Greetings Norrathians!
First off I wanted to take some time to introduce myself as the new producer of EverQuest. EverQuest has been a large part of my life for the past three years; including the past two years as the game's Associate Producer. During my time on the EverQuest team I've come to realize one of the great things about EQ is the friendships and the community that we’ve all come to love. We all remember the first time we logged into EQ. If your experience was anything like mine, you were shocked that so many windows could fit on one screen! Thankfully, most of us found our way out of the initial shock and found folks who showed us the ins and outs of the game. Many of these in-game friendships have grown into friendships outside of Norrath and for that I thank EverQuest.
We all know that EverQuest is not just a game. The game and its community are both a large part of all our lives. Our team takes great pride in this fact, but at the same time we are humbled by the responsibilities that come along with it. As developers, our primary responsibilities are to make an entertaining game and to support the thriving EverQuest community. Only by working closely with you, can we keep EverQuest successful for years to come.
As I hope you have noticed, our team spends a great deal of time on message boards and we are constantly gathering what's important to you and bringing that information to the forefront. We continue to develop procedures that facilitate that process, but allowing our community to thrive requires an ongoing dialogue with you. For instance, class re-envisionment has been, and continues to be, a hot topic. The recent patch represents many of the initial changes we’ve made together, and we welcome your continued feedback on them. Our goal is to get these changes out as quickly as is reasonable, but to pace ourselves knowing full well that this will take many iterations and updates. This continues to be a top priority and we've already made many changes based on your feedback. Your continued feedback allows us to make EverQuest a better game.
Another hot topic in the EQ community right now is server merges. Merging servers was a tough decision, but it is necessary for the continued success of the game and these changes will make EverQuest healthier in the long run. Larger populations make it easier for players to interact, trade items, find groups, and establish guilds. As with many changes of this magnitude, there are bumps in the road along the way. To help things go a little smoother, we are planning a few changes to address some concerns that you have raised.
First, we'll be instancing the Plane of Time to alleviate the bottle neck that many of you may face as a result of higher populations.
Second, at the request of the players, we're going to combine the servers that have established a voluntary rotation system for raid targets. The Rathe and Karana will now be combined. The communities on The Rathe and Karana servers have put forth an extraordinary amount of time and energy to create their rotational systems and we want to do what we can to support these players and their chosen play style. As a result of this change, Bertoxxulous and Tholuxe Paells will be combined.
Third, we've heard your opinions on which server names should be kept after the mergers. We feel the real answer to this question is that you, the community, should decide the name for your server. Therefore, we will be adding polls to allow every player the chance to vote for the name of their particular server (including servers that have already been merged). We're working out the details of that now so stay tuned for a post shortly.
Moving forward, the EverQuest team has some ambitious plans for the next twelve months. I can't play spoiler to them all (yet), but I can say that we are extremely excited about the direction we're heading and I wanted to give you a sneak peek. As most of you already know, veteran players will be receiving bonuses this spring as a token of our appreciation for making EQ and the EQ community what it is today. This summer will bring a complete revamp of the newbie experience and will also hold some additional content for existing players that I can't wait to play. Also, be ready for art facelifts to some of our old stomping grounds this fall. I'd like to tell you about some of the other things we have planned, but you'll just have to wait and see. :)
Our team has a tremendous responsibility to be faithful stewards to Norrath and its community. EverQuest has enjoyed over six years of success and we plan on keeping it that way for at least six more. My sincerest thanks go out to all of you for allowing me to be a part of the EverQuest community.
Regards,
Craig Knapp (aka Zorillius)
Producer, EverQuest