Dear bored, jaded players of older servers:

[Zaj]

Come start over on S9.

Seriously. Do it do it do it. You want to play on S9. Yes you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this post.

I'm not saying this so that I can recruit you. I mean, I might try and recruit you because that's what I do, and I will be happy if you join us, but actually I will be WAY WAY HAPPIER if you reply with "**** you Zaj, you suck, I started my own guild and it is a million times more awesome than yours, see your stupid newbie yahoo *** on the battlefield." Actually if you reply with those exact words I will probably tear up with joy.

Seriously. Come to S9 and start a guild. Start one of these super rad-sounding guilds that newbies like me (who came to S9 because that's what we were offered) are always reading about in threads from a couple years ago, where everyone is all "ah the GLORY DAYS intrigue alliances community revolution websites backstabbing honor-dumping bitter rivalries Dungeon 49 blah blah blah, too bad everything is so DEAD now because being level 300 SUCKS so much and new players don't EVER join our big, scary server…"

That **** is AWESOME. Bring that kind of energy over here. We want more of that. I don't want to join your guild, I loooooove my guild, but I REALLY REALLY REALLY want your guild to be here on S9.

But but but Zaj, you ask, I am a level 500 Shakes and Fidget wizard ninja guru, what could I possibly gain from playing your dinky little world?

So just out of curiosity, I rolled a character on S1 today, just to see how the two servers compare.

Guilds:
S1: 12000-some
S9: 5000-some

Number of 300-plus characters:
S1: nearly 100
S9: 2

Lowest level characters in the Top 3 guilds:
S1: 240-280
S9: 100-140

The number 569 person on the server:
S1: HotPepper, level 296
S9: me, level 124

Are you power players salivating at the fame and glory that await you here yet? Seriously? Why the **** not?? INSTANT GRATIFICATION, people! How long did it take your guild to get to the top 100 on your server? The top 50? The top 25? Okay. Now divide that by six, and start rubbing your hands in fiendish, power-hungry delight.

For reals, S9 is Shakes and Fidget’s magical mystical Mad Max anarchist paradise. This server is everyone’s oyster. The fun starts immediately, not at level 250 or 275 or whatever it is that you consider a “good” level over there. Our guild generally hovers around #20-22, and having even one level-250 person join us would still be the Shakes and Fidget equivalent of magical singing unicorns coming down from heaven and granting us eternal youth and Jet-Skis.

And you have the dedication to build a character up past level 300?? JUST IMAGINE WHAT YOU COULD DO WITH THIS PLACE.

Now. Go roll a character.
Bring some friends, while you’re at it.
We’ll be waiting.

Love,
Zaj

[BMWGuinness]

with this logic, why not s10?

[Zaj]

Well, like you say, the same arguments probably apply to S10, but I play S9, so I want all those cool people and guilds to start flocking to S9, I don't care what happens to S10. You say "twisting the facts to fit personal bias," I say "keeping the argument focused." To-may-to, to-mah-to :p

Anyway, right now the main site automatically diverts people to S10, like I got sent to S9 when it was the newest server, so I figure the only way to get more traffic to S9 is to advertise to existing players...

Feel free to make your own impassioned pleas in favor of S10, though ;)

-Zaj

[BMWGuinness]

merge all servers

divide the level of the player by the amount of time the server has been in existence based on the EXP curve.

Have 1 super server for s1-s9 and 1 server for s10

rebaseline all stats base on level and give back 1/10th of the total mushrooms purchased.

Allow players with multiple characters to choose 1 after the rebaseline of all characters and donate all retained mushrooms to that 1 character

[Zaj]

Hrm. Why one just for S10, though? That sounds like it would multiply the differences between "huge, super-established server where people complain about how it's impossible to change anything" and "tiny but dynamic server where people complain about how quiet it is". In the magical fantasy world of my original post, the intended effect was actually the opposite one: older, bored players, inspired by my dramatic and stirring call to action, would start putting less energy into S1-S4 and more into S9, and then S9 would develop stiffer competition and S1-S4 would become more dynamic and we would all live happily ever after... at some point singing angels and rainbows would most likely be involved, I hadn't quite worked out all the details...

Maybe if they grouped 1-3-5-7-9 and 2-4-6-8-10, or 1-3-5 and 2-4-6 and 7-8-9-10, and then new arrivals to www.sfgame.us got randomly thrown into one of them rather than always to the newest server, that could balance things out more... ? But I feel like I read a post somewhere in which this server-grouping idea was officially squashed, though? Or did I make that up?