In a Producer’s Letter posted on Sony’s EQ II news site, senior producer Scott Hartsman talks about upcoming changes for the MMORGP.
Prior to the launch of the game’s second expansion, Kingdom of Sky, which is due Feb. 21, several of the servers will merge. According to Hartsman, the notion to merge isn’t due to a lack of players, rather the sheer size of the Norrathian world.
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.”
Starting today, 2/2/06, a character transfer service is open to all players free of charge. This coincides with the timing for Live Update 19 and comes right before the expansion’s launch. Also coming is Bonus Experience Weekend, (Feb. 17-19) to give those under level 60 a chance to catch up before the level cap moves to 70.
To read the full letter and learn more about the changes coming up, click here.
Source: EQ II News
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