Yesterday I decided to check the bazaar population each EQ server. Do you know how long it takes to run a new character from home city to bazaar 50 times? That's a lot of zoning. It took all day (8-5 pacific). I was also comparing server populations, but that's a different post.
I did the PvP, European, and special-rules servers first, then the rest alphabetically. Measuring some bazaars at 8 am and others at 5pm on a Friday isn't a real accurate comparison. But the lowest and highest bazaar numbers (149 and 236) were less than an hour apart. Adding the traders of the four zeks together puts the new zek at about 209, right about average.
I can remember times when the bazaar on my server had over 500 traders even mid-day... and that was before 'hide traders'. So... I can imagine technical, political, copyright, or financial reasons to keep bazaar and barter in seperate zones but sheer server load shouldn't be a problem (unless barter is much much more popular than bazaar). Every bazaar should be able to handle double its current population.
I did the PvP, European, and special-rules servers first, then the rest alphabetically. Measuring some bazaars at 8 am and others at 5pm on a Friday isn't a real accurate comparison. But the lowest and highest bazaar numbers (149 and 236) were less than an hour apart. Adding the traders of the four zeks together puts the new zek at about 209, right about average.
I can remember times when the bazaar on my server had over 500 traders even mid-day... and that was before 'hide traders'. So... I can imagine technical, political, copyright, or financial reasons to keep bazaar and barter in seperate zones but sheer server load shouldn't be a problem (unless barter is much much more popular than bazaar). Every bazaar should be able to handle double its current population.
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