Personally, I'm just loving the number of know-it-alls who are citing hardware performance as a factor in the situation. They clearly have no idea how the hardware in a server farm works. There's not one box sitting there with a sticky note that says "Balmung" on it. The term "server" for an in-game server is very misleading in that regard, because people confuse the concept of a physical server with the concept of a software server. The datacenter is a cluster of physical servers which collectively operate as a single ultra-powerful unit, on which the various software servers are run. Transferring characters from one software server to another doesn't in any way affect the performance of the hardware - it's not functionally much different than moving files to different folders on your local machine's hard drive. It's a simplified explanation but it gets the job done.
edit: Excepting, of course, if there is a limit to the size in which a given database file can remain error-free, in which case it's still not a hardware performance issue, but, transferring from one software server to another would at least potentially re-stabilize a database which was nearing critical mass.
However, evidence suggests that transferring off of a server doesn't actually reduce the database size of the server...
The evidence: If you transfer off of a server, it renders the friend list of those who had you listed as "(Unable to Retrieve)" rather than your character name, which suggests your character was removed from the server's database... however, it's a fake. All it actually does is dummy out the ability for others to see when the character is logged in or be able to message them, because as soon as you transfer back - even if you did it weeks later, and even if you renamed the character - if someone didn't remove that "(Unable to Retrieve)" from their friend list, your character will show up on their list again and they can go right back to seeing you online and messaging you (though they might be a little confused if you changed your name). This means that once a character is created in a given position on the database, that database ID belongs to the character forever.
So... really, transferring off a server doesn't appear to do anything at all, in terms of the hardware performance or database stability.
edit: Excepting, of course, if there is a limit to the size in which a given database file can remain error-free, in which case it's still not a hardware performance issue, but, transferring from one software server to another would at least potentially re-stabilize a database which was nearing critical mass.
However, evidence suggests that transferring off of a server doesn't actually reduce the database size of the server...
The evidence: If you transfer off of a server, it renders the friend list of those who had you listed as "(Unable to Retrieve)" rather than your character name, which suggests your character was removed from the server's database... however, it's a fake. All it actually does is dummy out the ability for others to see when the character is logged in or be able to message them, because as soon as you transfer back - even if you did it weeks later, and even if you renamed the character - if someone didn't remove that "(Unable to Retrieve)" from their friend list, your character will show up on their list again and they can go right back to seeing you online and messaging you (though they might be a little confused if you changed your name). This means that once a character is created in a given position on the database, that database ID belongs to the character forever.
So... really, transferring off a server doesn't appear to do anything at all, in terms of the hardware performance or database stability.
Lydia Lightfoot ~ The Reliquarian's Guild «Relic» ~ Lavender Beds, Ward 12, #41
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?
