Originally Posted by stormlord
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Why does no one mention how disabling sof/uf client support might have hurt population too?
As a recap, here're some things I'd do to "stimulate" this server:
1) Remove both exp loss on pvp death and pvp item loot and instead add a pvp-points system that you can view on a website just like they did on live - can view pvp kills/death/points for players/guilds/etc
2) Add global chat (blue had it until population was about 600 or more)
3) Advertise in MMORPG forums (legally, you have to buy titanium, so advertising on free MMORPG forums is not what should be done in this case)
4) Move default bind points to guards so people cannot be bind camped by default
5) Remind people that classic EQ isn't about being level 50+; it's about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, .. 50! You can pvp at any point in your level progression. Don't worry about 50. 50 is 1/50th of the fun.
A point I want to make about the nature of EQ...
The major problem is that EQ is a group-based game and it statically associates itself with population. This means that, given a low population, players will find it very difficult to get good experience rates and smooth progression. This, of course, leads to frustration and high attrition.
The fact that this is a pvp server makes it all worse.
You can increase the experience rate, but, if everytying else is equal, this will not solve the problem of players not being able to form groups (let alone balanced groups). Nor will it reduce corpse runs. Nor will it make the game feel more populated. Nor will it help you to get a bind or find someone to sow you or find someone to help you get your corpse. Nor will it stop you from being pvp'd. Nor will it help you to find a tracker or a porter.
Essentially, increasing experience rates is not the universal answer. Take someone doing a quest on a low population server, for example. You might increase the experience rates, but since EQ is still group-based then the player still must out-level the quest in order to do it. They do this because there're not enough people to group with. This changes how the quest will feel when you do it. Instead of hiding/sneaking/invising/mezzing/tracking/etc and working with others to attain the goal, you just slaughter most everything to get your prize. That's what happens when a group-based game is reduced to a solo-based game. It's very difficult to change hte nature of a game without starting fresh with a new slate. It's like trying to make an 80 year old 20 again. It's futile. It ends up being something that's notlike a group-based adventure. Bottom line, increasing experience rates as the be-all/end-all answer is like hooking up a bad heart to a machine. While it works when the heart is bad, it might actually get in the way when the heart is good. (In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the warrior class. No matter how much you increase experience rates on emulated solo-based servers, if you don't fundamentally change warriors then a warrior is still a warrior. They can't hide/sneak. They can't invis. They can't backstab. No mezzing. They can't teleport. They can't gate. They can't root or snare. They can't sow. They can't heal. They can't track. The warrior has got to be the most boring class ever created. To fix a warrior, you got to do a hell of a lot more than increase the experience rate.)
Now, it's possible that players might stick around if they see their experience meter go up. If this is the case and the game actually gains population then my argument is that as the population goes up the experience rate should be lowered. In fact, a script or piece of code should be written to automatically increase or decrease experience rate dependent on the overall population. The reason it's important to do this is because if experience is too slow then progression is too grindy and if experience is too fast then progression is skipped altogether. You have to find a middle-ground for your audience wherein progression is stable and balanced with everything else. That requires a good grasp of everything. It should be automatic or easily applied.
There're a lot of things I could bring. There're very many useful posts in this thread. The problem is that separating the good posts from the background noise is too hard now. It's not consolidated. This thread is like a big pile of hay now and there's a needle in it somewhere. It's like walking up to a crowd of people and asking them how to save the country. Then they all shout at once. It's quickly forgotten.
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