From the patch notes about adding another Dimension (server):
Please keep in mind though that no matter where you create your character, the single-server technology of The Secret World allows you to play with any character from any other dimension. Cabals are also able to recruit their members from across every dimension. A dimension in The Secret World can hold tens of thousands of people playing at the same time.
Very cool and I had a taste of that when I lost connection to the server I was playing on and it asked if I wanted to move to another server?
While this isn’t really a gameplay innovation, it is an underlying technology innovation… at least for MMOs.
How long before Blizzard jumps on to this sort of thing? Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be aiming at a similar mechanic with their overflow server.. sorta.
Down with server transfer fees?
Down with announcing server merges because it really doesn’t matter any more?
This is very similar to what DAoC did back when the game should have shut down but never did. There are something like five servers merged onto a single shard and players can go back and forth through each of them.