Sony Online Entertainment has sent out a customer service notification to EverQuest players, dealing with some changes that will potentially affect your account(s). Perhaps the biggest news is an impending server merge -- "The Combine" and "Druzzil Ro (Xev)" servers will merge on January 21 at 3 a.m. PST, a process which is expected to last roughly five hours. The new server will retain the name "Druzzil Ro." While server merges tend to be portents of doom and gloom by some players, EverQuest will also add a new server in March. Players will be able to vote on which type of server it will be later this month.

The server merge will bring with it some additional changes, however. Priority for character names will be based on when that character was first created, the same follows for guild names. Characters can change names by typing "/changename" in a chat window, while guilds must kick off the process with the "/petition" command. Also, inactive characters (of six months or more) who are below level 10 will be deleted. Players with more than eight characters will only be able to log into one of those first eight, which will be listed in alphabetical order. Characters that don't make the top eight, alphabetically, won't be deleted but will be inaccessible until space is made in the top eight... by deleting one of those characters. The EverQuest announcement also details changes to shared banks, UI and character settings, and server transfers.