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Square Enix reassessing Final Fantasy XIV server merges
Last week, Square-Enix announced that it would be performing a series of server merges on Final Fantasy XIV come this March, during which time the server roster was to be pruned from 18 servers to 10. Maybe you noticed our use of the past tense in the previous sentence. That's because a post on the official FFXIV website declares that Squenix is rethinking the merges in the wake of fan feedback on the matter. The studio isn't prepared to provide any further details but does state that "in order to ensure that the most desirable and effective outcome is achieved, [the company] will be reassessing the method of the merger process." Details will be made public on Lodestone as soon as they come to light, so if you're one of the many who would be affected by the merges, keep an eye on the Lodestone front page.
EverQuest II server merges begin today
It's been quite a while since SOE announced server merges for EverQuest II. While they're not all happening at once, the big day is finally upon us for a pair of the game's under-populated shards. Blackburrow and Everfrost are down for approximately 24 hours (which began this morning at 12:00 a.m.). The new Everfrost should emerge from the ashes around midnight if all goes according to plan. In addition to those two outages, cross-server chat, in-game mail, and friends lists on all servers may experience some shenanigans while the work is ongoing. Check out the official word on the EQII website for more information. While you're waiting, have a look at what our EQII expert Karen Bryan has to say about the changes in a server merge edition of The Tattered Notebook.
The Tattered Notebook: Station cash, server merges, and musings from the community
Welcome to another chapter of The Tattered Notebook. There's a ton to talk about this week, as our favorite game has been making news left and right, in both its traditional and free-to-play flavors. Pull up a chair and grab a cup of your favorite beverage as we delve into our semi-monthly look at what's turning heads and generating discussion in the EverQuest II community. As it turns out, nothing stirs the pot more than server merges (and maybe Station Cash), and in this week's edition we'll highlight a few noteworthy conversations you may have missed. Turn the page for more.
It's the end of EverQuest's 51/50 server, but players feel fine
Generally, MMO players don't like giving up even the smallest advantage -- but sometimes having a special server isn't as important as having people to play with. That's certainly the case for EverQuest, and it's resulted in a scenario where the game's special Mayong server is being merged with the Tunare server on September 6th. Mayong is generally known as the 51/50 server, as a character starts at level 51 with 50 AA points already earned. The intent when the server was created was to allow players who wanted to skip the level grind a chance at getting straight into the meat of the game. As it stands now, however, the server is dramatically underpopulated. After several community discussions, the development team made the decision to merge the server, preemptively shutting down the special creation rules on Mayong. Player response has been almost universally positive -- few players are upset by the potential slowdown this implies. While the server merge itself isn't due for another month, the days of creating 51/50 characters have already ended, and players are able to get slightly discounted transfers off of Mayong if they want to move early. [ Thanks to Jason Davenport for the tip! ]
CCP responds to rumour of server merger with EVE China
Back in 2006, CCP Games decided to move EVE Online into the Chinese MMO market. To comply with China's strict laws regarding online gaming, a second server named Serenity was created. Although the game itself is the same, Serenity doesn't really interact with EVE's main game server. The people over at mmosite today reported that CCP Games had announced plans to merge the two servers. They pointed to a talk given by CCP's CEO Hilmar Petursson at the recent Chinese Game Developers Conference, asserting that Hilmar discussed the company's plans to "connect the Chinese server of EVE Online with its world server." This news came as a bit of a shock, as the Chinese gaming laws which necessitated a separate game server are still in place. We contacted CCP for more information, who promptly informed us that they are not planning to merge the two servers, and that the writer at mmosite had likely misunderstood what Hilmar said during his talk. Hilmar issued us with the following statement: "Ever since the Chinese version of EVE Online was announced at EVE Fanfest 2005 then CCP has consistently stated that according to CCP's design philosophy and single shard one world strategy then it would make sense to merge the two servers at some point in the future. Currently this is not possible, for various reasons and we have no current plans to do this merger as a results of those reasons. We will continue to communicate our vision and aspirations regardless."
Age of Conan's Producer announces server mergers postponed
We noted just a few days ago that server merges would soon be coming to Funcom's Age of Conan. Producer Craig Morrison spoke up about the company's plans to merge servers in stages, with only two server mergers announced in his first note. After a few days of testing the team apparently made ready to do their first live server merge ... only to find there were issues that hadn't been caught in testing. If they'd gone forward with server merges at that point, Morrison writes in a new letter from this past Friday, player items may have been deleted. From the sound of things this is a minor issue involving some legacy code that would only show up in a few cases out of a large group of players. Still, the team is being very cautious and wants no hiccups as they move forward with tightening the AoC community. As a result, it sounds as though merges are going to be delayed a bit as the team does further groundwork to resolve these issues. Morrison says to expect merges to be happening well into January at this point, which is when they expect Update 4 to go live as well. Read into the full producer's letter for all the details.
