We've listened to your feedback and comments regarding the newly announced Station Exchange and we've responded! Below is a recent forum post by Moorgard, our Community Relations Manager for EverQuest II.

When we launch the service, we will open one or two new servers that operate under the Station Exchange ruleset, based on the responses we get from the in-game polling set to begin late next week.

At launch, subscribers will have a limited period of time to move their characters to the Exchange servers at no charge, as we originally described.

It's also very important to us that we keep existing communities together, and not force anyone to make a decision based on a change imposed upon the server they call home.

In that light, we want to make it clear that we will not force the Station Exchange ruleset on any currently existing live servers.

To restate: Next week's polling will be used to determine how many new servers we need to start up at the service's launch. It will not be used to determine whether any existing servers should be converted. There will be no current live servers switched to the Station Exchange ruleset.

Later, if the popularity of the service grows and it becomes apparent that we need more than the two planned servers, it will be because people have moved from other servers, which means those servers' populations will have gotten smaller. If that occurs, we may merge lower population servers together if any have gotten below the point of remaining a healthy community.

This way, we can ensure that no new ruleset is forced on any player on any existing server without their consent, regardless of what that server as a whole expresses in the polls. The only way to end up on an Exchange-enabled server is by explicitly opting-in to the ruleset by either making a character there or by moving a character to that server.

We want you to know that we are listening to your concerns, and that we are committed to maintaining the spirit of the EverQuest II community that we all have worked together to build.

Be sure to view Moorgard's original post as well as SOE President John Smedley's dialogue with players.