merging the swedish server has had a surprising approval rate from the swedish players however i wouldnt suggest you keep merging servers as the old players give up playing. Especially as some servers prove far more competitive than net server. for example: uk, pt, es, fr.
perhaps the root of the problem would be to get more players interested in this game rather than facilitate the game for the existent players.
If you accept there will be no new players, then you wont bother to do anything to capture a new audience.
since im not head of marketing for innogames im not here proposing an advertisement campaign but a move to capture the new users who often just move onto to another game after a few days/weeks.
If you start playing this and just identify this game as another pay to win type game/app where you build your house type thing like farmville you wont capture the majority of players. You download another one and you were busy for your "15minutes" with TW.
this isnt what the original TW was and we used to mock players for this ( although i played farmville, i didnt play TW as if it was farmville xD)
the noob had a chance and it was for free until it was worth it to put 10 euros in for 5 months.
The game isn't built as a "mobile" sim to attract and keep casual mobile players. The base of the game is an og multiplayer strategy sim, it is unforgiving, and has a large skill curve. Add to that all of the PP features and you're just making the barrier of entry larger and larger. The direction the game took has just made it lose it's identity resulting in a declining player base. The game doesn't know what it wants to be, you can not appeal to the "clash of clans" audience given the original mechanics of the game.
Let's look at the appealing factors of the game
1) Skill curve, something that isn't so appealing to casuals.
2) The impact of effort, again something that isn't appealing to casuals.
3) The communty aspect, not something that a casual logs in to do
The new player which will get attracted to TW is someone who appreciates the basic functions and who wants to get better, not a casual. Obviously people learn at their own pace, and the game does have a space for casuals, but it's going to be ones who are interested in moving towards being a "hobbyist".
In the past new players had the chance on the rim, they would grow close to other players, and form pesky family tribes that vets would complain about. And by the time the good players turn their eyes on them they would at least have had a good enough experience to want to start another world.
Right now the population is declining, and this population decline is causing an ever bigger exodus of players. Merging servers would both help the vets who want a bigger populated world, and the new players who will be able to learn and grow on the rim.
I don't know if some servers are more skilled then the other, but in the past we had a huge variety of skill in the player base and it worked out well, i don't see why it should not have the same result.
I agree about your opinion on PP features, and i say that it's quite clear from worlds such as brazil 100, poland 150 that such worlds still work very well given they have a decent population.
I'm not in many of the small sites to understand if they want to have their own community or if they want to merge, but from my point of view for "Tribal Wars" as a franchise the most important thing atm is bulstering the player base, and creating an enviornment where multiple skill gaps can exist, and the only way to do that right now is by mergers.
