servers. In the event of an account having more than 12 characters at a time, players will be given up to 2 new accounts to which any extra characters (and also items in Kafra storage that went over the 300 limit) will be transferred. Usernames for the new accounts will have a _01 or _02 suffix after the original account's name, password will be the same. Also, these new accounts will each be credited with game time approximate to how much time left the original account had.

3 - Alchemist/Blacksmith/Taekwon ranks will be reset, as will God-item quests.

4 - WoE times will be changed according to the poll we had on bRO official forums the in the past three weeks; the new times, as chosen by the community, are going to be Thursdays 20:00 to 22:00 (previously 19:00 to 21:00) and Sundays 18:00 to 20:00 (previously 16:00 to 18:00).

5 - It was also announced today that the new Odin server will feature some of the latest user-friendly system additions from this year's kRO patches, including the new party window system. ^^


There are more details, but I think that's the gist of it. Thankfully I was able to create dummies for all of my characters in all servers... I feel bad for people that'll have their names changed and won't be able to fix them yet. And I'm really excited with the new interface updates, who knows what else we might get after it's all done?

Sorry for the lenghty post. :P

[Boom]

That's very interesting, thanks for the info. It sounds like you guys don't have a normal Character Name Change Service thing? Is iRO the only server that offers that? :O

[Rav]

I think that's really cool how you'll be able to move characters to new accounts if you go over the slot limit. I could see people doing this intentionally.

[luix]

I'm expecting this to be a good thing to bRO... maybe it will even get me out of this boring routine of the past couple of weeks.

12 slots and i only have 1 acc......... jeez. Looks like i'll have space for characters i ditched in the past for space. Long live my revived Battle Sage lol

[Nikki Slash]

Since I'm not a WoE addicted (I'm more attracted to PvP, but I go WoE just 4fun... like, a 5-player party =P), there are more negative points than positive ones for me. The possibility of more GMs, and the 12 slots in one account is the only positive points I can see for a player that doesn't go WoE all the time. I don't believe in the "less lag" thing they keep announcing... Sunday's WoE was laggy, and it was before the merge =P

I really hope this merge helps bRO. I can't see how it will help, because it looks like a desperate method to keep the server alive, and something that I don't like at all... if they keep ignoring players complains (the decent ones, not all those drama), and no marketing at all to attract new players... the server population will go down and down... and there won't be a second merge. Not at bRO, at least =P

@Boom: yeah, no Char Name Change Service here. And I'm still wondering who had the same idea as me to use "Nikki Slash" at Loki server...

[Banisher]

5 - It was also announced today that the new Odin server will feature some of the latest user-friendly system additions from this year's kRO patches, including the new party window system. ^^


EuRO got this patch today (new battle message window, party window system, and server-side shortcuts), so it's nothing exceptionnal, I guess every server will get it soon. I didn't try self-linking, but self-suffing didn't work, for those who might have been interested.

What's the current population on the three bRO servers to require them to merge?

[luix]

Loki has like 200~300 less people than Chaos and Iris has 300~400 less people than Loki.
Something like Chaos has 1400, Loki 1200, Iris 800~900.

[Artamir]

That seems like a nice merge procedure... and having the opportunity to (unintentionally, of course) move characters from one account to another is indeed pretty nice.

[l)ark(fathom]

That's pretty cool how they did that. Those numbers actually seem pretty close to ours also, aside from iris, which is like half of bRO iris. I'd say roughly same amount of people just a bit different layout across the servers.

However after that big thread on ragnainfo I had about the merger, i spoke directly with heimdallr on the iro forums. He basically told me that iro will not merge servers except as a last ditch effort.

[luix]

He basically told me that iro will not merge servers except as a last ditch effort.

That is also basically what levelupgames is doing.

[Lutz]

bRO - Odin. Prontera:

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5972/screenodin000ix0.jpg


Me just outside the sea of shops/chats.

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/5374/screenodin001gv4.jpg


ADB was also pretty hectic. I can see guilds/alliances hanging out in previously deserted towns because all the usual spots are impossibly crowded. Haven't tried levelling yet, but I guess people are still busy trying to reclaim potion/blacksmith ranks and also doing the Sleipnir quest.

Saw a lot of people with server suffixes as well; LevelUp! announced a few hours ago that they'll handle nickname changing in a special section in bRO's official website from tomorrow on until next maintenance. Character creation is still disabled until next week.

[Polly]

Wow, look at all those shops! I can only imagine the craziness that would ensue if our servers were merged.

Also, contrary to what others have said, the prospect of my extra chars getting kicked to other accounts is terrifying. Can I remind you, you can't CHOOSE which character gets which account. Unless there's some order to which characters get account priority, but I assume not--or that no one is aware of it.

[Myzery]

Wow, that's alot of shops.

[Rauss]

Another downside to having chars transfered to other accounts is that when the time you payed runs out you'll have to start paying for more accounts than before the merge. Some people might not have the $ for that.

[crash]

Another downside to having chars transfered to other accounts is that when the time you payed runs out you'll have to start paying for more accounts than before the merge. Some people might not have the $ for that.

If you had centered yourself on one server in the first place, which most people do, you shouldn't be overflowing on character slots anyway. ;x

[luix]

One good thing already with the merge: bots are having extreme difficulty getting in. I always in specific forums too see how active the bots are, and they are freaking pissed! LMAO.

Hope it stays that way tho... they always fucking come back.

[poofy88]

holy crap thats a lot of shops D:

[Nikki Slash]

Too lagged to walk around in Prontera... I lost my patience before looking half of the shops shown in that screenshot ¬¬"
The biggest problem with these shops is, noone know the prices for the items, like Bazeralds which are being sold from 12m to 20m...

The order in the character slots was: Chaos' chars first, then Loki's, and finally Iris'. So, if you had 4 chars on Chaos, 5 on Loki and 4 on Iris, you would have 1 account with 4 Chaos, 5 Loki and 3 Iris, and another account with 1 Iris.
And we don't have Sakray =P

Oh yeah, the name change service won't work for Guild Holders... they will have to change manually, that's what I heard. Until then, I'm... Nikki Slash_CH00 T.T

Let's see today's WoE rofl XD

[Nivawk]

Sorry to hear that happened on bRO. :( Hopefully iRO never will never get a server merge.

[ragnafake]

That surely are a lot of shops!
I dunno if merging servers is a good thing or a bad thing. The market must be indeed very confused.

People on euRo would cry forever if it would happen here, because Chaos has/had slotted sunglasses (originally from the iRo->euRo transfers) while Loki never had any and stuff like that. Infact people already cry about this right now whenever a imaginary server merge is mentioned.

[Lynzie]

Pront on iRO Chaos used to be sort of like that.

I miss it. :(

Can't wait to see screens of WoE; I think the first hour of WoE when most people just run around randomly, breaking shit for the hell of it, would be a lot more fun if there were actually people to battle instead of, "Oh, another empty castle... /sigh"

[Nikki Slash]

I tried WoE today. Really tried. But it was like... you move for 3~5s, than lag for around 3s, and so on... no fun at all.

Of course, that's my opinion, playing with just a few people. I don't know what the alliances think about today's WoE =P

[.Seth~]

Pront on iRO Chaos used to be sort of like that.

I miss it. :(

Can't wait to see screens of WoE; I think the first hour of WoE when most people just run around randomly, breaking shit for the hell of it, would be a lot more fun if there were actually people to battle instead of, "Oh, another empty castle... /sigh"

Lag Wins :(
Its a lot of people @_@

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8210/screenodin046ei9.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenodin046ei9.jpg)

My English is a.../...

[eyeless]

*offtop* rRO got Loki and Iris merging in July, but their population were about 600 and 300 not during WoE. *offtop*

Time for the Big Alliences? -_-

[kei]

so ... can you HS while you are in town ..?

[WK]

I really hope iRO servers get merged within a year. :P

[Artamir]

I'd love to see that happen but I'm a little scared of the lag it would create.

[Rav]

Another downside to having chars transfered to other accounts is that when the time you payed runs out you'll have to start paying for more accounts than before the merge. Some people might not have the $ for that.
I assumed that you'd be able to choose, and that people who wanted to transfer a character to another account would create lots of novices. It's not like anyone would have that many important chars spread across all of the servers, so I doubt anyone who doesn't want to pay for an extra account will be.

[Jayed]

I really hope iRO servers get merged within a year. :P

Why.

[-TNO-]

Maybe Hydra cards would go below 5 mil each......

[Circa]

I hope they merge servers on iRO, it's getting pretty hard to create parties for anything. Hopefully they find a solution to the lag and they get a server upgrade.

[Pesto]

Why.


Because not everyone wants to play a game that feels dead?