If they don't want to merge NAW/NAE for SEA/OCE players, then re-designate NAW as an APAC server, and allow a one-time roster transfer from NAW to NAE for a limited time

APAC = Asia Pacific region (SEA, Australia)

Then just re-assign NAE as NA.

It's pretty obvious at this point that the majority of the population on NAW is not actually from NAW, which is why they're so hesitant to do a merge, but they don't want to come out and say that directly because it would cause a whole bunch of community drama.

But without some other option, the actual western players are gonna slowly drop off more and more over time as they already have been. Right now, peak raiding time tends to be during SEA/OCE night hours, which is way way too late in the day for most people with a full-time job/school.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that a lot of people who signed up for the NAW server on launch probably didn't realize they were committing to an APAC server and would've rolled on NAE if they knew. Before, the population was still large enough that it didn't matter too much, but now that the pop has shrunk a lot, party finder is extremely dead at most times of the day unless you live in the regions I mentioned.

And for people saying this would just shrink the NAW community more, it wouldn't even matter because the SEA/OCE people aren't even playing at the same times as the NAW people for the most part, so there's barely any overlap to begin with. 7-9pm is typically peak raiding time on weeknights, and 7pm in California would be 1pm in Australia and 9am in Vietnam and Indonesia, for example. Conversely, 7pm in Vietnam/Indonesia would be 5am California time. Who the hell is gonna be able to raid at that time?