Latest update from Zoltaroth:

Update:

Butcherblock should be open within the next 15 minutes.

Permafrost is going into QA.

Also, I can personally confirm that Butcherblock is in fact back online right this second. I’m logged in and checking out the new digs. 🙂

And this in as well from Zoltaroth:

We are opening up Permafrost now.

And we have confirmation from Quesera in the comments that Permafrost is up.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Butcherblock looks good so far.  QA is still working on it but no major issues yet.

Permafrost is almost ready to come up for QA testing as well.

All in all we are ahead of schedule and everything is looking good.

It seems like StationCash bonuses have been coming more and more often. One might think that there’s no need to get in on this campaign if another one is just around the corner. SmokeJumper has some news:

I think this is the last one for a while also. I think there’s a minor one coming on the heels of this one, but then we won’t be doing another one for several months, probably. (We reserve the right to change our minds, but that’s the plan currently.)

Unfortunately, the maximum StationCash that can be held on an account is 20k, or $100 with the discount. That sounds like a lot, until you add up services like Character Slots, Racial Changes, etc.

From the EQ2X Forums.

From Zoltaroth:

We are bringing up BB shortly, once it is up QA will be doing their testing so if that goes well it should be open in a few hours.

Permafrost is waiting on Chat server meges to complete we expect about 3pm for that to be done.

Here’s our latest update from Rothgar:

Both merges are still on track and actually running a little ahead of schedule. However, we can’t start QA until we have the chat merge done. I’ll be out of the office soon so I’ll see if Zoltaroth can keep you guys updated.

Looking for something to do while the servers are being merged?  Check out Rothgar’s Christmas Lights!  Today he added “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. 

Watch the new one and the original four videos in the original article posted here.

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

The merges are still going fine.  The chat/mail portion of the merge is a little behind schedule unfortunately so chat may be down longer than expected.  I’ll try to provide an ETA later today.

From Rothgar:

Update:

So far everything is still on schedule. Chat is due to come down in about an hour so we can move mail and friends lists.

The Kithicor/Butcherblock and Mistmoore/Permafrost Server Merges are now underway and you may be wondering if these mergers will lead to more zone lag when the Destiny of Velious expansion launches. Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

The existing hardware should handle it fine. The merges will actually improve the performance by consolidating zones and making the hardware more efficient. There’s still the possibility of some lag because most of the population will congregate in the new zones, but we will do our best to adjust population limits to keep lag to a minimum. With the last expansion we had issues with lag in some of the new overland zones, but we will do everything we can to keep that from happening this time.

If you are finding yourself at the Character Select screen with duplicate characters or characters still indicating they exist on a server which has been merged, Rothgar offers this advice:

There’s a file on your hard drive that keeps a cache of your characters so the client doesn’t have to query the server each time. If you delete your “cache” and “logincache” directories, it should clean them up.

Believe it or not SmokeJumper posted a bit about Game Update 60, which will be anywhere from 1-3 months after the Destiny of Velious expansion launches. It’s expected to have some Battlegrounds and PvP tweaks. His post also talks about EQ2X marketing and EQ2X PvP servers:

Answers (but you might not like them):

1) We haven’t started spending marketing cash for Extended yet. That’s slated for January. The reason I bring that up is until we bring more people into Extended, we have no plans to open up a PvP server because too many servers dilutes the population and we’re not willing to do that yet. However, we *would* like to do a PvP server. It’s currently slated to be the third server, assuming we can kick start population beyond its current levels.

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

I just wanted to post another update and post-mortem for the Unrest merge explaining a few of the issues that occurred.

There’s a double station cash weekend happening from 17-19 December 2010.  Looks like finally, for the first time,  those outside the US will also be able to take advantage of this:

We’re having a Double Station Cash weekend!

For the first time ever and for a limited time only, Double Station Cash will be available across all top up amounts and for most payment methods*. Stock up now for double the fun!

Offer valid 12/17/10 through 12/19/10. Eligible purchases include those made with credit/debit card, PayPal or pre-paid game cards. Exact start time of promotion on 12/17/10 to be announced. Look for more details later this week.

*excludes SMS purchases

If you have been paying for EQ2 with 30-day subscription cards rather than keeping a credit card on file at SOE, you were probably surprised to find that you might not get the December, January, and February rewards. Fortunately, Amnerys has jumped on this issue before it got too far out of hand and gotten this response:

Hey everyone! Checking in to clear up a few questions about today’s rewards.

1. Everyone who is actively subscribed and in good standing will be getting the rewards, including folks who pay with game cards.

2. We just started running the process that grants the items an hour or two ago, and it takes a few hours to run, so before long you should start seeing the bag in your /claim, but don’t worry if you don’t see it yet. It’s a completely different process than what hotfixes do, so it wasn’t going to be visible right after the hotfix.

3. Game card subscribers will be getting their rewards in a second round of item grants, so don’t worry if you’re a game card payer and you don’t see yours when other players say they’ve gotten theirs. The team who grants the rewards is running them in two batches, and a few account types are getting items in the first round, and a few get them in the second round. By the end of the day, everyone who qualified should have gotten the items.

Thanks Amnerys for getting this sorted out. No doubt many players are relieved.

SmokeJumper has posted a message regarding Server Merges:

Hey, folks,

We’ve been posting information about the downtimes, and Rothgar has been pretty cool about talking about the issues and such, but we haven’t made an official posting. So here goes:

1) The pain is short-term. The merges are being done to make the EQII Live gaming experiences better. I think most folks agree that higher populations make better gaming, so we’re doing the merges for that reason. And we’re working hard to get most of them done *before* the holiday break.

Here are your hotfix notes for December 15 2010: 

LIVE EVENTS

Frostfell

• Tuwasp bixies in Greater Faydark are now the target for the level 5, Kelethin version of Gh’lad Tydingz’s quest, “A Gigglegibber’s work is never done.”
• Grikbar scamps in Steamfont Mountains should once again advance the level 35, Kelethin version of Gh’lad Tydingz’s quest, “A Gigglegibber’s work is never done.”

From EverQuest2.com:

On Wednesday, December 15, qualifying EQII and EQ2X accounts who have met the requirements for Velious Winter Rewards will find a new bag in their /claim window which contains two new items; a Coldain Butler and a Scars of Velious in-game painting.

Photos and Details after the jump.

Update: Unrest is now online!

Unrest is undergoing final testing after a followup 1 hour maintenance was required beyond the Server Merge to fix some broker and other issues. Once it’s back up, we hope Rothgar and Zoltaroth will drive safe and get some sleep (I recommend blackout curtains, they’re a staple here in Denmark) and we’ll see you back in a few hours for 2 more mergers. 😉

Tonight, Kithicor, Butcherblock, Mistmoore, and Permafrost all go under the Server Merge knife, so this means all servers will experience some loss of Chat functionality, in-game Mail, and Friends lists. On the Najena -> Unrest merge, this worked out to about 12 hours, so we expect that tomorrow, there will be 12-14 hours of these features being unavailable on ALL servers during the heart of the merge window.

Unrest returned after its Server Merge, but some additional fixes are required (regarding a Broker bug), so the server is down now to apply those fixes. In the mean time Zoltaroth is in the EQ2 Chat.

If you are on Splitpaw or Runnyeye, Innovation or Valor, Rothgar has provided the reasoning for why your server merges are delayed until after the new year:

The EU servers need database upgrades and these have to happen before we do the merge. [Further] we take holidays here in the U.S. too and many people will be gone starting next week. We have a company wide “freeze” near the end of December where we don’t do any major maintenance or hardware work so as not to risk outtages for the holiday when people are on vacation.

We’re already pushing it with the U.S. servers but the sooner we get them done the sooner we can do the non U.S servers when we return from Christmas.

Rothgar has posted some issues regarding Keymapping, Guild Hall Beacons (call of Guild Hall) and housing and guild halls to be aware of once the servers come back up.

If you played EQ1 and are familiar with Magelo, you’ve probably been clamoring for SOE to let us outsource the whole EQ2Players/EverQuest2.com data stream to fan sites who will put in the hours to produce accurate, powerful search engines for the EQ2 data stream. If you have, or are just tired of EQ2Players and want to see something new, this news from Zoltaroth should brighten your day:

The current [data] feeds server can generate XML, YML and JSON for consumption. It isn’t quite ready for prime-time yet but it is getting really close.

Updated 3:15pm PST. And um, again today.

Subject to change, yadda yadda, here’s the updated U.S. Server Merge Schedule and a note about European Server Merges. From Rothgar:

Tonight will complete the second merge of U.S. servers leaving us with 4 remaining merges to perform (8 servers).  During the next two merge windows we will be performing two merges at a time.

• Najena -> Unrest – IN PROGRESS on Dec 14, 2010
• Mistmoore -> Permafrost – Dec 15, 2010 at 10:00pm PST (Dec. 16 06:00 GMT)
• Kithicor -> Butcherblock – Dec 15, 2010 at 11:59pm PST (Dec. 16 07:59 GMT)
• Befallen – Oasis – Dec 19, 2010 at 10:00pm PST (Dec. 20th 06:00 GMT)
• Nektulos -> Guk – Dec 19, 2010 at 11:59pm PST (Dec. 20th 07:59 GMT)

The schedule for the remaining non-U.S. servers will be announced after Jan 1st. We understand that the extra downtime during this process is an inconvenience and we appreciate your patience as we work through it.  We have some fun promotions coming up in December so keep your ears open for announcements.

Rothgar has posted the following update on the Najena -> Unrest Server Merge so far to include info on worldwide chat:

Update:

The merge process is moving along and still on schedule.  Nothing interesting to report, so I guess that’s good.

The chat system has been brought down as you’ve probably noticed.  This is because we are moving all universal chat data for Najena characters to the new server, Unrest.  As soon as this process is complete, we’ll bring chat back up for everyone.

So it looks like chat may not be down for the entire time of each merge. This is definately good news.

Another progress report from Rothgar:

Update:

The merge is still progressing very well.  We are hoping to bring chat back online around 1pm PST.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed for bringing Unrest up earlier than anticipated.

Server merge titles will be granted after the next hotfix.  We found an issue with the auto-consume code that was causing players to not receive the title.  If you’re reading this and were part of the Butcherblock Blackburrow merge, and already have the title item in your inventory, this item will convert into the title after the next hotfix.

Note: He meant  Blackburrow, not Butcherblock. I mix them up sometimes as well. It happens. 🙂

And yet another progress report from Rothgar:

Update:

The merge process is still going very well.  The chat merge is complete but we are running one more maintenance script while it is down.  This script should recover mail that was orphaned after the Everfrost/Blackburrow merge.  As soon as this is done, we will bring chat back up.