So it’s been a bad month or so for MMO servers. We know that Vanguard is on the verge of server mergers, and that Aion is to shut down several servers, and that Everquest 2 may be getting some servers shut down on the horizon. New word comes from Sony that beginning June 20th, Sony will begin consolidating servers. The result are that Everquest will end up with ten servers, the result of twenty being merged on a two to one basis (two servers merged into one, ten times over). There are four servers that are unaffected.
Characters will receive one free transfer for their characters that will only be valid for seven days after the transfer. Characters will be automatically transferred to the merged-server. If you play Everquest, you will want to read up on the information in the above link, as there are a lot of important notices you will need to take heed to, including what characters/items/banks/etc will be kept and what could be lost.
Inactive accounts with characters under level 10 will be purged from the system
It is not all bad news, however. Sony announced that they will be opening up a new server, which players will have the opportunity to name.
I’ve said that server mergers are not always a bad thing, and for a game as old as Everquest I am certain the population will enjoy the increased number of players in various areas (or not, we all hate overcrowding). If the new server is a regular rules server, then we might see some vested new interest in the title by new players, as the lower level areas will be populated for quite some time by players rolling alts.
More on Everquest as it appears.
MMO Fallout 