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From the Official Boards:

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Thanks to all of you, EverQuest II is growing.

We've been attracting more and more people over the past months. That's one of the big factors that went into our decision to spend time improving the progression for new characters. We've been getting a lot of feedback on it, improving it as we go, and we look forward to it going live this week as a part of Update 19!

There's another topic we've been listening on that I wanted to talk about today. Server growth, and the perception of the size of the worlds.

In reality most of our 36 US, Europe, and Asia EQ2 servers currently house the same number of people as your average server from any MMO. Because of the size of our game world, some of the worlds feel less full than they should for them be ideal, fun places to play.

When we first started out, EQ2 had 369 total zones or instances of zones. The game has since expanded to having over 600 of them, just about doubling the playable space.

On some worlds, it can seem like there are fewer people to make friends and group with, fewer opportunities to bump into others. Nothing makes a world feel more alive than other people. When you don't run into enough other people, folks who otherwise love the game are more likely to drift away.

It's no secret. It's a problem that's been discussed on a few of the server forums, and it's one that we've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about as well.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to do something that might seem counterintuitive on the surface for a growing game, and combine a few of our existing servers reinvesting in the ones that remain.

Some people who don't play EQ2 will have bad things to say about this move. Yes, this is a controversial decision, but our primary concern has to be making sure that the worlds are all healthy, fun places to play for the people who enjoy playing EQ2.

Let me say that again:

Our existing players are our number one concern. Providing a good game experience for you is infinitely more important to us than anything else, including what this move will undoubtedly prompt outsiders to say. In time that will pass, and we'll all still be here playing and working on an EQ2 that has server communities that are much better prepared for the bright future in store for them.

We're going to do this in a way that is meant to have the least interruption or negative impact on those who are affected.



The Plan

From now until the launch of Kingdom of Sky and PvP, here is what we plan to do:

1) On Thursday 2/2/06, we will be temporarily opening the Character Transfer Service to all users free of charge.

During this period, normal operation of the EQ2 Character Transfer service will be suspended and all characters can opt to move elsewhere once.

If you've been debating joining friends on a different server, you can take advantage of this opportunity no matter which server you're coming from.

This is to let people who don't mind leaving their guilds (or are not in a guild), and can pack up all of their shared bank belongings, choose any destination server they prefer, except for Antonia Bayle.

For the free transfer period, Antonia Bayle will be removed as a transfer destination. It's already the most full server that we have, and we unfortunately can't risk a situation where that server would become overloaded.



2) At the same time, Update #19 will be going live. During the downtime for this update, we will be doing some database maintenance to prepare for the server moves.

One thing that we will be doing is removing placeholder characters who are under level 5, have less than 1 gold, and have not been played in more than 60 days.

If you have characters that you wish to keep that are under level 5 (adventure or tradeskill level) and have less than 1 gold, please make sure to log them in at least once before Thursday 2/2/06 if you want to keep them.



3) From there, this is the schedule of daily moves:

On Monday, 2/6/2006, Faydark will move into Befallen
On Tuesday, 2/7/2006, Innothule will move into Crushbone
On Wednesday, 2/8/2006, Steamfont will move into Oasis
On Thursday, 2/9/2006, Oggok will move into Blackburrow
On Friday, 2/10/2006, Neriak will move into Kithicor
On Monday, 2/13/2006, Lavastorm will move into Nektulos
On Tuesday, 2/14/2006, Grobb will move into Everfrost
On Wednesday, 2/15/2006, Highkeep will move into Butcherblock
On Thursday, 2/16/2006, Toxxulia will move into Guk
On Friday, 2/17/2006, Shadowhaven will move into The Bazaar

Throughout the process, we plan on using some of this time to augment all of the worlds and their databases with new hardware to ensure they're even better positioned to handle the growth EQ2 sees week to week.

4) On the weekend of Friday 2/17 through Sunday 2/19, as a part of the pre-launch event leading up to the release of Kingdom of Sky, Bonus Experience Weekend will be returning on top of the existing live event that will be occurring in many of the overland zones.

If you missed out on helping build the Griffon Towers, you won't want to miss this weekend.

5) On Monday, 2/20/2006 after everyone has had at least one weekend to decide if they enjoy their destination server, the Character Transfer service will once again begin charging for the transfer service and will again be available for transfers to Antonia Bayle.

6) On Tuesday, 2/21/2006, Kingdom of Sky will be coming to all servers and five PvP servers will be launching as well:

Two in the US (One will be Station Exchange Enabled and the other will not),
One in the EU-English language launcher,
One in the French launcher,
One in the German launcher.

EverQuest II will then be a game with 31 worlds across our global locations.



The Effects

Moving characters and guilds around has traditionally had effects such as names needing to be changed as a part of the process. The idea is to make the move as transparent as possible. That's not to say that there won't be a few visible effects.

Here are some of the details of what people can expect as a part of these moves.

For those characters who do not choose to move early via the Character Transfer Service and are moved automatically on their moving day, some may be automatically renamed (with one or more 'x's appended to their name) in the case that their name is already taken by an older character. If that occurs, the renamed character will be able to use the /rename command once to choose a new name for themselves.

For guilds who are moved, the same thing may occur with the guild name, though is much less likely. For those guilds who are renamed as a result of the automatic moves, a guild leader can use the /guild rename command to rename their guild once.

Characters who move across servers will retain memories of their item discoveries from their old servers, just like they do today. No one will lose records of discoveries.

Characters who move and have items up for offline sale on the brokers will need to re-list their items on their new servers.

Characters who wait for the automatic move day will have their settings and posessions migrated with them, including UI settings, in-game mail, stored notes for Friends and Ignore lists, recipe filters, macros, socials, guilds, and shared banks.

The day that Shadowhaven moves, all listed auctions will be reset and listing fees refunded. Items will be returned to the game.



In Closing

I understand that this move will be seen as a controversial one, especially so given that we're not doing this for the reasons games have done it in the past.

Hopefully the above steps that we are taking clearly communicate that we have every intention of ensuring that there is as little disruption to your game experience as possible. We ask that you view this move in the same way that we do: a short term disruption followed by a much longer term period of continued growth and server community health.

Your game is our passion. We wouldn't want to do anything that we felt was hurting either you or it.



As always, you have our thanks for playing EverQuest II.

- Scott Hartsman
Senior Producer, EverQuest II

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Scott Hartsman
Senior Producer, EverQuest II

Sooooo......

I guess whether or not you believe their explanation depends on how cynical you are.

Coming from a server to which another will be moved (Nektulos) I personally think it's a good thing. We seemed to lose a lot of people when the Euro servers opened up sometime after the US launch.

I'd like to welcome my new immigrants to Najena..wait...dang, we're not getting any.

/flex Yep, I guess I'm singlehandedly responsible for the large population of Najena and the shamless join-my-server plugs! :)


That is a very good thing. My raid group went to face a 4-hour named pop in Sinking Sands. After we got wiped and the mob despawned, we realized we could either A) wait 4 hours for a repop, or B) hustle over to Sinking Sands-2 and get the named.

We did, it was there, we got wiped again...dang...

OBD lamented:
And what better place to establish new roots than on Najena!

Guildless? I think we may have something you like.
Unless you like hardcore raid leaders that boot players based on real-time parsing of DPS, and a requirement to participate in twice nightly raid.
But if that's not what you're looking for, I have a Foundation t-shirt with your name already on it. :)

I am certainly going to take advantage of the server move. Not knowing any better I joined a US-orientated server when I joined over a year ago and have regretted ever since not being able to group with people from my own area of the world (Europe).

Next question: what are the best UK/europe based servers? Can anyone advise me? I am an English guy based in Amsterdam so would prefer UK-based, but European are OK as well.

Any tips gratefully received.

Excelsis
41 Befallen

Glorlaindeo, check out this thread with a link to all servers.

"Some people who don't play EQ2 will have bad things to say about this move."

...but don't you believe them. They're the same people who said the Earth wasn't flat, and the moon wasn't made of cheese, and that WoW wasn't too easy and would beat EQ2.

I'm not here to hype WoW, or denigrate EQ2. I was actually feeling a little nostalgic for my Tarew Marr necro, and was hunting around some EQ sites to get a feel for how the game is going. I can tell you it's a night-and-day difference. WoW has had a huge nub population boom since Christmas, and nearly all the servers have queues at peak times even with new servers added just for the anticipated Christmas boom.

That release of the alpha build as retail sure looks like it killed your game. Well, to be honest, the game started its death throes from the day SoE took over. It's too bad; I'd really like to play a necro again.

-Revulsion
Tarew Marr
Skywall

Edited, Tue Jan 31 13:09:12 2006 by davehammy

Edited, Tue Jan 31 14:04:11 2006 by davehammy

Have you ever tried EQ2? Judging by your post, I am going to go ahead and conjecture that you have not. I don't know how you can say they started their death throes from the day they took over. EQ2 is much better now than when it started. It is increasingly getting better every day.

Cynics and naysayers will say the same things you have just stated. Maybe we should take what the devs said at face value. Come to Lucan DLere and see if there is a lull in the population. We have already held discussions in regards to server populations on this board more than a few times. Too many factors are at work when someone says "Nektulos Server is dead!" There could be 2,000 people on at any given time, yet they only see a few in each zone. They assume it is dead. There are so many zones in EQ2 that even 10,000 people can be spread out quite generously.

So, take your WoW. I'll stick with EQ2.

From someone that has played WoW, EQ, EQ2, and DAoC, I am returning to EQ2 beacause i missed it I had quit after the class revamp that changed so much that I liked about my class. I am comming back because WoW while easy and having the same type of raid system EQ1 does, just did not fill the spot that EQ2 did in my heart. The only MMO I have liked more than EQ2 has been the original EQ, though the graphics made me cry when I reloaded the game after a long stint of playing newer MMO's. But I ramble, I was there in EQ when they merged my beloved Solusek Ro, and I was there long after that, when people will still shouting that EQ was dead becasue of the server mergers, and of course EQ is still going strong, EQ2 will most likly suffer the same claims of death and doom, while a year from now someone that is new to the game will look at this post and laugh

Edited, Tue Jan 31 20:36:12 2006 by simondragonfly

Rudman, I sent you a PM with lots of good info. :)

Very interesting chart on post-merger server population.

http://www.eq2census.com/servermove.jpg

According to this, my server (and many others) will end up more populous than AB.

Maybe I have rose-colored glasses on, but based on this info, I think I believe SOE's rationale and their claim that they're growing, not shrinking.

Apparently it uses the same data as eq2players.com. Probably parsing it from the web page source that come back when you search there, either directly in an HTTP session he sets up or copy/pasting the source from a browser.

Anyone eevn think that maybe kust maybe they are freeing up servers so that they can make them PvP servers?

Just a thought...


Kinda a no brainer there if you ask me. Bring in PvP with no hardware costs :)