Aside from the habit of writing a post about the EverQuest anniversary in advance, as I did with yesterday’s post, I also seem to have to follow up with a reaction post to things announced with the coming of the anniversary. And so it is today.
An image I can really only use this year
The EverQuest team put up a post with all sort of news yesterday. There was, of course, the heroic character for all subscribers and Overseer feature that was introduced into the game last week and the usual special anniversary events.
But on top of that they added in a 50% bonus exp event that will run through until April 1st.
They also announced the two new special servers that will be coming for EverQuest. The names will be Aradune and Rizlona.
Aradune of course honors the late Brad McQuaid whose in-game persona was Aradune Mithara and whose memorial I visited in East Karana not so long ago.
Rizlona, once a mighty bard, is a demigoddess and a guardian of the tower of Solusek Ro, and the name was at one point thought to be a possibility as an overflow server for the Mangler server that rolled out with the 20th anniversary last year. But that was not needed, so we get the name now.
Full details are yet to come for both servers, but they are said to be variations of the Mangler server (the FAQ for which you can find here) with some special variations.
But before that happens there will be a few server merges.
The Lockjaw progression server will be merged into the Ragefire server. Lockjaw was the overflow server, launched back in May of 2015, when the population of the Ragfire server exceeded capacity.
Back in 2015 things were crowded
That was the start of a lot of updates for the EverQuest server architecture in order to accommodate the initial rush of players these servers tend to see. I do not know where either of these servers stand when in comes to expansion unlocks, but it seems natural enough to merge them together.
The Trakanon server will be merged into the Vox server. The Trakanon and Vox servers were launched back in 2012, when the game became a teenager and the conversion of EverQuest to its current semi-F2P, cash shop, but subscription too revenue model took place. Like a lot of people, I chose the Vox server to roll anew on for that event. Vox has remained somewhat more populated than its sibling, so it is natural enough to merge Trakanon into Vox.
The Brekt server will be rolled into the Firiona Vie server. Both are “free trade” servers, which means you can sell heirloom drops that would otherwise be bind on pick up, or so I seem to recall. Anyway, I had to look up the Brekt server, with everybody knows Firiona Vie is where the cool kids hang out, so the merge direction seems natural enough.
And finally, the end of days has come for the Fippy Dakrpaw server. Launched back in Feburary 2011, when SOE still wasn’t sure that retro servers were worth the effort, it was where Skonk and I spent some time wallowing in 1999 nostalgia. At least we did up until the great Sony/SOE hacking and outage.
Anyway, the nine year old Fippy Darkpaw server, which I last wrote a post about back in 2017, when it was merged with the Vulak server, which was the nostalgia overflow server back in 2011, will finally be subsumed into a mainline live server. It will be merged with the Vox server.
This is a double special event for me. Ages ago I promised (to myself at least, since I am not sure that you care) that I would write a final post about the Fippy Darkpaw server when its end finally came AND, unlike other mergers, my characters on Fippy Darkpaw will land on a server where I already have some characters.
There is no word on when these merges will happen, though my guess is before the new server launches.
In the mean time, I have to figure out what to do with my level 85 heroic character boost. As I have complained, level 85 isn’t a huge inducement in a game where the level cap is now at 115, but it is something. And it would give me another character to play around with the overseer feature. Maybe my cleric from last year’s adventures. I got him up to level 50. I could boost him to 85 and perhaps use some of that bonus xp time to get him a little further along. We shall see.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I bet I have characters on most of those servers, although not Brekt. I also bet none of them is much over Level 10. They will also all be on the unsubbed account that used to be may main one but isn’t any more, making them even less likely ever to log in again.
As for the free Heroic 85, I claimed mine yesterday and made a druid, which I thought would be useful for porting around on those occasions when I need a screenshot for a post. I made her a halfling because I already have human and half-elf druids hanging around somewhere and I am definitely not making either a wood elf or a drakkin. I was amazed, actually, to discover drakkin can even be druids. I’m pretty sure there are commercial reasons behind that rather than lore.
I was puzzled to see my new druid at character create had most of her bonus points in dexterity. That made no sense so I swapped them to wisdom and logged her in. I claimed all the Heroic 85 gear and was even more puzzled to see two swords and a bow. Which she could equip.
So, I’d made a ranger. Well done me. If there was any chance I’d actually have played the druid I would have been kicking myself but since there wasn’t I guess a ranger that never logs in will be just as good.
I might canibalize this for a post tomorrow, if I can’t think of anything else to write about…
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if anything in p1999 times.. tracking is the greatest. Almost made a ranger just to do that over my weak druid tracking.
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SO what crapy severs did they move EQ to, becouse they are faleing all over, all the time???
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@Anon – Every time they do a special server launch the game falls over. This time they went even further and the EQII login servers fell over too as did the forums last I looked.
The lesson is always the same: Don’t expect to play until later on the first day.
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