by Moorgard on 2001-09-05
Here's the meat of the Euro server announcement:SAN DIEGO, CA - September 4, 2001 - Continuing its international expansion in the pursuit of the first true global gaming community, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and Ubi Soft announced today that EverQuest®, the world's largest massively multiplayer online game, will be hosted on new servers in the European market. Beginning this winter, Europe's most popular online game will be even more accessible and international gamers will be able to enjoy a localized EverQuest experience.
What's the big deal? Well, if you were playing EQ from Europe right now, your connection would probably suck... worse than it does now, anyway. Lots of ping, and all that. Hosting servers locally will be a big improvement for those folks.
But the question is, how will these servers be handled? If they're going to be brand new, then Euro players will have to choose between starting new characters--losing their levels and equipment in the process--and keeping their lousy connection. If the new servers are splits from existing servers, then to be fair Verant will have to allow splits from all servers, so that every European player gets a shot at moving. That may be a logistical nightmare.
Gee, I'm glad I don't have to figure out crap like that.
In Sullon Zek news, Verant just released this cool map that shows which team controls which area. In itself that isn't exciting, but the maps are kinda neat. For one, they draw in the zone names that weren't shown on the map before (Chardok, Skyshrine, SolA and SolB, etc.) while removing the names of places that aren't actually game zones (The Vasty Deep, Lake of Dismay, The Loping Plains, etc.).
Even cooler, there is a map of the planes that has little sketches for Fear, Hate, Air, Growth, and Mischief--drawings that have never been public before. Kind of neat to see them all as little islands like that.