Makaisson has died. Those of us who remain wait for the server transfers to begin that we might once again find enemies to fight.
It was not like this until the last few days. It is true we had a low population, but we could always get a decent bit of RvR going. Once transfers became certainty, some people started alts on Burlok while they wait to be able to move their mains. Others, not wishing to move to Burlok, have rerolled on other servers already. Quite a few are so annoyed at being messed around that they’ve stormed off in a huff. No doubt some are trying out the new WoW expansion.
So why did this happen?
Staggering the launch of Makaisson to three days after Burlok meant it would always be the sickly sibling, instead of the healthy twin. Folks will gravitate to the highest population server, unless it is so full that there is queueing. I’ve seen this happen every time an MMO staggers its server launches, but they keep doing it. I would have been on Burlok myself if my guild hadn’t decided Burlok would be its destruction server.
Words have power. Words from a Dev can kill. The moment Makaisson was included on the list of transfer servers, our population nose-dived, which in turn caused the transfers to become necessary. A sort of corporate fait-accompli which really gets under my skin.
So it is with a certain amount of schadenfreude that I noticed this understated comment by Mark Jacobs yesterday:
As to our EU players, I know I’ve been rather quiet regarding Europe lately and I apologize for that but know that it isn’t because we aren’t paying attention or don’t care what is going on there. When we signed the deal with GOA we were assured that our European customers would be treated in the same way as our North American customers. We are aware of the issues that have been raised here and in other places. And that’s all I can say on that subject for now.
Maybe he is just making noises to pacify customers. Perhaps he is finally going to raise hell with GOA, and force them to either not be rubbish, or find a new partner. Given EA’s worldwide reach, I never understood why they can’t host the darn thing themselves.
It could be the final straw for Mythic was the situation this week wherein cancelled European WAR accounts were reactivated and put onto recurring billing. This has been rather lightly breezed over by the official GOA statement on their website, but I suspect it was quite impressively illegal.
Anyway, I’m sitting here in Altdorf, waiting for the server transfers to begin. We have been given a rather nebulous “probably this week”. The US, of course, had it’s transfers almost a month ago, once again bringing into question the commitment to provide Europe with an equal service.
Will Burlok be as much fun as Makaisson was? From what I hear, there is a lot of bullying and nonsense within the Order faction from the larger guilds towards the smaller ones. If that is the case, then we’ll have to see what we can do about it. I’ll be trying to help keep Makaissonians in touch with eachother, so we can stick together if confronted with hostility.
Destruction has all but evaporated on Makaisson. We could not find a single person to fight last night. But soon, perhaps. Soon I shall hunt again.
I think we’re one of the larger guilds, but I don’t think it’s us people are accusing of bullying, nor do I think it’s as bad as that. What we have is a very organised large Order guild (not the one I’m in, by the way), who quite often rally the Order forces and then use region chat to let people know what’s going on (often cos there’s more than 1 warband). It can sound like giving orders, but I don’t think it’s meant as bullying.
That being said, there’s no reason people can’t break off and do other things. I’ve been thinking more and more than my guild could start their own warbands and test out some alternate tactics we’ve been talking about.
Give me a yell on the Order side if you ever want a chat/moan/whinge about the situation. I hope people make you feel very welcome. We have some small guilds in our alliance, so no doubt they could also have a chat about how it is to be a smaller guild there.
My char there is Kaja, my guild Insult to Injury.
We Makaisson folks are very open world RvR orientated (partially due to us not having any scenarios, but its habit now) so we’ll probably start making a nuisance of ourselves quite quickly. Mostly in t2 and t3, as the absence of scenarios has also really slowed our levelling.
Heh, I’m 6th on the server for renown, for instance, but on Burlok I won’t even make the top 10 of Engineers! A lot of work to do!
Makaisson guilds are probably going to be consolidating a little, and hopefully we’ll be looking out for eachother. We’ve not had any really large guilds in Mak Order, so we’re used to having to work together to get anything done. So we’ll be trying to strike a balance between integrating, and making sure we don’t forget where we came from. If the main Order force is rampaging around in a multi-warband zerg (something we’ve never seen and I’m not sure my computer will like), I’ll definitely try to take a single warband off to do something elsewhere. Or would we get smashed by a Destruction multiwarband army?
I’ll be Osgard, and I’ll probably be in Domus Doctus. I’ll definitely look out for you!