Fundamentally, his point is exactly correct. The blue server has been a success because they deliver exactly what they promised and what players wanted; an old school PvE experience. Conversely, the red server in no way resembles the old school PvP experience. Anyone who signed up to enjoy classic EQ PvP is not getting what they expect and can hardly be expected to stay. 80% spell damage in PvP I think makes up for not being able to use a clickie to refresh gems, but overall the resist system is absurd compared to live and absurd for this content level.
Several people have said it, and evidence from the time suggests that under 100MR was more than enough to avoid overly debilitating effects and get some enjoyment out of PvP. Case in point, the comment from an RZ player in 2002:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=4256
In classic a player could get reasonable enough resists that dispells and debuffs actually mattered, and there was a tactical pace to PvP. By Velious, resists were common enough that Sony increased debuff effects in PvP. Here? Blind, mez, or root will probably stick first cast, no need to bother with a dispell or debuff. On live servers you could start enjoying PvP by the 20s with some basic resist gear. Here? Unless you are 50 and have some jacinth or diamond jewelry, good luck. Is it a surprise that people don't want to have to spend 200+ hours leveling so they can start resisting blind? Add up the unbuffed MR that is even attainable by, lets say, a level 48? Probably not enough to resist anything. Add in a reasonable Resist Magic, you won't even resist half of the snares or blinds.
To take the shittiest aspects of classic EQ, then make them dramatically worse, doesn't exactly contribute to retaining a player base that was looking for something that felt like live PvP. And along those lines I expect barrens chat / global ooc to actually reduce population as the people who have stuck it out get even more beat down as the game devolves into a glorified WoW BG.
/ooc <bob> i charmed ur rarespawn1 and got it killed, umadbro????
/ooc <jim>f***ing n***er ull never make 50
/ooc <jim> i dont log off bro, i play a f***ing wizard
/ooc <john> ice comet isnt classic gtfo
... ad nauseam
Will we be getting translocators in March? Sarcasm aside, I appreciate the idea and the work involved in getting this server running, but there seems to be little to no understanding of either the product(classic PvP) or the market(players).