[2022] Preventing Server Merges and Avoiding Launch Day Queue Boredom with Sanctus

A problem with Ashes of Creation, is that the game is very anti-server merge at its core. If my server's population dies down, but I have a lot invested in it, if the server gets merged I lose a ton of progress. All the hard work my guild put in to a particular node goes to waste. The local economy gets completely changed, we lose basically all of our progress in a game that's centered around node progression and maintenance.

So, I was thinking today of how to prevent server merges from occuring, assuming that server populations are bound to dwindle by a certain percentage. Although admittedly, if the game is as amazing as I think it will be, player retention will be higher than a certain more recent MMO that is plagued with server merges.

The plan I've heard Intrepid is planning to do is to have long queue times at launch, not at the point of Classic Wow, but still long. With the purpose of course being that they're not launching servers to accommodate long queue times, only to have half the playerbase leave after a month of playing. I was thinking that during these queue times, we could be in a separate server dedicated to Sanctus, and once we step through the Divine Gateway to Verra, we get a queue reservation to your server, but can still "play the game" on Sanctus.

Some suggestions of how this could work. You get an idea of the crafting system in Ashes while in Sanctus, and are able to gather tier 1 materials to take with you to Verra. You can find out some Ashes lore, especially over 4000 years of Sanctus lore, in this tutorial area. You get to do some kind of rewarding activity while you wait for your main to reach Verra. Heck, maybe you can get to level 5 on Sanctus, and have a whole social environment to find a guild while you're waiting in line. Sanctus can even be a "megaserver" like what Guild Wars 2 does.

My point basically being, if Intrepid can stretch out gameplay on Sanctus long enough, and have players that stick with the game for 5 hours before getting on Verra, they might be ensuring healthy server populations down the line.