Liberty was my home and I can't see myself playing on any other server. However, what would be restored (assuming they can restore character/server data at all) is only bits and bytes. The true heart of Liberty, what I dearly loved about it, was the community -- the unique grouping of flesh-and-blood Liberty players.
That's beyond the ability of the new owners to perfectly restore.
Would those players I think about when I think of Liberty be back? Would the composition of those who do return be anywhere near what I remember and loved?
Spreading a truncated population over 16 servers also is worrisome. The old Liberty was Goldilocks sized -- not too crowded, not too sparse -- but certainly wouldn't be with, say, a 50% smaller player base (what I consider best case scenario for returning players).
A merge of servers -- or even plain migrating my characters to another server should it prove necessary -- runs into the name problem. I am very attached to my character names -- much more than I am the name's exclusivity. When the game was live, I was a staunch advocate of the unique names models. At this point, however, I've come around to supporting a non-exclusive name model, something akin to STAR TREK ONLINE or CHAMPIONS. CharaterName@GlobalHandle, with @GlobalHandle hidden where possible.
With non-exclusive names I'd be much, much less concerned about whether happens -- whether or not servers will be reconstructed or merged or whether we all have to start totally over from scratch with a blank character roster. At the same time, how much extra work it might entail removing exclusivity, I don't know. At this stage, I'll take what I can get and adjust accordingly.
-- Doc Hornet
(Speaking of unique names, I seem to have lost my old Titan Network key account info -- tied to a email account long since wiped by Yahoo and thus inaccessible. I've had to create a new Titan account and start over with post #1. An omen of things to come, perhaps?)
