Dethdlr Initially released in an email message sent out to players and posted on the official forums by Xalmat, word comes to us that the long awaited server merges will begin on 16 November 2010. The following servers will be merged:
- Nektulos merges into Guk
- Najena merges into Unrest
- Befallen merges into Oasis
- Blackburrow merges into Everfrost
- Mistmoore merges into Permafrost
- Kithicor merges into Butcherblock
- Runnyeye merges into Splitpaw (UK)
- Innovation merges into Valor (DE)
More info after the break…
SmokeJumper posted this on the official forums:
Hi there, Norrathians,
We’ve been planning to merge the EQII Live servers for a long while now, and most of you have been asking for it to happen for just as long. As part of our ongoing effort to utilize community feedback and deliver the best gameplay experience possible, I am happy to announce that we will begin merging several servers this fall. Bigger population density on a server is just simply more fun for everyone involved, so it’s time to get it done.
Therefore, beginning on November 16th, we’re going to start merging servers together. It’s going to take a while (many weeks) to get all the merges completed, but we’ll start the process on that date. (We will move slowly so we can double-check and troubleshoot between each pair of merges instead of just doing them all at once.) We hope this will bring a more enjoyable experience for players across Norrath.
All told, 16 servers will be affected.
The Merges
- Nektulos merges into Guk
- Najena merges into Unrest
- Befallen merges into Oasis
- Blackburrow merges into Everfrost
- Mistmoore merges into Permafrost
- Kithicor merges into Butcherblock
- Runnyeye merges into Splitpaw (UK)
- Innovation merges into Valor (DE)
We’ll pre-announce each merger before it occurs and keep you updated on the status of the merges as they progress.
11 servers will remain unaffected because they are already populated enough or because of contractual obligations that prevent such merges at this time.
The Unaffected
- Antonia Bayle
- Nagafen
- Crushbone
- Lucan D’Lere
- Harla Dar (RU)
- The Nexus (RU)
- Barren Sky (RU)
- Sebilis (JP)
- Storms (FR)
- Vox (Live Gamer)
- The Bazaar (Live Gamer)
Additional information was posted by Amnerys on the official forums:
When will my server be merged?
We’ll pre-announce each merger before it occurs and keep you updated on the status of the merges as they progress. Watch the Official News and Announcements for news on each merge.
My server is on the unaffected list. Why isn’t my server merging?
US Servers: Antonia Bayle, Nagafen and Crushbone are all highly populated and don’t need to merge. Lucan D’Lere is a roleplaying server and isn’t being merged with Antonia Bayle because the resultant population would be too high.
Live Gamer Servers: We’re currently unable to merge the Live Gamer servers into any other servers because of contractural obligations.
Russian Servers: It’s possible the the Russian PvE servers might get merged later on, but only after a few contractual discussions first.
French and Japanese: Sebilis and Storms are unique language servers and shouldn’t be merged elsewhere.
Will we get free character transfers?In the past, populations across the servers were very unbalanced and the free transfer program was used to create additional balance during a server merge. At this time, the mergers have been calculated to create population balance and density and thus, single-player character transfers will not enhance the outcome of the merge.
Legacy Titles
Players from the eight servers that are being merged will be granted a Legacy Title, “of <servername>”. For example, “of Nektulos,” “of Najena,” “of Runnyeye” and so on. The title will give these players the opportunity to show off the server they came from and distinguish themselves if they choose to do so.
The original email posted on the official forums by Xalmat contained even further details:
Server Merge Rules
Character Names
- In the event of duplicate character names as a result of this server merge, priority will be given to the character who has logged in to the game within the past sixty (60) days; if both characters have logged in within the past sixty (60) days, then the character which has accrued the most gameplay time overall will retain its name. Other characters will have an “x” added to their names until a unique name has been determined.
- Players with a character whose name has been affected by the server merge can type “/rename” in their in-game chat window and receive a one-time complimentary name change.
Guilds
- Guilds with leaders will be transferred intact; however, guilds without leaders will not be transferred and will be deleted as part of this event. If you belong to a guild on a merged world which currently does not have a leader and you wish to have the guild transferred as part of this scheduled server merge, please submit an in-game petition (/petition) in order to resolve this situation prior to the scheduled date of this server merge.
- Priority for guild names will be given to the guild with the earliest guild creation date, with such guild keeping its name and the other guild having an “x” added to its name.
- Guilds whose names have been affected by the server merge that wish to change their guild’s name will need to use the in-game “/petition” command.
In Your Home
- All items in characters’ homes will be inherited by the home’s owner during the merge. If you have alts that own any items, have designated any trustees to your character’s home or if you are a trustee in another character’s home, please arrange for the appropriate owner to retrieve its items before the server merge begins.
- After the merge any vendor items in your transferred character’s house will need to be re-placed in your character’s new home.
- You can use the house vault of the character which is being transferred for storage. The items in your transferred character’s house vault will remain associated with that character during the server merge.
Vendors
- As noted above, your transferred character’s house items, including any vendor crates containing such character’s broker inventory, will need to be re-placed in that character’s new home.
- Vendor Events (i.e. the logs of what was sold, to whom, when, etc.) will not transfer as part of the server merge.
- Until your transferred character concludes a sale on the newly merged server, that character’s Total Coin Gain will display 0. After that character makes a sale, it will display the sum of the total amount of coin that such character has gained on both servers.
Please keep this information in mind as you prepare for the upcoming merge.
I’m sure further details will emerge as we get closer to merge time. We’ll keep you posted.
As a Butcherblock player, I just wanted to give a warm welcome to our new Kithicor neighbors that are coming over soon.
Thank you kindly sir. I was born on Neriak and merged into Kithicor. Guess I’ll bee seeing you soon on Butcherblock. 🙂
This is an improvement over last time when they told everyone “EQ2 is growing so we are merging servers” No BS is a nice change.
I don’t agree with the sixty day priority however. It’s a cheap cash grab, I’m not activating my accounts to preserve names I’ve had for 6/7 years, that’s my call. But what about the guy/gal out on tour serving their country, or someone out working somewhere and they can’t be here in time to log in??? They are screwed out of their names for that?
I think this name priority is a lot more fair than the previous methods. If you’re not playing a character anymore, and someone else is, they should take priority.
This keeps things from happening like someone who’s played 100+ days on a level 90 character created in 2005 who’s still actively playing it from losing their name to a level 10 character created in 2004.
This time though, in the same example above, if that level 90 character hasn’t played in sixty days but the level 10 character just came back and is playing again, the level 10 gets priority. That’s kinda hosed for the level 90 character, agreed. But if you’re not playing, it’s not really fair to rename the active character to retain the name of a character who hasn’t logged in in sixty days and for all we know many never log in again.
I see your point about people on tour out of the country who are unable to log in to make sure their character has been active in the last 60 days to save the name. However, I think that’s a very small number of people under those circumstances who will be impacted. I’ve seen with my own two eyes soldiers playing online games like EQ2 in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Germany, England, and Italy. There are remote FOBs where people are stationed who are unable to do so, but in a lot of places where people are stationed, things like EQ2 are available. Even those who are unable to play from the place they are stationed, the name would have to conflict in order for them to lose it. Still kinda blows that they’d lose their name but I think overall, this method is more fair.
Well, as a 5 year Vox player who hasn’t used LiveGamer even once, we complained about the low server population many times. We were demanding a merge since 1.5 years and SOE didn’t give us that opportunity.
They still talking about “contractural obligations” which means they didn’t take our comments into account. They could easily check if we used LG or not and could give non-LG players a chance to merge. Have I (we) asked too much as 6.5 year players?
My last hope is gone, so I’m gonna sadly quit.
Good points Dethdlr, i still feel 2 months is too short though. Players can take longer refresh breaks than 2 months sometimes. They may have played since launch, now on a good healthy break, may miss the email and could loose their name to level 5 players who was only trying out the game for a month and then quit.
6 months minimum would be fair, a year would be decent of them.
I doubt there are many/any long-standing character names that will have this problem, unless of course you have a name taken from a popular character, event or process.
Most the changes will come with alts and/or trial/temporary players, most of which will probably have less than 7 days played on that specific character. Checked my own main and alts’ names and the closest contention was with my main (common name) who had 6+ others of the same name worldwide but was the only level 90, let alone taking time played into account. of my alts, only 2 had similar names elsewhere and even as an alt level and as such time-played was far higher than the competition.
so longstory short, dont launch the crusade until you know there’s an enemy to fight. :p
I am very happy about this except 1 thing
1 of my characters I renamed in March to a new name that wasn’t used on my server Najena. Using the 2500SC rename potion.
Now I am going to lose the name I paid money for because the server Najena is merging to has the only other level 90 of that name – and he has /played 30 days more than me.
I don’t think its right to allow paid for name changes then take it away without some sort of compensation. I know you get a free name pick but thats not the point when you pay to get a certain name. I’d be happy if the SC spent on name changes that get undone on transfer got refunded.
my only queation, will we get new hardware with the mergers going on ? cause we sure could use it.
As a player from Butcherblock I as well, welcome the folks from Kithicor!
There looks to be a few solid raiding guilds, and I would to finally have some real competition.
Once you have transfered over and experience all of our lag and interact with some of our players. You will probably hear the sarcastic saying “Welcome to Butcherblock”!
I’m a Permafrost player looking forward to all the new folks coming in from Mistmoore, so welcome to them! 🙂
@dubritski: SmokeJumper posted this:
They’ve given a few details here and there about why this should help. Basically, persistant zones that never shut down like Antonica, Commonlands, etc, currently have two copies running, one for each server. After the merge, they will only need one copy running. The theory is that this will allow the extra servers to be added to the cluster of servers available dynamically wherever they’re needed. Rothgar seems to think it’s a good idea and will improve things and I tend to trust what he says. Guess we’ll see once the merges happen. I’m sure there will be some bumps in the road but hopefully we’ll all end up in a better situation when it’s all done.
Hello my names Malawk I’ve been to almost every server in the worlds of EQ2 but my original server was Mistmoore and now I’m back on it so I look forward to all the new faces I’ll be seeing when we join Permafrost 🙂 I know that I have a few friends on every server and most of them are on Permafrost so this works out to be very awesome I can’t wait!
lol Katanallama is coming back too oh man another great friend I can re-group with this is freaking awesome!!!
This is good news. Been waiting a long time for this 🙂
Too bad Runnyeye merges with Splitpaw and not vice verca though.
Can’t get it all I guess 🙂
I wondered what they were going to use the old hardware for, I thought they might use it to launch a Qeynos server, using it to beef up the servers for the merge is a great move.
Steve I totally agree about spending SC on rename then losing name on merge in spite of any effort you could make to prevent it.
Refund of station cash into your SC wallet is only correct action, short of them bargaining directly with you for alternative.