Because I believe all these fan faires (SOE, Blizzard, EVE) is a VERY important way for a company to keep their core audiences/community, it is like building a bussiness culture.
It is too early to say this acquisition is a good or bad thing. But to a gamer like myself, I mean I love to see EQN one day regardless you like SOE or not. I had fun in EQ, EQ2, Planetside, Planetside2, even Vanguard.
So this is basiclly the overview, you have Eternal Kingdoms, and 4 campaign worlds in this case, each has different rulesets, in some you can bring you gears, in some, you can't.
This is the birthplace of MMO criticism. I hope the devs are ready for our highly evolved critics. We are extremely hostile, terrifying, coldblooded, and breath dragonfire.