Greetings Norrath!
It's hard to believe yet another year has passed, which I'm sure I've said every year now! Where does the time go? (I'm sure there's a Druzzil Ro joke to be had there…)
First, we want to apologize for the server stability issues recently. To summarize, our back-end work over the past year included a number of safety back-up plans that are now bogging down zones and servers. We are going to be able to remove a couple of contingencies to help lighten the load. Optimizing and improving client and server performance is a priority for us and always will be.
The past year has been crazy with the various progression server releases, live events, Quarm, the Empires of Kunark expansion, and the previously mentioned back-end work. We are excited to be working toward more awesome stuff next year!
We are well into our plans for 2017 and work on next year's expansion has already begun! The team is talking through possible rule sets for a new progression server for those players who missed the start of Ragefire, Lockjaw, and Phinigel, and we’re considering mid-2017 for our next server. As for Quarm, our first experiment with an event server, we'll be talking to you more about that in 2017.
We are also looking at options to improve quality of life in the game as we do our planning for the year. In January, we'll be sorting through our options, scheduling, and formalizing our final plans and getting to it! We are excited!
Most of all, we would all like to thank you for your continued support of this incredible game and community. You are the reason that EverQuest has been vibrant and alive for almost 18 years now and things are still going strong! We are so proud to be a part of it!
There's plenty more to come!
Happy holidays and an incredible new year to you and yours!
Sincerely,
Holly "Windstalker" Longdale
Executive Producer, EQ & EQ2