Server Merges, PvP Clusters and the Destruction of a Community

Back in February 2005, I was playing DAoC-- better known as Dark Age of Camelot. It was somewhere around this time that Mythic, the developers for DAoC, began clustering the first set of servers to cope with the dwindling population.

To those who are unfamiliar with DAoC, I will expound: It is a heavily PvP-centric MMO where the end-game content is mostly roaming around the open fields of the three playable realms, Midgard, Hibernia or Albion, and killing any enemy players you could find within.

So as you can imagine the PvP community was a giant part of what made DAoC great. To this day I still long for the days of those great moments when I met with a memorable or feared opponent on the field and had a chance to test my skill against them. Nothing was more satisfying than winning that fight and seeing the kill-spam broadcast across the entire zone.

Nowadays when I talk to DAoC veterans, we all still remember those moments and that sense of community. In fact, I think the reason DAoC is so memorable is because of that community that was built on the battlefield. So if so many veterans are discontent with current MMOs, what keeps us from going back?

When the servers were clustered, the recognition of opponents and familiar faces disappeared. Several severs shared the same zones now. Sure, it was still possible that you would see kill spam chat scroll by that had the names of some of your favorite server-native opponents, but it just wasn't as common anymore.

The strongest piece in what made DAoC great had been broken. Some will argue that this was temporary, but for me it dissolved the guild I had been a part of for years and dispersed the players I had grown to love and fear, thereby removing most of the enjoyment in the game.

Fast forward five years and you'll still find clustering/merging and the dissolving of a server community a pressing issue. However, this doesn't just occur in MMOs that are scrambling to clump several servers together to re-create a robust population. Even in new release MMOs, I see the argument about cross-server queues for instances and PvP zones-- a practice seemingly popularized by WoW. While it has the benefit of providing a lesser wait time, it destroys the foundation that memorable MMOs should be made of: community.

Unfortunately, server clusters seem to be a necessary evil in many instances: What is an MMO without a population to play with? However, the practice of cross-server pollination, per se, destroys a vital aspect of a memorable MMO. So back I go, into the warm nostalgia that greets me when I think of Dark Age of Camelot. And what days do I think of? The good ones-- when I knew who to expect when I went to Bledmeer Faste (Team Wizzy, I'm talking to you) and laughing on Vent with my guild over Lurikeen Grove Protectors.

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PS. For all the veterans of Dark Age of Camelot, here is a little gem from YouTube. :)