Goodbye icewatch

[willowe]

Ascended of Icewatch,

Since before the launch of RIFT 2.3 & Free-to-Play we have seen the population of the European Server Cluster become increasingly more concentrated. The current growth we have seen on Icewatch has reached the point where it has begun to impact your ability to enjoy the game and will soon become unmanageable.

To prevent this from occurring and to ensure you all have the best experience RIFT has to offer, we will be converting Icewatch to a Trial Only shard this evening. This means only Meridian & Sanctum will be accessible. All players will need to relocate to two new English Language PvE shards taking the place of Icewatch & Akala (German RP) using our free in-game Character Transfer.

We realize this is going to be a big surprise, and some of you may be upset. We also understand that this is not ideal, however, at this time opening a new Server Cluster would do more harm than good for all of our European players.

This change will happen during tonight’s scheduled Hot Fix, after which you will be able to log in & follow the instructions when clicking the “Transfer” button at character select. We will be on-hand in-game & the forums to assist in answering questions and make this transition as swift and stress-free as possible.

Thanks for your cooperation, I encourage you to post any questions you might have. We look forward to getting you back to enjoying all the RIFT 2.3: Empyreal Assault has to offer with minimal disruption!

What does “Trial Shard” mean?

Trial Shards offer access to only the starting cities of Meridian and Sanctum. All your characters are still fully accessible and maintain all their features, equipment and items, including their Dimensions. They can be transferred off the shard at any time – our character transfer is still available, of course for free. You can find the transfer function in your character select screen. Guild transfers are also available – if a guild master transfers, he will automatically be given the option to transfer the guild, and all guild members will have the option to follow on their next login.

Please note: The usual transfer restrictions do not apply to trial shards, which means that you can transfer any character with any amount of platinum, as long as their mailbox is empty, as well as any guild, as long as their guild bank is empty.

Please keep in mind, though, that your character name may already be taken on your shard of choice. Our support will not be able to help freeing up a specific name. We understand that role players connect a lot with their name and are very sorry about this inconvenience.

Please feel free to use the forums to coordinate your move with friends and guildmates. We also understand it if you have to vent, but please try to keep your feedback constructive and confined to this thread. Rest assured that you will be heard.

Despite this, we sincerely hope that you will enjoy your future on one of the better populated German servers. Thank you for playing and supporting RIFT!

For more information on Free Characters Transfers please see this handy Free Character Transfer Tutorial.

Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/general-d...m-tonight.html

---------- Post added 2013-06-14 at 01:01 AM ----------

The two new shards will be:

English-PvE
Gelidra
Zaviel

[Millennía]

Just seen this to. Pretty bad of them to give 45 minutes notice tbh. I convinced 3 friends to play this game and now I have to try and get in contact with them to tell them what is happening and what server to go to...

[Tankendog]

This has both its ups and downs.

Yesterday it had a que over 1000. Thats insane. This will open up more zone events too :]

[Rakash]

I don't get it.
They are just closing it down?

[Pachycrocuta]

Not unexpected when everyone is concentrated to a single server. People always ask "What's the most populated server?" or "What's the best server?", and then complain that they have to wait in a queue to log in. Not saying that's true of any particular person.

[RoninaThorstone]

Too many people playing rift.

Trion, you're too good at your job.

[willowe]

I don't get it.
They are just closing it down?

They're forcing a migration.

Basically they're moving the two-servers-worth-of-people that is Icewatch into the two new ones, and dropping off Icewatch.

[Calliso]

Yeah I think that Trion really should have given more notice on this. That being said people were demanding they do something right now to fix the queue issues guess Trion listened! lol. Though I do feel if Trion had locked Ice watch before f2p to play hit this might not have been necessary. Wonder if they are going to do this on NA?

[Millennía]

Funny thing is that I was reading the chat before the server went down and everyone said they were going to Zaviel because it sounded cooler. It would be so funny if everyone went to the same shard and the problem repeated

[Calliso]

Funny thing is that I was reading the chat before the server went down and everyone said they were going to Zaviel because it sounded cooler. It would be so funny if everyone went to the same shard and the problem repeated

Yeah that is my concern too is that they will just end up with yet another overloaded server lol.

[Deleted]

Funny thing is that I was reading the chat before the server went down and everyone said they were going to Zaviel because it sounded cooler. It would be so funny if everyone went to the same shard and the problem repeated

hope not but i think some one said thay will stop transfers if they see to many moving to the same one

[Millennía]

hope not but i think some one said thay will stop transfers if they see to many moving to the same one

Yea, just read that.

We will lock transfers to any shard that is becoming potentially unbalanced. Anyone who has a guild or existing character on the shards will be unaffected, but anyone who is not established on the shards would be unable to transfer or create characters.

We truly hope this is not necessary & will only do so if it becomes that way.

Cheers

[Edge-]

Kinda a shitty situation, but I think they're trying to counteract what happened to them at launch. They opened way too many servers, and a lot of them quickly became ghost towns, necessitating significant server mergers.

They could/should have definitely opened 1-2 new servers for this per region, because I know a lot of players would have happily played on a fresh server. I feel bad for everyone who is affected by this, and I can't even imagine how long the queues are for F2P players right now (I've had a 23m queue as a patron, which is nuts >.>)

[TirielWoW]

Kinda a shitty situation, but I think they're trying to counteract what happened to them at launch. They opened way too many servers, and a lot of them quickly became ghost towns, necessitating significant server mergers.

They could/should have definitely opened 1-2 new servers for this per region, because I know a lot of players would have happily played on a fresh server. I feel bad for everyone who is affected by this, and I can't even imagine how long the queues are for F2P players right now (I've had a 23m queue as a patron, which is nuts >.>)

Every server I've looked at tonight has an hour + wait time. Faeblight is sitting at an almost 3 hour queue.

[Deleted]

Why did they have to do it in the middle of the night ><


Nvm, got my answer.

By the time we would be able to do this in North America tomorrow it would be approaching prime time on Friday evening in Europe.

To do this then would be even worse - and entering the weekend we can only anticipate the situation to become more unmanageable.

It's a rock & a hard place - we opted to do what we know will ensure a better experience for everyone as soon as the dust settles.

Thanks again,

[Pachycrocuta]

Every server I've looked at tonight has an hour + wait time. Faeblight is sitting at an almost 3 hour queue.

Faeblight is my server, and holy crap. Guess I am glad that I log in pre 6pm eastern time, as I have not had the pleasure of experiencing a queue to log in. I would love it if they opened up a new RP server for NA, as I would gladly transfer all of my characters over to that one. I like Faeblight, but the RP is almost nonexistant and too many griefers I have come across.

[TirielWoW]

Faeblight is my server, and holy crap. Guess I am glad that I log in pre 6pm eastern time, as I have not had the pleasure of experiencing a queue to log in. I would love it if they opened up a new RP server for NA, as I would gladly transfer all of my characters over to that one. I like Faeblight, but the RP is almost nonexistant and too many griefers I have come across.

My only "high level" character is on Shatterbone (58 Cleric), but I wouldn't mind transferring her if I had a server to go to. Unfortunately, Shatterbone's queue was over an hour. rofl.

[Pachycrocuta]

My only "high level" character is on Shatterbone (58 Cleric), but I wouldn't mind transferring her if I had a server to go to. Unfortunately, Shatterbone's queue was over an hour. rofl.

My highest is a 50 mage on Faeblight that I abandoned when I came back in late April, and decided to start up a new character (when I got that raptr deal). I have a few characters that I transferred over to Wolfsbane when I wanted to free up some slots on Faeblight but didn't want to delete the character. Also have a 50 warrior that I moved over to Wolfsbane to free up some space.

Elrar, I know you come to these forums. Just thought I would give a little hint about opening another RP shard in NA, like so many requested way back when you first shut down shards and closed off Wolfsbane from transfers, making Faeblight flooded with non-RPers. Pretty please?

[Tankendog]

Are they going to launch another NA server? Everyone is full with a 1 hour+ wait for non patrens.

[zito]

Are they going to launch another NA server? Everyone is full with a 1 hour+ wait for non patrens.

Probably not. This is a population flux because it just went F2P as expected, the population can easily stabilize itself in maybe a week. Putting in a new server is a risk and it might end up being dead by next week.

I for one have not gotten any que's at all and everyone is saying servers are full servers are full...