Producer's Letter: Jan 30 2006. World Size and Server Moves.

[Martrae]

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

[DangerPaul]

I would move to another server since Pacemaker and friends all quit playing. Who is on what server and what alignment? I am on the Lavastorm server in Qeynos.

[Tsupa]

in summary... EQ2 failed. It has a low subscriber base. Therefore server consolidation is already happening...

[mofish]

Good move, sorely needed.

[Martrae]

Tsupa has problems with reading comprehension.

We're on Highkeep, soon to be Butcherblock. (ugh...I liked the Highkeep name.

[Harrison]

in summary... EQ2 failed. It has a low subscriber base. Therefore server consolidation is already happening...

Look at this retard

[mofish]

Love the new isle and low level game, much much much better.

[DangerPaul]

Why have I been downloading a file the size of Venus for the last 6 hours and have 2 hours to go?

[Lyion]

Love the new isle and low level game, much much much better.

Agreed, just played some and it was much more entertaining. The newb isle is very, very good now.

I'd suggest any bored WOWer give it a shot, for a change of pace.

[mofish]

Love the new isle and low level game, much much much better.

Agreed, just played some and it was much more entertaining. The newb isle is very, very good now.

I'd suggest any bored WOWer give it a shot, for a change of pace.

The game now is what it should of been at release. Now is the golden time to jump into EQ2 if you have any urge at all to check it out. So many good changes have added up to a fun game. Nice to see a team try like mad.

[dammuzis]

game is great right now
some of the classes are sorely pitiful (shadowknight, warlock)
as someone who has played both wow and eq2 (active account in each currently) eq2 is the better game. number one reason for this is the social interaction, whereas in wow the ONLY time you group is for an instance, in eq2 you can solo if you wish but most of the content is designed and funner with groups. ive made alot more ingame contacts and friends in eq then i ever will in wow regardless of how many are online

one of the main issues with eq2 is that you cannot play it on a peice of crap computer with integraded graphics, wow you can. so if it means i have to move servers in order to not have to deal with some battlenet idiot on a low end desktop so be it

[Gargamellow]

eq2 is suck..but for those of u who are on eq..go join ancient heroes on mistmoore server!! if baldamor lets u that is:P