So I read yesterday that Mythic completed “a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of).”    I found it while skimming a couple of other gaming blogs that I’ve been reading, and I paused for a moment and contemplated what the merge will mean for WAR as well as what merges in general mean to MMO’s in today’s market.

I think it’s a pretty common assumption that when a game is forced to close servers or merge them, that the game is struggling.  I’m not convinced that this is a “fair” assumption, since I believe most new games anticipate high demand at launch and try to provide more servers for an influx of new and excited subscribers.  Whether this is arrogance or ambition tends to come out in the wash a few months down the road when we see if those dozens of server are able to maintain a healthy population.

Obviously, WAR had a great many “dead” servers.  For the people remaining on those servers, I think the merges are a very good thing.  A higher population on a server generally ensures a more active and more fun gaming experience.  Why play an MMO if you don’t want to see other people, right?

I returned to Age of Conan after they completed massive server merges, and I think it’s been a big positive for that game.  The world feels “full” when I am out and about, and I imagine that as a result of the merges in WAR that there will be some re-invigoration for those who previously were struggling in under-populated servers.

However, no amount of population increase is going to improve the game feel unless that population increase helps bring the factions into balance.  When I left Phoenix Throne, Destro was outnumbered by Order 1.6:1.  That didn’t make for a fun night most nights if you were on the Destruction side.  I will be curious to see how this plays out, though not curious enough to want to return to the game.