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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games)

Massive Everquest Server Merger 38

Posted by Zonk from the emigration-problems dept.
EvilBastard writes "Sony Online Entertainment has announced the next round of server consolidation, where 36 Everquest Servers will be merged over the next 6 weeks, with 18 servers vanishing for good. Servers to vanish include Veeshan, Karana and Mithaniel Marr. Where two servers merge, the server with the highest population keeps it's name, however some characters will have the option to add their server as their in game title. This is the third server merge that Sony has performed, after the earlier combination of the 4 PVP servers and an earlier proof-of-concept merger."
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Massive Everquest Server Merger More

Massive Everquest Server Merger

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  • Something to watch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) * on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:08PM (#12101928)
    This is obviously because of dwindling player numbers as players move on to newer games (such as EQ2). Eventually, of course, they'll have one sparsely-populated server, but what happens after that? Will they eventually drop the game entirely, ala Phantasy Star Online, will there eventually be a future where the single EQ server is free to play on (as the maintenance overhead all but disappears), or will something else happen?

    What we're seeing here is what will probably be the natural death cycle of all currently popular MMORPGs (as opposed to the artificial death of DC PSO due to the death of the DC). This is going to be worth watching whether you play EQ or not.
  • the beginning of the end. Not that I actually like the game mind you (Id rather play jezzball), but MMORPGs took their que from this beast. May it rest in pieces.

  • End times are nearing... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sgant ( 178166 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:24PM (#12102116) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure EQ will continue on, but it certainly wasn't like it used to be.

    I played it up until the "Planes of Power" being my last expansion I bought...but I really miss the "good old days" back before Luclin.

    Yes, I liked it when it was a pain in the ass to get a port out of West Commonlands after auctioning in East Commonlands tunnel. I liked that the world seemed so much bigger. That if you Started in Qeynos or Halas it felt like a million miles aways since you had to run all the way to the Karanas to get a port (or head to Toxxulia). I liked that you had to take a boat and everything else.

    You see, it seemed to be a PLACE. When you were in Kelethin you actually felt you were somewhere because pockets of people were there and in other cities because it wasn't so easy to get around. The cities were busy because people were coming and going to the bank etc etc. Now, Qeynos is all but dead...Freeport is a ghost-town...Neriak which used to be such a beautiful city, is empty.

    Everyone just binds up at the Plane of Knowledge now and gets a port to whatever zone they need to go and and grind grind grind. The thrill is certainly gone.

    Well, that's just me. I haven't played in a long time.

    • It's not just you.

      It's still like that, only I've heard people have left the Planes of Power... There's a new hot bind point to get buffs, etc.

      I completely agree with every last word you said. I remember back in the day, when it was an adventure to go from Qeynos to Freeport to complete a quest... granted, that quest was probably broken, but...

      I think Planes of Power really changed EQ for the worse. On the bright side, the Mac version never got ANY expansions or updates. If you long for the Good Ole D

    • Your complaints are a result of the game designer/maintainer succumbing to the player demands that everything be made easier, thus ensuring the ultimate death of the game.

      There was a post a while back about an essay that said this very thing and people got upset, saying that you shouldn't ignore the players since they know best. They don't, though. The best way to make an online world succeed over the long run is to ignore the players - people quit, complain, whine, etc. but as long as new players are jo

      • In a game like this, what the players say/think they want, and what they players actually will enjoy or what will keep them playing, are generally not the same thing.
      • I couldn't agree more. I mean, what's next? Just have a map of the entire world and you can zoom in on and just click and insta-zone to that location. I mean, that's easier, right?

        But I do actually miss the old days. Spending nights in the Rathe mountains chaising and being chaised by Hill Giants, raiding Kithicor at night, Lady Vox...which always seemed to be a total fiasco for me with half the raid jumping down the bear-pits because they didn't listen...the insane trains in Unrest. I miss all that. Now,
      • Replying to myself because I found the original post:

        Here [slashdot.org]

        MMO's are different from traditional games because they are, by design, supposed to be continuing revenue. This means that they need to maintain current users while also attracting new ones (to replace those that leave and increase revenue.) From a business perspective it is clearly a product management issue: what changes do you allow or introduce and how do you balance short term gains or player happiness with the health of the game over the li

  • Death of EQ (Score:2, Interesting)

    by qor72 ( 120629 )
    It's also been interesting to watch as a marketing exercise from SoE. As WoW, EQ2, etc. all spawned there wasn't much of a hiccup in the game, things just moved on - despite the game having radically changed from its roots. Take note builders of level oriented MMORPGS; As your characters get older, they will get bored, you can keep throwing new levels, larger Monsters, etc. but in the end if your model is "level up and pay the monthly fee" - its a short ride. Enjoy my cash SoE. Bring on GuildWars!

  • personally.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by araczynski ( 265221 )
    i would love it if they released a singleplayer version of the game for the rest of us to enjoy :) with perhaps limited lan capabilites for those that want it. i would love to explore all of EQ by myself :)
    • Thats not a bad idea, especially if they would also massively shorten all of the time sinks. It would be much like Dungeon Siege only in a completely open-ended world and fps perspective.

    • Re:personally.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by guaigean ( 867316 )
      The problem is there's no actual plot to EQ itself other than minor side quests. I played the game for on and off 4 years, and the game is really a large interactive chat room. Auto-attack does the combat, and raids are all about loot drops. Making it single player, although a cool idea, would make for an extremely boring world, as the only substance comes from players.
    • I thought it'd be fun (and I'd resubscribe in a second) if they'd start a server that had 4x the rate of xp gain, no levels lost by dying, etc. I don't mean for the game to be made incredibly easy, just for progress to be faster.

      In my EQ days, I always wanted some kind of hack that'd just let me run around and see everything without danger of being killed. This would accomplish a similar thing for the casual gamers that don't have 8 hours a day for EQ, while still requiring them to pay monthly fees, ma
    • If you want a 1-4 player version try this Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest [ebgames.com]. My sister swears by it, though I have only played the real version.
  • EQ1 isn't dead, but it has taken a heavy hit. The mergers were going to happen... just as one day they will happen to the current round of MMORPG's. I left for WoW for a month or two but found the game just as tedious (if not to me a hair more). So I just went back to Everquest. EQ1 has become a graphical chatroom to a lot of people in a lot of ways. Those ties after all these years are hard to break. I don't expect EQ1 will die off anytime soon. Alot of the more casual gamers are holding onto it for as lon
  • Is this a potentially a harbinger of things to come for SWG's underpopulated servers?
  • They didn't even offer a free month during their 6th anniversary this year, unlike the previous 3 years. Along with EQ2, this is just another sign that they don't have faith in their own game anymore.

    So when will they stop being dicks about releasing unpatched, old-school server/rules...
    • "So when will they stop being dicks about releasing unpatched, old-school server/rules..."

      SOE doesn't care about anything that they don't think will make them quick cash. They're just milking EQ for all that it's worth, releasing 3 expansions a year to get a quick financial boost. EQ2 was far too expensive to produce, and it is a mediocre game with far too few subscribers to break even within the next few years. SOE is an ailing company because of their repeated blunders (PlanetSide, Star Wars: Galaxies
    • So when will they stop being dicks about releasing unpatched, old-school server/rules...

      When EA releases an unpatched unregulated PVP server for Ultima Online that was just like it was in 1998. OH SNAP!

  • Population dips (Score:2, Informative)

    by nytmare ( 572906 )
    Previous competitor MMORPG releases have only made EQ's populations dip mildly each time. But the Oct/Nov 2004 releases of EQ2 and World of Warcraft is the first time EQ has suffered a massive sudden decline. I estimate EQ lost two thirds of its players based on the player count in populous zones like Bazaar and Plane of Knowledge on my server. Players haven't been allowed to see the actual server population numbers for a long time now.

    The good news is the population hasn't fallen a lot since that time. EQ
  • ...isn't realm server consolidations--it's when the game is ported to the Mac!

    Fast-forward to 2008: Sony announces EQ2 for the Macintosh and begins to consolidate EQ2 PC servers.

    Hell, Sony ignores Mac users so utterly that even the damn web site brings Safari to its knees, LOL.

  • Extra Hardware? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jafuser ( 112236 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @03:05PM (#12103275)
    Maybe they could sell the 18 extra server clusters to Blizzard; they could certianly use them. =/
  • I wonder if that woman who named her baby after a character in EQ is going to be affected by this ^^
    • Yup, when she moves, her name will change to Firionax. She can always petition for a name change though. Maybe to Lanys?
  • Is this more a case of performance increases to hardware infrastructure being able to support more players? Wouldn't it make sense to merge every few years to take advantage of not having to support 10 boxes when you could support 5 instead, as an example?
    • A "server" as you know it, like Karana for example does not translate to a physical box or cluster per se. It's actually run on a per zone basis. For example both Karana and Bertoxx could be running on the same physical machine, or Karana's zones could be split out across 20 physical boxes. It's possible that LDON zones for example are all on the same server cluster independent from the other servers. This is really more of a name-change. They're not going to turn the 18 "servers" off, they are just going t
  • Rodcet Nife was one of the original servers. I'm surprised it's going to merge with Quellious and then surrender the name... so many people know "Rodcet Nife" and the big guilds that once were on Rodcet.

    I don't think they're merging based on historical standing (which server is older), but rather based on existing population.

    I think that's a slight mistake, in that while it's easier from a technical standpoint, Rodcet outranks Quellious in age. The new server should have been named Rodcet, IMHO.

    I don't p
  • Mithaniel Marr gone? Something about that hits home.. Even though I stopped playing EQ1 about 7-8 months ago. 4 years on MM and now its gone?
  • I played EQ for 3.5 years and yes I like it but my style of play ( mostly daytime and breaks for family) was not conducive to leveling. I then switched to Star Wars Galaxies at server start and I vowed to make a name for myself there , Well to make a long story short I did and because I used the SWG forums in my roleplay I was prema-game banned from any and all SOE online games ( I was not really all that bad) for alledged forum misuse. So when SOE has to bow to the fact that they are not all that a

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