With the downtime tonight, substantial server side changes are coming to the way in which we apply updates to EverQuest. While most of these processes are invisible to you as players, these changes are being made to improve your play experience and we thought we'd let you know a little more about it.
For some time now we have been working on implementing a new update process that will allow us to speed up our internal patching processes reducing the amount of downtime associated with our patches and providing greater consistency and control over how files are sent to our servers and your clients. This will reduce the potential for issues to arise during these updates, and substantially reduce the amount of time we need to export files to our servers
At the same time we've also been working to expand our ability to apply hotfixes to our servers, this allows us more ability to make changes in the game world without having to bring the servers down altogether. The goal of these changes is to provide the greatest amount of time where EverQuest is fully available to all players while simultaneously being able to address issues that may arise more rapidly than before. While we still aren't able to hotfix everything, the hope is this will reduce the number of times we have to bring the servers down between our regular monthly updates.
These changes won't be dramatic at first; we'll be taking things slow to make sure everything is working exactly as it should. The new processes have been extensively tested, but anyone noticing any issues after the new update process goes live should please contact CS immediately. We're not expecting any difficulties, however if they do occur we'll work hard to remedy them as quickly as possible. We are excited about the capabilities these changes give us, and are looking forward to providing you more EverQuest with less downtime than ever before!
