By chance I was looking at my old Vanguard posts, and realized that the server mergers went down a year ago this week. Has it really been that long?
As much angst as it caused what with people losing their names and houses, it turned out to be in the best interest of the PvE game. There was a period of time between the mergers and the Age of Conan release (interestingly enough), where the servers had to be consolidated for the sake of the game. Subscription numbers were pretty low near the time of the mergers, and to not take any action would have made the world seem even emptier and acquiring groups a difficult proposition, which would have caused more people to leave, thus sparking a nasty feedback loop.
The two US PVE servers, Seradon and Xeth are well populated, with lots of groups and chatter, and the community has really come together. There's plenty activity on both servers, with several large guilds recruiting (cheers Safe Haven!), and events being organized and run weekly. This bodes well for Vanguard, when you consider that it all occurring during the traditional summer doldrums of MMOs, when the number of players dips since everyone has other things to do than sit inside during the summer.
I have, however, read some posts by newer players complaining about the availability of groups under level 15, and yes that is still an issue, although not nearly as bad as it would have been back when there were 10+ servers. This seems to be largely due to the fact that there are a wide variety of racial starting zones (somewhere between 6 and 8 I believe), which tends to spread players out until they start to find the more popular level spots around level 15. Most everyone is hoping that the Isle of Dawn will help to relieve this spreading of lower characters, since it will offer new players a single zone in which to adventure. This will hopefully make the lower levels of the game seem more populated as well as encourage lowbie grouping.
So, hindsight being 20/20, the folks on the Vanguard team made the smart choice by merging. I'll always remember looking at the list of servers when creating Inara and Lunestra, and thinking to myself that Targonar and Woefeather sounded like interesting places to spread my roots. So to you Targonar and Woefeather, I pour out a little!
Yes, I'm still one of the few people playing Vanguard. Game Update #2 hit a week or so ago, and the server mergers are scheduled to go down this upcoming week. GU2 had some pretty decent changes to the LFG interface, and it has certainly made connecting with people easier. I have noticed however, that it tends to make you more accessible for what other people want to do. I set my preferred dungeon/quests to some of the stuff around Skawlra Rock (since I still would like to try and get the Hunter's League weapon), but I never really got any bites. I did however get a few invites to help other groups run places like Trengal Keep and Coterie Infineum, which was a lot of fun. My attitude towards the game is pretty much based on the last time I grouped up. Everytime I group, I have a great time and want to play more, but if I log in don't group for a while, I get a *meh* feeling. I'm hoping, along with everyone else, that the mergers combined with the LFG enhancements, make the game feel not so empty.
