Excerpt from Sony Boards

[Elyssanda]

Full message found here

The full message above deals with a few things, I cut and copied a part on serever mergers that many are interested in I think

"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.

[Oona Wynterbreeze]

I've been on The Rathe for just over a year now. (Bristlebane native) That whole situation is amusing. Trying to make a long and complicated story shorter and easier to understand... Many MANY people on The Rathe /petitioned and /feedbacked til their fingers bleed to stop the merger with Tholuxe Paells because TP wanted a FFA (Free For All) system and a bunch of non-Sony, regular old players created the RTA (Rathe Travel Agency) long ago to put in a rotation system for mobs. Well, apparently they screamed enough and Sony annouced this. The funny part? Apparently the Karana server phased out their rotation system long ago (heard various dates ranging from 3 months to a few years) so now The RTA supporters are screaming again and so are Karana's people (understandably since they had no idea what was going on and get told this 3 days before merger after tremendous effort had been put forth to contact guilds on servers to be merged) The only winner so far in this was TP. Without going into too much detail I have some issues with some of the rules the RTA lays down, but I'm just going to sit back and watch how things transpire. It should be interesting.

[Verdandi]

...The RTA supporters are screaming again and so are Karana's people...

That's putting it mildly. Right now it looks to be Bloody Kithicor all over again. Although it sure looks like there's plenty of room for happy middle ground if people would stop the hysterics long enough to talk.

[Obina]

Yes it will be interesting. The general feeling on Karana is that we don't want to follow others' rules. We were not part of the decision on how it would run - so the stubborn streak in all of us is suggesting that "no one is gonna make us"

On the other hand, it is true that rotation was a good thing for many years. So a lot of us are open to the idea - probably more so than on other servers. The reason it has gone away recently on Karana (in my opinion) is because of the population decline. There were enough mobs for all without tracking and rotating. To be clear, rotations may sound bad, I don't know. But it can be good - it is as we learned in kidnergarden, it is nice to share and take turns. Most players are in fact pretty nice and willing to take turns.

If Rathe guilds are even handed and nice to the newcomers, it will work. i hope they consider some of our customs. If they start off threatening all the newcomers, it will be very messy.

[Oona Wynterbreeze]

If Rathe guilds are even handed and nice to the newcomers, it will work. i hope they consider some of our customs. If they start off threatening all the newcomers, it will be very messy.

First of all, I may be on The Rathe and they may have the larger population and be temporarily retaining the name, but I see this as what it's called... a merger, not one server absorbing or hosting another. Welcome to our new server.

Unfortunately, this goes both ways about being nice and even handed and since this is a game there are enevitably gonna be immature (both in RL age and mentally) people on both sides that are gonna whine and scream and be rude just to see the reaction it gets and us nice people who just want to see things come together smoothly and without too much trouble could get the short end of the stick.

Regarding the rotations, I do see some of the benefits of them, but the RTA has some other rules regarding them that I don't agree with so I could care less if they went away. I spent 4 years on Bristlebane and it wasn't this KSing war that the staunch RTA supporters claim that it will degrade to if they go away.

I just wanna be able to get groups again without having to wait for six hours.