Overall I enjoy the idea of a Mega Server and unified gaming community in ESO. However, it does raise some questions. Others have asked about how it will affect RP players, gaming friends, and finding like minded players. Now I would like to add some questions focused on the AvA aspect of the game.

1) Mega Server vs Many "Shards" - How will the player pop. be divided among the 3 factions when joining the AvA zone? Will there be multiple "shards" of Cyrodiil or everyone crammed into 1 Mega server zone? One Mega Server vs "shards" propose different kinds of questions and issues such as faction balance, queues, guilds/community and zerging. Also, if you have multiple "shards", does your player get flagged to one the first time he joins each new round, or is it reassigned each time you zone in and out?

2) Guilds & Keep Claiming - With 1 Mega server, the same power gaming guilds will dominate control of the keeps and forts. Limiting the exp for other groups. If you have multiple "shards" and zone into one each time you join, how will they make sure you get to play in the instance your guild has been working on? If they keep sending you to the same one joined prior, how will still control pop. balance?

3) AvA Progression - With multiple "shards" comes the issue of AvA progression. Ownership of Keeps, Scrolls, and Emperor will be divided depending on which "shard" you play on. That is important to the AvA community and the sense of accomplishment and goals. Changing how zone and resource control will feel to the players who took part in the fighting from day to day. It would also have an impact on the Alliance bonuses in PvE.

4) Dreaded 4th Faction - Players are allowed to make characters from each Alliance. What will prevent players from swapping to the "winning" side? This will have more impact on a 1 Zone system vs multi. "shard" system. Will you lock a players characters into a different "shard" separate for each Alliance on their account? Exp bonuses alone will not prevent this. It has not worked in any past MMO. You have a large group of players who will always be drawn to the "Victory" spam and not dieing to greater numbers, over some behind the scenes bonus. The exp. factor doesn't outweigh their fun and instant gratification.

5) Zerg - ESO boost about having 200 players on screen at one time. With 1 Mega Server, that would be a drop in the bucket of the AvA community. This leads me to believe they will have to provide Multiple "Shards", but still have yet to find info regarding this. The massive population would also undermined most of the skill factor and lead to possible "keep swapping" instead of actually front lines and sense of zone control. With unchecked populations, the size of armies would be insanely large. Making a keep defense almost impossible before it is zerged through. I love large scale PvP and realize it has its own set of skills and tactics. But some how population control has to be applied.

6) Queues - Depending on which system (1 Server vs Multi) the queuing system needs to be handled correctly. What happens to a player that goes Link Dead? Will be get an ETA or Place In Line status update? What will make sure if I leave or get kicked out, that I will be put back into the right AvA zone with my friends/guild? How will AFK work inside the AvA zone?

7) AvA Community & Time Zones - Multiple "shards" will divide the AvA community. The dynamic of an AvA community is as important to some players as any in-game content. It is fun to have feared, hated, & respected rivalries, As well as strong, honorable, and uneasy alliances. It has much more depth and experience to the AvA. I can imagine it would also be more appealing to the RP community. What will help keep enemies, allies, and recognizable players taking part in the same AvA day to day, round to round? How will the different Time Zone of players be handed regarding this to?

I realize many of these features can not be discussed or tested yet do to NDA, limited information, or not being available in Beta yet. Still I would like to propose these questions to the community and dev staff to help further the discussion regarding AvA and the Mega Server System.

The PvP portion will have separate servers hosting a couple thousand or something. How they'll handle that (will we choose?) is anyone's guess but the entire pop isn't playing one PvP game literally. It would ruin it if that were the case.

When SOE had team balance issues with Planetside 2 they moved people between the servers to alleviate that.

1 - Each player is assigned to a campaign the first time they enter Cyrodiil, so you'll be fighting with and against the same people pretty much all the time, It's kind of like a sub-shard containing 2000 players.

2 - You're prioritised to be placed with your guild mates and friends first of all, and since you're assigned to the same campaign, you'll never suddenly be put into another campaign without your guild. There will inevitably be some 'PowerHouse' guilds who only focus on PvP and capturing and controlling keeps, but also guilds can control resource points like farms, lumber mills and mines.

3 - Not sure what you're asking, but as I seem to recall if you're alliance captures an Elder Scroll, that alliance receives a buff of some sort.

4 - You can switch campaigns, but it costs as I recall quite a lot of alliance points or gold (Maybe both, not 100% sure) so that should deter a lot of people from doing that. Also, each new character you create is assigned to a different campaign, so you can't exactly switch to an alt character to be on the winning side, as the alliance war on that campaign will be completely different.

5 - There will be some zergs sure, but this is where I think strategy will beat numbers, remember it's a 3 way war, if one army zeros into a keep, captures it then moves on to the next keep, then the third faction can stroll in and take it, that would result in an endless cycle, so then zerging is really not a good strategy. in terms of numbers, they mentioned if an alliance is very limited or underpopulated, then they will receive some form a buff.

6 - They mentioned in an AuA article that you are given a window to log back in if you DC, I'm not sure how AFK players will be handled.

7 - Fighting the same people, forming rivalries, guild rivalries and working with guild mates forming strategies to capture the Imperial City and engaging in huge battles should be enough incentive here.

4. I'm quite sure of it, but do not want to find where it was said.

So there are two caps: soft cap and hard cap.

Hard cap is easy - there can not be more then 1000 players on Cappaign from one Alliance, so it is said that they are prepared for 200 players in one battle, but it is not said there can not be all people fight together making huge zerg lag.

Soft cap - if some Alliance is underpopulated (for example 100 palyers only) then also all other Alliances will be capped to similar number (120), in this case if people start to play winning Alliance it will simply turn out that they can not play - because campaign is almost all time busy.

6. AFKs will not be handled, only other Alliances can handle them properly

I think the mistake most people make (and it is only because ZOS adv) is that world will be huge and one megaserver, so first implression is:

one meeeeegaserver - milion of players together, huuuuuge world - perhaps size of France

so all seems this way at first.