You may have read that there is a server merge coming at Rift next week.
And our server, Alsbeth, the instance group server, is on the list for PvE shards.
Transferring Shard: –> Receiving Shard:
PVE
- Belmont –> Millrush
- Galena –> Millrush
- Atrophinius –> Greenscale
- Crucia –> Greenscale
- Alsbeth –> Shatterbone
PVE – RP
- Estrael –> Faeblight
- Shadefallen –> Faeblight
PVP
- Sunrest(PVP-RP) –> Deepstrike
- Freeholme –> Deepstrike
- Dayblind –> Deepstrike
- Faemist –> Briarcliff
Not surprisingly, Trion isn’t calling it a server merge. They have said that they are flagging more trial servers. That is what they tell you in game.
They don’t tell you what a trial shard is, only that for the “best Rift experience” (and unless somebody can prove that Rift is an acronym, I am not putting it in all caps) you should get the hell off the server on which you currently play.
So it looks like The Batsmen of the Calamari will have to pick a new home.
On the plus side, it looks like you can move a whole guild intact to a new server. I think the guild master has to do that, and Potshot holds the reigns of power. The server transfer interface looks simple enough.
Server Transfers
And while they say we should go from Alsbeth to Shatterbone, it is not clear to me if this is our only choice… or if that is the only choice we get for free. Shatterbone isn’t even one of the recommended choices on the server list. Score one for inconsistency!
I am sure we will find some way to mess this up. It is part of the guild tradition.
So that will be the first task on this weekend’s instance group agenda, move to a new server. We will see if that leaves us enough time to do anything else.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I just read this on Massively. I never look at the email address I used for Rift so I hadn’t seen anything about it before. Mrs Bhagpuss and I left Faeblight for Shadefallen about six weeks after launch. The last thing I want to do is go back there! Compared to Shadefallen, Faeblight is quite unpleasant.
Also, we have all our slots filled on both servers already, so how is that going to work? I have to say that I’m hardly logging in to Rift any more anyway and Mrs Bhagpuss stopped logging in months ago so this may well result in the end of Rift for us. When the 6-month sub runs out I doubt we’ll resub.
As for your server move, unless it’s changed every Rift player is entitled to one free server move per week anyway and if the guild leader goes that sends a message to all guildmembers asking them if they want to move too. I haven’t used it myself but I’ve heard it’s very quick and simple. I would have recommended you move to Shadefallen, a delightful server, but that’s out now.
I have a character on Millrush and it seems quite pleasant, of that’s any help.
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Just a clarification on what Bhagpuss said, I believe it is one free server transfer every 7 days, per CHARACTER, not player, though I could be mistaken.
Regardless, you should be free to transfer to whatever server you like. I suspect the recommendation is simply to help stop people from transferring from one server destined to trial-dom to another.
Strangely enough I transferred all my characters from Shadefallen to Faeblight long ago. While I agree with Bhagpuss that the server community on Shadefallen was more pleasant, it was also a bit of a ghost town.
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You can transfer once per week for free. You can transfer to any server that is currently accepting transfers for your faction or to any server on which “space has been reserved.” I suspect they do the latter in case the server fills up before you transfer, to ensure that guilds don’t get broken up inadvertently.
If the guild leader transfers, the guild goes with him. He needs to make sure the guild vault is empty, including the cash reserve. There’s a pretty thorough FAQ on the subject on the Trion site.
The process is fast and, in my experience, relatively painless. Compared to some server merge fiascoes I’ve experienced over the years (Age of Conan being the most blatant example), Trion continues to impress me. At least they have a backup plan for population loss, something Funcom never really developed.
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I moved 2 characters to Alsbeth on the same day, so I think it is a per-character restriction, not a per-account restriction. It was quick and easy, just had to make sure I didn’t have any open auctions and that my mailbox was empty, then logged out and clicked the transfer button. Logged back in and was on the new server.
So you should still have plenty of time to run an instance. Though if you’re planning on running DD, well…. it’s not a long instance precisely, but it is longer than RotF or IT. Plus you’ll all barely be at level for it, so it may take you a while becuz of that as well.
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