There were two main problems on R99. I leveled up to 40 and was part of first dragon kill. Haven't played since. These problems go hand in hand.
First, the population is too low to support diverse playerbase. On classic PvP servers there was anti-PK guilds, PK guilds, raid guilds, etc. You could actually hang out in zones without it being a constant PvP battle. Less players usually means you're desperate for some PvP so almost all interactions result in PvP instead of it being an occasional highlight, which is why I played PvP on live.
Second, the players that did play on R99 were generally huge assholes. From complete loot whores to the douchy people posting screen shots of every kill on the forums. There were very few people weren't incredibly greedy over loot or complete assholes over PvP when it did happen.
It gets old when every item drop turns into a major drama fest among groups/guilds and every fight turns into "YOU SHOULD KILL YOURSELF YOU SUCK AT PVP LOLOLOL" or "FAGGOT JUMPING ME WHEN I HAD NO MANA, NO SKILLZ LOLOLOLOL"
Basically the R99 community destroyed itself with its attitude. Had the players been more casual and relaxed I think the server could have done much better.
I think really the most "hardcore" PvPers who enjoy the shit talking, corpse camping, etc.. of which I have to admit I was one.. basically crushed the will of those more casual players who ended up in the crossfire sometimes.
I remember in Oasis around level 14 there was some Holocaust in the zone who were corpse camping some random newbs who weren't even guilded. It was like 6 Holocaust level 14-18 corpse camping 2 level 12 players who weren't even friends. All of this in the name of "zone control." Well, guess what? Mr. Bluebie isn't going to leave his favorite leveling zone because you have "zone control." He's going to get bored and leave the server.
R99 is what the current players made of it, a pile of shit.
Oh I didn't answer the question.. it would take at least 300+ on at prime time, and a significant attitude change among the player base. I've literally NEVER in my life seen such a horrible group of assholes on an MMO server.
|