Quote:
Originally Posted by stormlord
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I don't know about you, but I know without a doubt that there were far more people in the low level zones in 1999 than there were in 2001-02 when I started a new character. I got by, and I did so well, all on a pvp server (in 1999 I played on Rallos Zek). But I was well aware, even way back then, that things weren't the same. Today I know that as a top heavy population, but back then I could only think that it was dead by comparison. Now, looking back on all of it, I see a picture with more going on in it.
You have to look at the rate of incoming active subscriptions to understand what this thread is about. If you do that, you'll see that it, literally, hits a wall in mid 2001. Like it was run over, and stays that way for years. In fact, I wonder if it even recovered at all? That spike in 2004 is suspect, and I know GOD, as John Smedley put it, was probably EQ's worst expansion ever. They made it for level 70 cap, and most people were barely 50.
|
I agree with this statement. EQ did hit a wall or plateau by 2001. That peak you saw at the tail end of 2004 was because SOE told players of EQ that they would receive beta testing priority if they were current subscribers. That's why there is that huge spike. GoD=worst expansion? Yeah, I'll agree with this one too. It just totally made no sense at all.
Your experience is going to be skewed as you started on a PvP server where SOE had tons of problems. They had major rules revisions (Sullon Zek anyone?) and the game was just not very good as PvP goes (seems to be majority opinion, not just mine). SOE admitted that they didn't really care about balancing that aspect as the number of blue servers vs. red was something like 25:1? I also think 2001 was when the PvP servers started merging and consolidating the ruleset (correct me if I am wrong about these dates).