I did an unscientific survey today of all the servers, just logged in and looked at general chat and how many traders were up in the bazaar. I know it does not give a true picture of how many people are actually on the server as not everyone plays 24 hours a day or joins general but it will give you an idea of where servers stand in rank General Servers: Firiona Vie - General = 1126 Traders = 505 Bristlebane - General = 630 Traders = 287 Xegony - General = 452 Traders = 204 Drinal - General = 428 Traders = 151 The Rathe - General = 400 Traders = 169 Bertoxxulous - General = 394 Traders = 199 Cazic Thule - General = 393 Traders = 210 Erollisi Marr - General = 390 Traders = 200 Tunare - General = 380 Traders = 188 Luclin - General = 357 Traders = 172 Povar - General = 341 Traders = 149 Antonius Bayle - General = 329 Traders = 168 Vox - General = 325 Traders = 54 Trakanon - General = 140 Traders = 5 Brekt - General = 129 Traders = 12 Zek - General = 69 Traders = 11 TLP and other progression servers: Mangler: General = 1497 Traders = 135 Ragefire: General = 194 Traders = 36 Selo: General = 191 Traders = 75 Coinaiv: General = 147 Traders = 62 Phinny: General = 104 Traders = 50 Agnarr - General = 83 Traders = 45 Miragul - General = 74 Traders = 8 Lockjaw - General = 57 Traders = 4 Fippy - General = 4 Traders = 0
In addition to the caveats you already provided, if you are not checking the /newplayers channel, you are excluding free-to-play folks. Maybe that is intentional, maybe it is not . . . but the real servers have a reasonably high number of free-to-play folks running about (and they aren't allowed to join /general).
you are correct free to play accounts would not be included in the live server counts, but i was most concerned with TLP severs to which such accounts do not have access. as a side note, "Silver" accounts do have access to general chat on live servers.
Holly said Xegony and Luclin would be excluded from server mergers as they are the two high pop Live servers. These two servers are obviously good at holding on to players so I hope Holly changes her mind and includes them in mergers.
Hmm that's odd I haven't seen those being in the list of High pop live servers, the only ones I've seen are Bristlebane and FV of the live servers, but this is using EQresource server counts.
I have 0 idea why they haven't merged Trakanon yet. It's like the red-headed step child that they don't wanna acknowledge.
The last time this was discussed and they said they were gonna merge December 2019. Don't hold your breath for timing this time either. But they are likely to stick by leaving those two as is.
I've been playing TLPs so long, I didn't even know this was a thing... and I just transitioned to a live server to kind of chill out until the next TLP opens. Good to know my chat will be going quiet as soon as my time runs out. Thanks for the info!
You'll never see Agnarr get merged with another TLP. You'd instantly introduce 100's of characters that are BIS geared and would just take over the server if they all came back to play.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...range-20-year-trip-still-has-no-end-in-sight/ "Longdale is also looking at some behind-the-scenes updates—primarily a round of server mergers for next year. EQ has had server mergers in the past as the population has dropped, but they were always two-to-one mergers involving all servers. This time, servers with low populations will be merged, but ones with high populations, like Luclin and Xegony, won’t get one. Longdale also intends to deal with the Zek server, the last remaining PvP server in the game, which is said to be a ghost town. Longdale wants to “find a solution” to Zek this year." This article is linked in the NEWS section of the Everquest homepage.
That article was from June 2019, so "this year" at least concerning the Zek solution meant 2019 hence it's passed.
Yep, they were saying server merges December2019-January2020 which has passed. Some of us knew at the time they would 'slip' on that schedule, at best. Though the statement at the time was an intent to merge servers, it was also stated the 'tech' for that was broken. Guessing that the mention of 'tech' in the current statement means the actual merging process is likely still broken. So again. Don't hold your breath. They are gonna keep working on TOV bug fixes at the same time right?
You are either uninformed or willfully ignorant. Lockjaw has 2 active raiding guilds that are both farming end game content. Population is lower yes, but to be honest we don't really mind that so much.
I can't imagine a world in which Agnarr gets merged with anything... it was specifically advertised as not progressing past LDON. They're more likely to merge servers that are generally the same: I.E. general TLP server that will progress to live, where the only differences at XP rates. Coirnav will probably get merged into something.
This is all just speculation right now anyway. The first thing they would have to do is have a SUCCESSFUL merger of 2 of the most dormant servers. The last attempt did not go so well so hopefully they have learned from the mistake and have a better idea what to do now.
Sumnayin is correct. Per your very own quote, there is no mention of TLP merges specifically, just “server merges” to position them well... in other words, to free up hardware.