Poll: Shards?

[Splorf22]

So Noselacri made a post that I really like where he makes two good points. First, the problem with P1999 is too many damn players. The players cannot manage the server ala Sirken because the only thing they can do to fix the problem is try to grief other people off - which is exactly what has happened on numerous occasions. Second, he proposes a solution that I have not heard suggested before called shards which I think is the best solution I have heard yet.

The basic idea is to split the server into multiple servers and allow /movelog, but only the high-end zones. Each guild can only exist on one shard. If you are in a global zone (all the low/mid level zones like Qeynos or East Commonlands or Mistmoore) you could find players of all guilds leveling up together and wearing and trading gear obtained in any of the various shards. However, whenever you zone into one of the sharded zones (zones like Sebilis or Sky) the server checks your shard flag and moves you to the appropriate copy, exactly as if you were playing on a separate server.

The key point here is that this is not instances. They aren't created on demand. You'll share your high-level shard zones with several hundred other players and all of the usual negotiation and sharing and global world nature of EQ will apply. Let's say for argument's sake that we make three shards which I shall call A, B, and C, and after a month or two we end up with Shard A: TMO, Azure Guard, Europa, Shard B: FE, Taken, The A-Team, BDA, Shard C: Full Circle, IB, Divinity, Rapture. Well to me that looks a lot like a classic EQ server: each shard has 3-4 high-level guilds who can and will engage in the competition that the staff loves so much. The key difference is that the staff actually can just turn off variance and say "you handle it" because with a reasonable number of players per shard the players don't have to fight like dogs for one or two spawns.

Anyway I seriously doubt this system would ever be implemented because it would be quite a bit of work to do (certainly far more than the simulated patch days) but I like it because I think it cuts right to the heart of the problem.

[Fountree]

The more players the better in my eyes. Problem is not too many players, it's too much time between content releases, which leads to a glut of high end players and items. Another problem is the fact it's the 2nd time around and people know the game very well now as opposed to the classic trilogy on live. Interesting idea, but no I wouldn't support something like that.

I actually think the server is relatively chill and peaceful at the moment and thriving in most areas. Guess I'm in the minority?

[Splorf22]

The more players the better in my eyes. Problem is not too many players, it's too much time between content releases, which leads to a glut of high end players and items. Another problem is the fact it's the 2nd time around and people know the game very well now as opposed to the classic trilogy on live. Interesting idea, but no I wouldn't support something like that.

Oh I don't think we have too many players in absolute terms. I believe the Live EQ servers had 2000 players per server when we have 1000. The problem is that our players are inordinately concentrated in a very small number of high-end zones, for exactly the reasons you mentioned: knowledge and time between content releases. So if we rebooted the server this kind of thing might not be necessary. But given where we are now, when Velious comes out there are going to be 1000 people with L60 accounts playing. You and TMO might not get all the goodies then :D

[falkun]

I like the idea that the server can dynamically increase in size based on the relative population (low-mid levels are 1-server, but high level areas are split into shards).

Playing Devil's advocate, what happens to Sebilis when Velious releases? I'm assuming it'll be less crowded, does it then stay sharded and I can't group with my TMO friends in Sebilis because we're on different shards?

What about mid-level, overpopulated zones like Mistmoore? That zone really only supports about 3-4 groups, and everyone in their 20-30s loves it there. Why not add a shard for that zone?

Its a non-Classic mechanic, and while interesting, I cannot endorse.

[sanforce]

TMO might not get all the goodies then :D

TMO has never gotten all of the goodies. They get most of the goodies because they have put them self into a position to do so. Shards are not classic, the server staff would never support it, dumb idea all around.

[Splorf22]

Well I think shards actually are extremely classic. What is not classic is having 1000 60+ toons with epics on a Kunark server.

But it definitely seems most people don't agree with me on this one.

[Nocte]

Any time you add the "Bush knocked down the towers" as an option, your poll isn't going to be taken very seriously.

[pharmakos]

bad idea IMO. sharded sebilis? no thanks. i'm still doing EXP groups, would like to have more group options.

[Swish]

Again we'd be moving from Kunark era content to "custom server"...and "custom server" doesn't recruit new players very well in comparison. While it would be a solution for those of us who've levelled at least one character into the 50s, we'd find ourselves in that Pandora's box situation of "we allowed X, so can we have Y?"

I don't like the top guilds hoarding loot and locking smaller guilds out of CT/Inny/etc spawns but this idea (along with many more before it) seems to have a sub-text of "how can we stop big-time raiding guilds holding a monopoly on spawns?" In essence, those that want to get involved with that kind of raiding mentality are mostly in TMO/etc anyway. Casual guilds/players have to take what's left.

I still have visions of a P99 blue v2.0 when Velious reaches its last patch here, done accurately in terms of the timeline.

Certainties though include... you'll always have raiding guilds, you'll always have twinks, someone else will always have more shiny pixels than you.

[Gadwen]

I'm torn between option 1 and 3.

[Stinkum]

With a reasonable number of players per shard the players don't have to fight like dogs for one or two spawns.

Can you prove this hypothesis?

This server has oscillated in population many times. I was around when the pop was around 400... This was not the case, even when the server was at it's lowest points.

Sounds like just wishful thinking to me.

[fullmetalcoxman]

The staff has made it more than clear that they are happy with the way the end game is running. I doubt anything is going to change.

People can either:

A) Suffer
B) Farm plat and buy the loot they want.
C) Join TMO.
D) Form up a mega-guild and beat TMO at their own game.

No reasonably sized guild is going to be competitive as the server stands now.

[Waedawen]

The problem with that solution is that it kills the player base for any player who isn't a level 60 in an endgame guild looking for the phat lewtzzz


And even then, it isn't as much about the phat lewtz as it is about obtaining the phat lewtz and slaying the derrgins

[Rhambuk]

Voted 3 because,

I don't think this will ever happen so voting yes/no is pointless (not like they take polls into account anyway)

The idea isn't horrible but I don't think it would really change much of anything, now if you had tiers of shards say Shard 1 super hardcore, TMO/FE, Shard 2 semi hardcore, guilds that track/organize when a mob pops but not 24/7, and shard 3, very casual guilds, where they raid on their own time regardless of whats up and don't really track.

Then, I, Could, See, This, working, a, little, better....

[myriverse]

There. Are. Nowhere. Near. Too. Many. Players. In. P99.

In fact, they could stand to gain quite a few.

[Mesenkomaha]

There. Are. Nowhere. Near. Too. Many. Players. In. P99.

In fact, they could stand to gain quite a few.

P99 could have a ton more players. Specifically the ones that are playing the forum eqclassic.org or the fools on that sleeper server.

[Splorf22]

There. Are. Nowhere. Near. Too. Many. Players. In. P99.

In fact, they could stand to gain quite a few.

The server would be fine with 1500 players . . . . if those players were evenly distributed from 1-60. Instead at any given time probably 50% of the players on are either max level, close to max level, or have a max level toon and are playing a twink.

Read the Sky rotation thread in the guild section and then tell me we need more players.

[enr4ged]

There. Are. Nowhere. Near. Too. Many. Players. In. P99.

In fact, they could stand to gain quite a few.

Players not equal to characters... there are far too many "Characters" on this server... thanks to account trading, free accounts and way too much time elapsed thus far...

[Ezrick]

So Noselacri made a post that I really like where he makes two good points. First, the problem with P1999 is too many damn players.

The problem has noting to do with the number of players. 99 has far fewer simultaneous players logged in (probably only a third as many) as a comparable server in the classic era.

The problem is that 99, given its limited development resources, did not follow the classic expansion timetable. Therefore the number of high level players, those who wish to raid, has been allowed to far outstrip the resources available to those players. Where on live raiding content was expressed as being for the "top 1%" of players, here we have the top 10% trying to shoehorn into the same content.

Though I don't suppose we could ever get proper figures, my guess is that there are probably eight to twelve times as many level 60 characters here as there were on live pre-Velious. There are way too many even to support when Velious is actually released. It can't be fixed short of waiting for Velious to be done, then launching a new classic server and then following the timeline of the expansions as they were on live. (Yes I know, even that wouldn't work entirely, people know a hell of a lot more about the game than they did on release). Limited resources, again, insure this can't happen.

On live, when Velious was released there were three guilds who could do the highest level content on my server and one of those was marginal. Sure we had conflicts, but there was enough content to resolve them. Here you have multiple high level guilds with all the players they need and nothing to do with them. The high level game transforms itself from PvE to PvP (or Guild v Guild if you prefer) and those players with the killer mindset are the ones who "win".

If you understand this and don't mind the cost to reputation that comes with the win-at-all-cost attitude you join one of those guilds. If you don't you simply stand around point your finger and say 'its not fair'. It's not fair in the sense that its not the PvE experience that you expected, but nothing can be done about it. This is exactly why many games after EQ embraced the concept of the instanced dungeon which is essentially what you are proposing.

Ezrick

[Issues]

Every classic EQ server had a #1 guild, #2 guild and so on. Why would p99 be any different?

Everyone is searching for solutions when the only obvious solution is velious being released.

Two magic words to teh fix

More content. -----> The sole purpose of expansions.

My only concern is 2-3 years after Velious is released. Velious is the end of the line. THATs what the p99 community needs to be concerned about.

P99 will have to derail from classic to maintain player base. Like AAs year 3 after velious etc...

But thats wayyy in the future lol. Lets just get Velious out for now.

[Lostprophets]

Read the Sky rotation thread in the guild section and then tell me we need more players.

I agree, we're too populated end-game. Playing nice is good but still too crowded...so correct me if I'm wrong but basically to sum up your wall of text in 4 words...

Instancing in Raid Zones?

[t0lkien]

If you want shards in any way shape or form, go to any of the hundreds of other cookie cutter MMOs available. Leave this one alone.

[fullmetalcoxman]

If you want shards in any way shape or form, go to any of the hundreds of other cookie cutter MMOs available. Leave this one alone.

So you think it's fine the way it is?

[SirAlvarex]

I agree, we're too populated end-game. Playing nice is good but still too crowded...so correct me if I'm wrong but basically to sum up your wall of text in 4 words...

Instancing in Raid Zones?

Basically, but there is a set limit to the # of instances. So there'd be just 3 Sebilis' at all times.

Depending on how mobs are handled (whether mobs are all considered static objects in the database or dynamic ones created as the they spawn), it could be a nightmare to code. Plus more hardware.

It still wouldn't work tho. The real issue is that some guilds/players have 4+ accounts they can use to log onto any raid spawn. So now those guilds will just get 3x the loot since they can now compete for 2 more spawns on the new shards.

[Rhambuk]

The server would be fine with 1500 players . . . .

I remember when i first started running through Nfreeport and there was a level 48 mage soloing 1 city guard. All camps were full, all solo camps were taken, and every other guard in the city was being solod by another caster.

it's possible and I would love to see it, but people don't have the patience for that anymore.

[Splorf22]

I agree, we're too populated end-game. Playing nice is good but still too crowded...so correct me if I'm wrong but basically to sum up your wall of text in 4 words...

Instancing in Raid Zones?

Three paragraphs is a wall of text? I weep for the Twitter generation :(

But no, as I said its specifically not instancing. Instancing is I take my guild to the entrance of Sebilis, we say create-zone, and we get a new complete copy of sebilis whenever we want, i.e. infinite raid mobs. Sharding would simply be at all times there are 3 copies of sebilis, and your character can only go to one. Again, think of it has having different servers running Project 1999 for the high-end zones but only one copy of the low-end zones.

[khanable]

not classic, no vote

[Ezrick]

Three paragraphs is a wall of text? I weep for the Twitter generation :(

But no, as I said its specifically not instancing. Instancing is I take my guild to the entrance of Sebilis, we say create-zone, and we get a new complete copy of sebilis whenever we want, i.e. infinite raid mobs. Sharding would simply be at all times there are 3 copies of sebilis, and your character can only go to one. Again, think of it has having different servers running Project 1999 for the high-end zones but only one copy of the low-end zones.

No, it doesn't work that way. To take the EQ2 instanced raid zones as an example: you would take your guild to Sebelis (it may be called for raid purposes 'Trakanon's Lair'), enter the zone and complete your raid. That raid zone then is unavailable to any player who entered for a set period of time (typically in EQ2 it was one week). The single group Sebelis zone would still be available to everyone, though without raid level mobs.

[Noselacri]

The basic idea is to split the server into multiple servers and allow /movelog, but only the high-end zones. Each guild can only exist on one shard. If you are in a global zone (all the low/mid level zones like Qeynos or East Commonlands or Mistmoore) you could find players of all guilds leveling up together and wearing and trading gear obtained in any of the various shards. However, whenever you zone into one of the sharded zones (zones like Sebilis or Sky) the server checks your shard flag and moves you to the appropriate copy, exactly as if you were playing on a separate server.

That's not actually quite what I had in mind. A guild wouldn't simply get its own instance of all of Sebilis, it would get a shard (a separate server, basically) containing only the actual raid targets as well as their associated trash mobs if relevant. This is important as guilds would otherwise just stay on their shard to farm fungi tunics and Velious quest armor. So P99 would have one communal Sebilis server, but Trakanon doesn't spawn in it; instead, each raid guild can move at will to their own designated shard where Trakanon spawns on his classic spawn cycle. Not every raid mob in the entire game would need to be moved to shards, just the ones that really matter and cause conflict. Shit like Phinny and Doljomoljowhatever could remain in the communal zones.

This is really going to be the only way to have a raid scene on P99 that doesn't utterly fuck over 90% of the playerbase. Proposed solutions tend to get nowhere because the most vocal people on the forum are largely the ones who aren't affected by the current situation, being in the crowd that gets to raid. This is why a poll is pointless. It's like asking a bunch of corporate executives if the minimum wage should be raised -- you'll get a reponse that sounds like it's the worst idea ever conceived. The fact remains that the raid situation is the biggest elephant in the room of the server's entire history, the most constant and prevalent problem, and actually one of the things that deviate the most from how Everquest was back in the day.

Ignoring the server's biggest problem will just cause it to continue to comprise about 30% of the discussions taking place on the forum, and to make players quit in frustration. Like I said in the other thread, it's the reason this server has less than a thousand players at peak despite being the best emulated server ever made and the only serious option for classic Everquest. Unfortunately, the developers don't seem to want the problem to get solved.

[DoucLangur]

I see you put some effort into a constructive suggestion. However I do see a couple of flaws here - especially because it would still mean that people on the same chart with hardcore guild xy could not ever get into the high end zones.

What I used to wish they would create back during EQlive progression times:
A cluster of servers Vanilla only - Kunark only - Velious only - Luclin only - etc., which would allow movelogs into the direction of newer expansions ONLY.

I.e. once raidguild001 wants to do Kunark, they would have to /movelog and leave the Vanilla server to the rest of the players who e.g. didn't yet get to kill Innoruuk/Cazic Thule, etc.

They can still kill the same old world mobs on their new Kunark server, but without influencing the Vanilla server economy.

Then when people wanna do Velious, they have to turn their back on the Kunark server, giving more and more players a shot at Veeshan's Peak.

While this may have been a good idea for Progression servers, I do not see this as an option for P1999, because we don't have enough players, I'm afraid...

Still - back then it would have given many casual players a chance to see content otherwise blocked by hardcore players.

[myriverse]

Players not equal to characters... there are far too many "Characters" on this server... thanks to account trading, free accounts and way too much time elapsed thus far...
Sure, but the number of characters is irrelevant when only a certain number of them can be played at any given time.

[Noselacri]

ITT: people who fail at reading comprehension and/or intentionally misinterpret things so they can sound like they have a counterargument.

[Flamewraith]

Sounds almost like instancing to me.

[Pudge]

So Noselacri made a post that I really like where he makes two good points. First, the problem with P1999 is too many damn players. The players cannot manage the server ala Sirken because the only thing they can do to fix the problem is try to grief other people off - which is exactly what has happened on numerous occasions. Second, he proposes a solution that I have not heard suggested before called shards which I think is the best solution I have heard yet.

The basic idea is to split the server into multiple servers and allow /movelog, but only the high-end zones. Each guild can only exist on one shard. If you are in a global zone (all the low/mid level zones like Qeynos or East Commonlands or Mistmoore) you could find players of all guilds leveling up together and wearing and trading gear obtained in any of the various shards. However, whenever you zone into one of the sharded zones (zones like Sebilis or Sky) the server checks your shard flag and moves you to the appropriate copy, exactly as if you were playing on a separate server.

The key point here is that this is not instances. They aren't created on demand. You'll share your high-level shard zones with several hundred other players and all of the usual negotiation and sharing and global world nature of EQ will apply. Let's say for argument's sake that we make three shards which I shall call A, B, and C, and after a month or two we end up with Shard A: TMO, Azure Guard, Europa, Shard B: FE, Taken, The A-Team, BDA, Shard C: Full Circle, IB, Divinity, Rapture. Well to me that looks a lot like a classic EQ server: each shard has 3-4 high-level guilds who can and will engage in the competition that the staff loves so much. The key difference is that the staff actually can just turn off variance and say "you handle it" because with a reasonable number of players per shard the players don't have to fight like dogs for one or two spawns.

Anyway I seriously doubt this system would ever be implemented because it would be quite a bit of work to do (certainly far more than the simulated patch days) but I like it because I think it cuts right to the heart of the problem.

Roll on red. Problem solved

[Handull]

It'll be really fun looking for ports around Kunark when DL, KC, EJ, and Seb are all sharded. Sorry, don't think this would be helpful.

[Faulken]

Bad idea!