One Empire per Server? [Archive] - PlanetSide Universe

Sabinius

2004-11-03, 02:00 PM

What in the heck does that mean?
It sounds stupid, but then again the majority of the
game voted for yes so I did.

What exactly does this mean?

And why does it involve the fourth empire?

And if its like only one empire per server...
thats just stupid and I doubt
thats what it is
If its two empires per server thats
feasable by the retarded devs standards
but I personally hate that idea

2Seksy4MyModem

2004-11-03, 02:04 PM

It means that you can only have characters on one empire per server. This is how the servers used to be before the mergers.

The fourth empire is related to people switching sides when their team is losing, Ex: I'm VS and we're getting our asses handed to us with a smile from the TR. If I switch to TR then I'm contributing to the fourth empire.

Lartnev

2004-11-03, 02:05 PM

1) It's a poll started by us, devs have nothing to do with it.
2) It means that you can only belong to one empire per server.
3) The only reason you can belong to two empires currently was to allow the devs to merge servers. The game worked perfectly fine before.
4) Give your enter key a break :p

2Seksy4MyModem

2004-11-03, 02:07 PM

4) Give your enter key a break :p

But it almost looks like a poem ^^

Edit-shortened the quote

Sabinius

2004-11-03, 02:17 PM

Rotfl, on my screen the text almost always goes
off the screen so i have to use the left to
right scroll bar. Since I don't know how
to not make my internet explorer a thing
for a nearly blind person, with gigantic pictures and words
I help people like me and keep it together instead
of going all the way across

and to me it looks sloppy
if its all bunched together all long and stuff

And I'm glad I voted yes :D

Marsman

2004-11-03, 02:28 PM

It seems pretty simple to me. 3 empires - 3 servers. Pick the servers you want your other empire characters to go to. Leave only one empire's characters per server.

Lise

2004-11-03, 02:44 PM

It seems pretty simple to me. 3 empires - 3 servers. Pick the servers you want your other empire characters to go to. Leave only one empire's characters per server.

Q to the F to the T.

LBSheep

2004-11-03, 02:46 PM

Incompetent

2004-11-03, 02:50 PM

or we feel like helping out the winning side
fixed

2Seksy4MyModem

2004-11-03, 03:18 PM

Big deal if we switch sides. Maybe we have friends that play another Empire and we want to join them, or we feel like helping out the losing side or we get tired of hearing the CR5's belittle us or make us feel like shit... seems to me there are a bunch of little kids doing what they do best "bitching".

Well, usually when I have friends who play we decide on an empire and stick to it. I gave up some of my favorite characters to play with the guys I do now, multiple times. Plus if the CR5s are belittlling you, you don't have to read it or even listen to them at all. Lately when I get on I ignore what the primarys are and go to the best cave fight. If I feel the need to see the sun, I check the incentives for the conts to find the fight and go to the largest population with at least 15% VS.

Thats not the way you have to do it, but its how I do it, call me wierd :doh:

Plus, its a little more than bitching when one empire has 40%+ population. It disrupts the gameplay for all teams. I played VS for quite a while now and I stopped playing for a while due to the fact that the empire just rolled over everything in its path. In those cases I'd prefer everyone had one empire, so that there is at least some penalty for changing sides completely.

...or we feel like helping out the losing side...

While that is certainly a pro for keeping two empires per server, that's the first time I've even heard of the idea. :shrug:

Warborn

2004-11-03, 03:41 PM

It's too late to go back, not when it's been possible to have two empires on one server for so long. They should simply increase the benefits for being the underdog, and lock server switching a day before any important event starts, so that you pick your side BEFORE the fighting starts, rather than once you see which side is doing the best.

Marsman

2004-11-03, 03:43 PM

While I commend the attitude to help out the losing side, I fear that is not the general tendency. With the experience system as it is, captures are the focus and those who are character building would prefer to be on when the empire is on a roll of captures which often accompanies population. While the devs have tried to provide incentives to join the weaker sides in terms of population, I don't feel it offsets the experience gained from running with the winning zerg at the time. While I understand the playing with friends part, your friends could make characters on other servers as well. Playing both (or all three) sides within the same server group just seems traitor-ish - Fighting for your empire one moment and against it the next, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Play another empire on other servers - different story - not the same group of people. Plus it gives a good understanding and knowledge. Know thyne enemy well - but know it from another server and not be fighting against the same players you were fighting beside earlier that day.

Mango

2004-11-03, 04:20 PM

But what about if we have characters for both empires that we want to keep? I have a BR 15 TR guy that i put many hours into that I wouldn't want to lose.

internetn

2004-11-03, 04:21 PM

I just play my one guy... all the time. But it would be nice to see people on that aren't saying
"Sup dooD!! I normally play teh TR, so whats da best gun for teh NC?!@?"
They are probably just newbs, but I guess we could get more specialized

kcirreda

2004-11-03, 04:23 PM

as U can see in my Sig, I have 2 dedicated chars on Emerald. Now, isnt there a TIMER for switching empires, or did it go AWAY? I am loyal to both VS and TR. And U can ALLWAYS go to My Planetside Map thingy to show who has most land, but not population before you log on. Its a nice idea but not planned out. Warborn knows what hes talking about.

__Quote: Warborn___________________________________
It's too late to go back, not when it's been possible to have two empires on one server for so long. They should simply increase the benefits for being the underdog, and lock server switching a day before any important event starts, so that you pick your side BEFORE the fighting starts, rather than once you see which side is doing the best.

Marsman

2004-11-03, 04:30 PM

But what about if we have characters for both empires that we want to keep? I have a BR 15 TR guy that i put many hours into that I wouldn't want to lose.Well I'd assume they might be able to do something like this:
You log onto Emerald. You want NC to be the empire for Emerald. You have TR and VS characters. A window appears and tells you of the change. You are given an option to move characters of a particular empire to one of the other servers. (NC, TR, VS selection) You click TR. You are asked what server you want to move to (Markov, Werner). You choose to move you TR chars to Markov. TR Characters are moved to Markov. Now the option reads (NC, VS) You select VS. A confirmation now appears that you want to move the VS characters to Werner. You confirm. You are left with NC characters only for Emerald. This process would be repeated on each server until each has characters of only one empire.
Should the character name exist on a server you are moving characters onto - that name will be appended with -X where X is the first letter of the server name they came from. Example: One of the TR characters you moved to Markov from Emerald in the example above has the same name as an existing character already on Markov. Your TR character name is then appened by -E when it is moved to Markov to prevent conflict.

Lartnev

2004-11-03, 04:52 PM

The only difference between that and the server move would be that you couldn't take your outfit with you. Which of course would make the process smoother than the server merge from that point of view.

You'd also need to make sure that you wouldn't be adding a TR character on Werner to Emerald if you already had an NC character on Emerald.

Incompetent

2004-11-03, 05:07 PM

Marsman

2004-11-03, 05:08 PM

You'd also need to make sure that you wouldn't be adding a TR character on Werner to Emerald if you already had an NC character on Emerald.I'd assume once you cleared a server to just one empire, they wouldn't let you move a different empire character into it. One would probably want to look at characters on each server and choose what will go where. Situations like making NC Primary empire on two servers and having the 2 empire characters on the third would leave a choice of losing one of the empire's characters on the third server, or moving all the NC characters to one server so you can move one of the empire's. It does allow you the choice (even if un-desirable) of keeping all your characters. It just depends on your priority I guess.

Warborn

2004-11-03, 06:23 PM

I think it would be best to have it send you to a screen with four columns, one for emerald, one for markov, one for werner and one with all your characters in it. Each server has all three empire logos over it, and you can select one logo to set the empire you have decided on for that server. Then you can drag each individual char (mouse over the name for information about the char, br/cr/outfit/origininal empire and server/ect.) into one of the three server columns and drop it in there to have that char on that empire/server. Hit done, it asks you if your sure, wait a few minutes while the servers process the information and move the info around, and your done. Probably wouldn't be that simple, but thats the sort of principle they could go by.

We'd have a fair number of duplicate (at least) naming issues as well. And what about the Outfits whose members all have different characters on different servers? Coordinating such a move would be very difficult, and I suspect many people would be dissatisfied even if all their character moves worked out, simply because some of their mates might not have such an easy decision to make on character/empire placement.

NeoPhoenixTE

2004-11-03, 06:45 PM

I want this like nothing else...

However, I have an NC with m 4 TR.

I wanna be able to convert my NC to a TR so that work's not wasted.

Do that, and alot of people who fear something like this will adopt it without a second thought.

ChewyLSB

2004-11-03, 06:52 PM

I think the best way would be to make it so that, if they were to change it, make it so that you decide what empire you want all of your characters to be. In the case of outfits, the outfit leader will choose which empire he or she wants to go to, and the entire outfit is told.

SilverLord

2004-11-03, 07:20 PM

Now does this actually have a chance of going into the game Marsman? I love the idea because before the merger, it was great, and I mean great.

Questions though...
1) Would i have to delete the characters from my other empires to play on NC? Example: Delete my TR BR 20, CR 5 so I could play NC? Or could I switch my TR to NC?
2) Would you be able to have multiple characters on one empire?
3) Would we be able to change the name a little so we can fit it to our liking?

Black

2004-11-03, 07:26 PM

It probably does have a chance of going into the game Silver but i highly doubt that it will happen

Marsman

2004-11-03, 07:37 PM

Questions though...
1) Would i have to delete the characters from my other empires to play on NC? Example: Delete my TR BR 20, CR 5 so I could play NC? Or could I switch my TR to NC?
2) Would you be able to have multiple characters on one empire?
3) Would we be able to change the name a little so we can fit it to our liking?First of all - this is only a poll. Nothing even remotely like this has been suggested from the devs. I was mearly offering an idea as to how it "might" be accomplished if they ever did do it.

I would hope, in the interest of preserving characters, that users would be given the choice of what empire they want to keep on a server and what server to move other empire characters to. So in response to your questions:

1) No, you would move the TR to another server instead.
2) Yes, all your chars on a server would be just one empire. You could infact make all the servers one empire, or 2 servers of one empire and the last server a different empire. But the bottom line is all your similar empire chars would end up together on a single server.
3) Character name conflicts would probably be dealt with in the same manner as the server merge. i.e. adding the -K and -J to incoming chars when the same name already exists. Whether they offer a one time rename of those is also offered, dunno - can't remember if the did that for the merge last time or not.

Again, this is only a suggestion of a way to implement such an action should SOE ever consider to do so.

WritheNC

2004-11-03, 08:50 PM

I think Primary and Secondary empires might work.

The oldest character on your account: The empire that character belongs to becomes your primary empire.

Your secondary empire is the other empire you have chosen.

You can play your Primary empire at any time.

You can only play your secondary empire characters when they DO NOT have the highest server population. This means when that empire needs people to help, that's the only time you can log in.

LBSheep

2004-11-03, 11:38 PM

Wolf Blitzer

2004-11-04, 12:15 AM

Why dont we just leave it be. if its not broke dont fix it... I dont want to move any of my characters (TR, VS, NC) nor lose them. I worked my ass off getting my characters to where they are and dont feel like I should lose any of them. and if i am paying to play then I am paying to play on any server and any character i want, when i want...

First off, I think the trend that poll is showing is that most people think it *is* broken.

Second, the "I pay to play" argument doesn't hold much water. I pay just as much to play as you do, but I'm okay with having only one empire per server. In exchange though, I want an automatic "I win" button that allows me to win any fight or instantly capture any base...because I pay to play and I'm paying to win where I want, when I want....

Untouchable

2004-11-04, 12:52 AM

The problem with adding a -X to someones name if they choose to have a character transfer empires, is what if they originally have a name like "*****TR" and want to change that character to NC? It is probably a bit early to be thinking of these things anyway lol, but it might be easier just to be able to entirely change your characters name? Or at least edit it a little bit.

juggalokilla

2004-11-04, 07:18 AM

one question that was not clarified was if you shoose to keep your characters on that server, would you have the option to change that characters empire instead of moving to another server? I have a tr br20 cr4 on emerald and 1 vs thats br16 cr1 on same server. id rather switch it from vs to tr so i can play with it that character on the server i always play on once my main is maxed out. If not I'll have to start from scratch on my next character.

I have 2 empire characters per server and know what factions i would pick on each cause i only prefer the underdog but my only other tr character, on werner is low level cause i didnt like tr there, vs is my favorite there. Saying that, i agree there should be one empire per server.

Quick note also: There still needs to be a way to keep from having a majority of people pick a certian empire as top then having a permenent high population balance

Striker511

2004-11-04, 09:40 AM

Well, I am all for the one-empire per server; I agree that everyone should have the ability to play on all 3 empires, but since there are 3 servers, then this should not be a big deal. Upon launch, there were 2 east coast and 2 west coast servers, it was 'Choose Your Side' that you want to support. Since it was changed last year, the 4th empire has taken over and made gameplay more "interesting".

Everyone should be able to keep the characters that you have; If Sony goes back the old school way, then each person will have to choose which empire they want to fight on per server. Myself, I like being the underdogs in a threeway fight too. It just so happens that our unit knows how to work as a team and do well with the other friendly units.

Am I plugging Sturmgrenadier?? Absolutely. More info head to the RECRUITING FORUM.

This is Striker, and I approve of this message ;)

Marsman

2004-11-04, 12:43 PM

A few people have mentioned the idea of converting a character (i.e. from like a NC char to a TR char). First, we don't even know if this is possible. Seems to me it would require a major effort to do so - favorites and locker items would have to coverted for one thing and I'm sure there are many other factors. Conversion of a char is going to be far more involved that simple moving all the characters data from one server to another, which we know is possible as we've seen that occur during the server merge.
I would tend to discount the possibility of character conversion because of these reasons and have therefore focused on possible methods of implementing a one empire per server system with the least possible grief and frustration to users. Sure there is always going to be someone displeased - can't make everyone happy - but I think this is a plan that most users could live with and keep their high level characters, even if they had to move them to another server.

Sieldan

2004-11-04, 01:31 PM

Easy fix to the whole 4th Empire. Character lockdown after initial log in. Means this: You have multiple toons/multiple empires on a server. Once you log in to a toon a timer starts on that toon. It is the only one you can play on that server until the timer expires. Similar to the existing toon timer except it starts from the get-go instead of after a swap.

Striker511

2004-11-04, 02:56 PM

the 24 hr thing might work, but only for one day - besides, isnt that the case as it is now?

If Sony did not allow me to transfer character names between 2 characters that I created, then I highly doubt that they will allow a character to be trasnfered to another empire.
KISS - One empire per server. As we said in the USN - Choose your rate, choose your fate...

my 0.02

Yerster

2004-11-04, 09:21 PM

I think thay need to change the timer for switching empirers at least. make it like 48 hour 72 hours(2 or 3 days) time before you and seletect the other emiper again. that would put a end to alot of the empier hopin.

Lartnev

2004-11-05, 09:27 AM

Sieldan

2004-11-05, 02:14 PM

The 24 hour rule as it is now is kinda strange, it seems to work by coming into effect after switching empires. For example, you can play for NC, then switch to TR but only then does the 24 hour timer kick in. Personally I think the timer needs to kick in after you first logged in as an NC.
That it exactly Lartnev. The timer as it is currently implemented only starts after you switch empires. I think it should start AS SOON AS you log into an empire.

Sentrosi

2004-11-05, 02:31 PM

You could solve the equipment favorites easily.

Cert wipe.

When you choose a server and EMPIRE you log into, your character stays at the same BR/CR. However, because you have now officially become a traitor to your old empire, you need to be recerted, as these are supposedly new weapons and vehicles you will be working with. There should be a window at the certification terminal that comes up saying you are now committing yourself to this empire. A click of Yes means that that character is now a permanent member of said empire. A click of no means they cannot cert for that empire and are not allowed access to the virtual training area. Basically they can walk around Sanctuary in their PJs, stare at the sky, run laps around Sanc, etc.

The Locker can be solved as well.

Make it move with the character. If he/she wants to load up Mini Chainguns inside of it before a move to the VS, for example, it is entirely their right to do so.

Kam

2004-11-06, 02:17 PM

I agree that there should be a limit to one account, but the truth is it will never return to that because people would be outraged when all their hard work goes down the drain. SOE knows this, it might even cause people to cancel their subscriptions and then SOE would lose money.

Lartnev

2004-11-06, 02:46 PM

That hard work would be turned to another server/empire, not go down the drain.

CassH

2004-11-06, 03:12 PM

Well it would be alot of work to change chars over, so why dont they give people a 1 month warning to pick a char then everyday the timer to switch would get 1 hour longer till after a month they chose witch char to delet.

Sentrosi

2004-11-06, 04:45 PM

Let me amend my previous post by saying that if a person does not wish to commit to an empire at this time that they be allowed to look at all the vehicles and weapons of that empire. By giving the newbie a chance to wield both the Lasher and Jackhammer in the Virtual Training sessions you give that person something none of us really had a chance at; trying out the other empires weaponry to see if they fit into your playing style.